Lamento mucho mi ingles no es tan bueno, (de hecho, inexistente) pero permitio que mi digale esto: Desde que Sr. Bradbury escribio varios cuentos que toman palce en Mexico, cual tal cuento fino forra, pienso que eso debera decir bastante que necesitamos hacer Sr. Bradbury el nuevo Presidente. Que pais? Quien!

Nard, look what you've done! Are you trying to start a war?

Or did I start that, and it's an angry shemale?

[This message has been edited by grasstains (edited 09-06-2006).]

Chap,

...a needle pulling thread!

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Stopped by to visit Ray Bradbury earlier today. (09-06-06). Found him in fine spirits. Had a large print of one of his old photos made... of when he was selling newspapers in downtown Los Angeles. Brought that along with photos used for my website. Was invited to pull up a chair and we talked for a time on a variety of subjects. To the right of my elbow was a framed photo of Fred Allen www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/allenfred/allenfred.htm
and I believe, his wife. All around Ray is piles of 'stuff', books, magazines, letters, stuffed animals, bunch of boxes of a large variety of 'stuff'. Included right above the photo of Fred Allen a small stack of Ray's new book, 'Farewell Summer." I glanced hurriedly thru a copy. Just what do you do, talk to Ray, or read his book? Rather difficult to do both. Lots of reputable reviews on the back cover. This happened to be a soft cover edition. Next month there will be a hardcover issue as well.

Anyway, soon there was an opening to talk about my favorite topic: God! And, as often before, it gets snagged on the barbed wreaths that surround Ray's ideas on the subject. But what makes this time a little different than before is that I have developed a much clearer point of view of what his thinking is on the subject...that is to say, Mr. Electrico did it all! He gave Ray what is essentially now Ray's vision of God and the hereafter. Ray accepts a type of re-incarnation...and that we are all gods! It's difficult for me to grapple with all this because it's all totally opposite from my relationship with Christ and my faith in the word in scripture.

But there is a lot new input to this now. For instance, I asked Ray today... "Ray did you ever become curious as to why Mr. Electrico was thrown out of the Presbyterian Church? (It's a little more obvious to me nowadays!) He did claim to be a defrocked Presbyterian minister." Ray quickly returned with, "I don't care to know." And I thought, you know, Ray so loved this man who gave him a vision of 'Live Forever'...that it wasn't important, notwhatsoever, why Mr. Electrico was no longer a minister at the time. I realized, here is a very special love Ray has for the man who shaped his life for years to come. You have to remain silent and take it all in for that moment.

Other things we had talked about included his talk with director Peter Jackson on the possibility of doing 'The Martian Chronicles'. Peter Jackson told Ray he was taking a year off (after doing King Kong) and that he would definitely read 'The Martian Chronicles' afterwards and get back to Ray. Ray felt that was very kind of Peter Jackson to tell him that.

Concerning terrorism and the war, Ray said he didn't think it has anything to do with religion, but economics and jealousy of a country with freedoms and good economics. I begged to differ with the man, but on some subjects you can't win. Actually, you don't even know where to begin.

Again, Ray looked good, has some trouble with his hearing aids, but he appeared to be rested and feeling well. And that is good news for all to hear!

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[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 09-06-2006).]

Thank you very much, Nard. I love hearing what makes that magnificent man tick. I find it fascinating. Color me green.

Braling II,

Si.

Nard,

Thank you so much for keeping us in the know. I found your last post very exciting about the book and very insightful regarding his view on Mr. Electrico and religion. It could be that both his views on the afterlife and yours are correct couldn't it? If that were what God chooses.

Robot Lincoln:

Both views correct?

Let's see if I can put this in a nutshell:

Found Christianity thru a long process. And in that process I am continually learning about why I am here and where I am going. The genuine spark in learning this begins with my understanding of my sinfullness, that is to say, my inability to connect with God. (Remember this: 'Sin' is an ancient word relating to 'archery'. It is used when the fellow with the bow and arrow misses the mark he is shooting at.) Hence, a sinner simply means, a person unable to relate to God. He misses the mark. Reading scripture, for instance, the first and second chapters of the book of Ephesians, gives you a pretty revealing picture of who you are. But it's God's spirit in you (the Spirit of Christ who has full authority over sin) that let's you see 'truth'. Nothing to do with You yourself seeing truth. You can't. When I am running with sin, and I think I hear God, I probably only hear...myself.

You know God is working in you when you know you have to start cleaning up your act. The pure in heart see God. I get distracted with sin, I personally don't see or hear God. He's hollaring. But I am miles away.

Getting back to Bradbury:
I talked to him about the first chapter of Ephesians a couple years ago. He said he doesn't believe it. Okay. But he has accepted what a stranger at a carnival had to say to him. Why? Well, I have a pretty good idea why, and what happened there, but not an easy task to put down on paper. I'll have to work on that. But my immediate take on it is that he (Mr.Electrico) got defrocked because he fell into sin and lived with it and his thinking got bent. I'd say he likely had a streak of truth running thru all his vocabulary. He may have had a close relationship with Christ at one time. But it gets all goofy and warped when you play around with the junk of the world and don't shake it off as soon as possible. I'm guessing here, of course. I'm trying to figure this out.

When Mr. Electrico said Ray died in his arms in 1918 in a battlefield in France, and now was standing before him as a young boy, and Mr. Electrico placed that sword on Ray's shoulder and said Live Forever...well, that's just too much for any young boy like that, especially when he was drawn to the carnival by a special sense of personal urgency, leaving his father on a way to a funeral, and running to what he considered life. Ray speaks often about it.

Now think what Christ says:
Christ says that I died with him on the cross, 2000 years ago. I died with him. Got that? And that when He came back to life with a new undying body, on ressurection, I came back to life with Him and cannot die again. I am now hidden in God, within Christ. Now all this happened before I was ever born. But God already hid me.

That's nothing new. It's new when you first discover it. It's written down in any Bible. However, the ability to suddenly understand that does NOT come from your brain or your earnest effort to figure it out, but it comes straight from God's breath. And for a flash of a moment you may be allowed to see so deep into the realities of life that you want to run around like a fool for the following year telling everybody something of what you saw, and they'll run also, but to the open door to close it shut when they see you coming. They just don't get it. And when your effort fails, and you begin to see that you are a sinner, you have to deal with that...and go on. Someday, you might find out somebody gets it afterall.

I asked Ray this week: "Ray, when you die, just what happens to you?" Fair question, I thought.
"Oh, I will live on in my works and in the lives of people", Ray replied.
"No," I quickly said, "that was not my question. What will happen to YOU? What will happen to YOU when you die?"

Well, Ray cannot think of an end to everything. And that's good. I asked Algis Budrys, the science-fiction writer of such books as 'Rogue Moon', etc. last year when I visited him at his home in Evanston, Illinois, the same question, and he plain as fact said, "When I die, it's done. There is nothing."

Well, Ray has this sense that something is not ending. But as far as I could get anything out of him, all he said was that he would live on in his grandkids. That it would be Himself staring thru his grandkids.

Really?

So I said, well, that must be something along the lines of re-incarnation.

He agreed.

So, when you say there is some sort of same kind of factors to this idea of life and death and the hereafter, there isn't. At least this: Ray senses something. There is not an end. But at this point, he doesn't seem to have a clue as to what it may be other than what he says he thinks he knows.

One more thing. He says we are all 'gods'. I have a question for him next time. "Ray, if this is true, that we are all 'gods', then...mind telling me about how you went about creating yourself?"


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[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 09-08-2006).]

Nard, first off, thank you for taking the time to write that in detail! I find you to be a highly intelligent warm caring person and I enjoy reading your posts. I too beleive and pray although not as much as I should. My point is that we do not know the details of how God operates nor the mind of God. Its beyond our grasp and well it should be for to be exposed fully to it, would cause our little minds to snap. That may be in the Bible but not put so uneloquently as I did. Couldn't God have created countless parallel worlds back to back like pages of a book? Isn't it possible that there is a different Nard in each of them, a different you? Maybe a Nard in this particular world due to circumstances becomes wealthy beyond description, but over here on this world due to the myriad life altering events of life, you lost it all and are living in the gutter. When you really start delving into the math of stars and galaxies, the numbers are there for this to happen. Couldn't God be behind it all?? The universe is based on recycling. Take a dying star for instance, it blows up, and then the matter reforms or coelesces(?) to become new stars and planets. I'm not even going to try and get into the complexities of time as well but I think that does have a bearing too. I find reincarnation much more plausible than gates of heaven, flowing white robes and white hair and beard, angels, perfection. Theoretically couldn't this world be heaven right now? It could be perfect in its imperfection. I'm not knocking what you beleive, in fact, I beleive most everything you say, I just think a wider view may be in order. My mind is always spinning, plus I read a little too much sci-fi, maybe. I was raised a strict Catholic by the way. I must also add that God has always been there for me whenever I asked, and I do hear Him speaking to me all the time in many ways. I do think it important as well to thank Him, and I do.

Close your eyes... and your ears, take a deep breath. Tell yourself, "Right now, at this very moment everything is perfect." Now isn't that heaven?

Robot Lincoln: I'll get back to you later today on your post above. The access to the mind of God is explicity descibed in scripture. I'll look up the passages and denote the context. My point is, Ray's faith is not Christian.

Grassy,
Heaven?
Well, the Orthodox view (simply put, mind you) is this:
We will all spend eternity in the presence of God, Who is allegorically described in Scripture as (among other things) an all-consuming fire.
So,
If we love Him - Heaven.
If we hate Him - Hell.

Now, this, as I said, is very simply put. If we really want to, we can discuss things like definitions of above terms such as :
"we" (who are we really?)
"love" (what is that? feeling? action?)
"hate" (ignore? turn away from?)
"God" (as He is, or as we perceive Him?)

Bot, as to the clouds and white robes thing, as I quoted before from Fr. Hopko, "Tell me about this God you don't believe in, and 10 times out of 10 I don't believe in Him either!"

?????????????????????????????????????????

I highly, nay, URGENTLY recommend reading "The Great Divorce", by C.S. Lewis.
Unlike many of his theological/soteriological works which can be pretty heavy sledding, this one's short, entertaining, and enlightening.

Cool, thanks Nard! You too B-Two, I have missed rapping with you lately. I need to dive in more it seems. Grass, nicely spaced question marks. Why 41? TELL ME NOW! Whoops, did I say that out loud?