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So, I’m sitting here contemplating time and space.

It can get paradoxical really fast.

I was thinking about the whole God thing, how he is said to be ‘outside’ of time.

Now, our whole reality is fixed in a linear path encapsulated by time. Our perception is limited to express itself to us within the limits of our experience. Consequently, we can’t even conceive beyond an inadequate premise even to discuss such things.

So, as the blind talking to the blind, I was considering the length of time a day might be when there is no time. Such a consideration obviously borders on the ridiculous. One might as well ask how nothing compares to something.

Yet, in the first passages in the Bible, after God creates something from nothing, it says that God looks at what he has done, says that it is good, and then there is a division that occurs that is said to be the first day–it words it as “the evening and the morning were the first day.”

I’ve heard people get into rather acute arguments over the seven days of creation thing. But, even in the Biblical account, there can’t be a twenty four hour day until after the fourth day. A twenty four hour day occurs in the first place because of the earth’s rotation on it’s axis and orbit around the sun. Well, if you read the Bible, the sun and moon weren’t created until the fourth day. So, there couldn’t have been days in the sense of twenty four hours. Also, even after their creation, nothing says a rotation of the earth was twenty four hours. It could have just as well been twenty four hundred hours, for all we know. It simply doesn’t say. But, within its reading, it is obvious that it for sure had no rotation and orbit around the sun to define a day until after the fourth day. Also, for those who may be caught up in the fact that the original Hebrew text uses their word for twenty four hour day, note that their word was applied to the first day, the second day, and the third day—-all before there was a sun to be displayed by rotation in a twenty four hour day. There simply was no such thing as day or night as we think of it without a solar system.

To take the whole biblical side of this another step, when does the passage of time begin in the first place? It speaks of days, to be sure, but time, as we know it, has as one of its elements the laws of thermodynamics. From all I gather in the creation account, the destructive, decay spiral of time didn’t occur until after man sinned. At that point, death, destruction, and the elements of time are first mentioned. So, just how many billion years of non-time were spent before time began? Before there was a sun or moon, how many billions of whatever could have passed before then? It’s foolish to get into arguments over such things. Even science can’t say with any fairness to empiricism that a year was a year as we know it in the distant past. To speak of anything as we know it in an effort to describe billions of years is as frail as catching a comet with a spiderweb. Such science relies on the weakness of extrapolation based on everything having the same linear properties throughout the entire time of the extrapolation. It is as limited and formed upon the same inadequate premise as is describing anything outside experience with only the elements of experience that I mentioned in the onset of this discussion.

So, back to time. What I mean to show with the above few words is that neither religion, nor science, nor any mix of the two, can adequately describe that which lies outside what we can see and know, or even believe. Thus, the freedom of license for what I am about to say. For the religious, weigh it against the words you believe. For the scientists, weigh it against what you can see and test. These words are not intended to prove or disprove anything. They are spoken for the speaking. If they expand your thinking about anything, they exceed their pledge.

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To begin, one must remove all the elements of experience to consider the heart of this discussion.
Even the act of thinking requires a point ‘A’ point ‘B’ line. A reality without time won’t even allow for thought as we know it. A place without time can’t even exist, as we describe time. The elements of time and space are pieces of a whole. We can’t remove time from our reality and have a reality at all.

For a moment, consider with me the snapping of a photo. We look at a photo as a point in time. Yet we all know it is really a small blur across time for the length of the exposure. In fact, I issue a challenge for anyone to give an example of true stasis with regard to motion. It is nothing known in this universe. It is impossible for anything we know to be outside time. In fact, we don’t know anything that is stationary. Everything of which we are aware is moving through space—which movement is actually one of the components of time.

Remember the old example used in physics of shooting a B-B at an on-coming locomotive. Remember all the discussion around when did the B-B stop to reverse direction, and how it was against the train when it reversed direction, and the argument about how a B-B could stop a train, bah, blah, blah. The point is that there isn’t even anything we know of in this reality that is ever ’stopped’ or stationary at any point in time. Even a complete reversal in direction translates forces to the molecular level (and levels we can only dream about) within the shape such that the ’stop’ never truly occurs. Further, even apparent stasis is on a planet spinning in a galaxy moving through a universe at a speed we ‘think’ we have measured [relative to what?]. Even the center of our universe could be the center of a small system in a much larger system—prove it isn’t! Wait, now prove it with string theory too.
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Here is the logical conclusion based on what we can know, but read below.

With what we know about time, if God is outside time, then he is at a place with no beginning, no ending, and no linear movement related to space and time as we know it. In such a ’stopped’ state, a ‘view’ of time would be all at once—before it, during it, and after it. When God said, “let us make man in our image”, he was talking to us—later. Well, later, after we escaped time and were outside it, which would place us ’stopped’, looking at time for all time, with no beginning and no ending. You see, eternity is always misconceived as linear–but outside time is ’stopped’ in a way we can’t conceive.

OK, has this stretched around your head and gotten ridiculous enough yet?

The ridiculousness of everything this implies can lead us only to one conclusion. The spirit world is so different to the physical world that we can’t think of it with any of the terms we think about anything. When Jesus walked this planet, He said that God is spirit. So, if you believe in God, this blasts you into a confrontation with reality. If God is real, then He is the realest real–He is real if all else isn’t. Since God is spirit, this means that the spirit realm is the realest real. What we perceive as reality is a pocket of decay within the pure stasis of the spirit realm.

“And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. . .to be remembered no more.” How can this happen in a place where nothing happens? You can quickly see how twisted things get when we apply what we know to things we can’t know. Spirit math has to be different from reality math. It totally removes the laws of thermodynamics. So we can’t even talk about spiritual things with the language of this reality. God made dirt and man from it. In our reality, dirt is a product of thermodynamics, so there wouldn’t have been any dirt for a long time.

Have you seen those explorer style programs and books that look at the miracles in the Bible and validate them with a mix of science, archeology, and history? Doesn’t it strike you as ridiculous that anyone believing in God would, then, have to prove or disprove a miraculous occurrence by proving how it could happen with the normal laws of science—you know, all the laws a miracle is said to be breaking?
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In a nutshell, the spirit world is as far from our physical reality as life is from death. A further discussion might circle around how the absence of the Spirit in this present reality is time and death in this physical plane, and the absence of the Spirit in the spirit plane is the ultimate separation from all reality and all that we are, with no hope of anything else–forever.

Well, it was really cool watching the excitement my dad had when he discovered an old buddy from his regiment living about 45 minutes from his home. Between the two of them, they pulled together quite a collection of items from their service years in the 1950’s. They had been stationed together in Japan during the occupation, and were both held over to serve a second term when the Korean Conflict began. Dad was only 2 weeks from his discharge when he was ‘frozen’ for another three and a half years. He served seven years in all.

The two of them had a lot of fun remembering and reminding one another of the things they had forgotten, but that came out when they were together.

As my dad had gotten older, his mention of his years and events in the army had become more frequent. You could see the pride he had for his service.

My dad was always one to go over board reminding someone about anything. He had told us all several times there would be no need to get a tombstone or grave marker. He wanted the marker the army would supply at his death. It was another point of pride for him.

I spent some time repairing old photos he had in Photo Shop and pulling what information was still available about old ships and places from the internet. He had even pulled out his old uniform and worn it on several occasions. We thought it a bit quaint, or even silly. But dad sure didn’t. He put on his uniform, and wore it with all the dignity and spit-n-shine of his active duty years in the 50’s.

Well, dad died a couple of months ago. It was sudden, but dad had lived a good full life. He was a great dad. Now it is time for his tribute.

But, it seems there will be no tribute for dad from the army. No. I just talked to mom this morning for Mother’s Day. She told me the Veteran’s had refused the grave marker.

I sure am glad dad didn’t see this. His pride went with him. We will remember his service, even if his country will not.

The world has changed a lot since American blood was shed in Korea. Now, the Korea they died for is even in jeopardy.

But know this: Fifty years ago, your brothers died for freedom on fields in Korea. My dad was with them. He was proud to do his duty. He served his country.

May this tribute stand for him where his country fails to remember.

So be it.

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When my father died last month, it made me think more about death and dying.

I don’t mean to be morbid. I’ve gone through several phases with this now.

First was a certain disbelief. This was followed with just being numb. Then, I talked about it to the point that the emotion was overcome by the commonness of it.

It’s been a sad reality.

Not to be funny, but death is just so final. It’s the ultimate can’t-do-over.

It makes you not want to mess up. Every moment passes only once. The few seconds you just spent clicking here and reading to this point in this article will never happen again. You may have another similar experience–But, this moment is gone forever.

All this thinking about death and dying has brought me to a really weird, undesirable conclusion.

I would like to say we have a choice, but we don’t.

We will die one of two ways. Thus the title: Two ways to die.

I’m not talking about the method of death: some illness or physical calamity or failure. I’m talking about the general circumstance of death and dying.

I don’t like it, but here it is:

You will either watch everyone you know die, or, you will die first.

They can’t rightly be called options, but plainly stated: you’re either dying first or watching everyone else die. It isn’t any better when you flip it.

I guess the best of pain and living would be to die somewhere in the middle. Then you live a little longer and only have to watch half of everyone die.

This gets ridiculous fast.

The only real choice in the matter is about how we live. The death part doesn’t change. Even if you believe in life after death, that death part really sucks. And the part leading up to it isn’t that great either.

So make the most of what is good and worthy while you have it. It will be gone.

Hope for somewhere in the middle for dying. But change what you can control.

What can you control? All the life part you’re living right now.

Like, what are you going to do now–I mean, right now?

Click to another site? Email this to a friend as a sick joke? Post this to your own blog and spread a sick joke?

These are some of a million things you might do in the next few moments.

I hope that’s the best use of your next few moments. You sure wouldn’t want to waste them.

Hug your wife and kids. Hug your mom and dad. Eat out whenever you can.

Honor God and man with all that belongs to them. Prioritize some fun into your life. Take a trip. Plant a garden. Send a card.

Don’t keep doing anything that causes regret. Find a handle to overcome bad habits. Create a place for peace in your life. Think about good things.

Regards.