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Heavenly body
I believe that I will live to be at least 100 years old. I believe that I will continue to be healthy throughout my life. I believe that I will always be loved and revered by my family, that I will always be beautiful, and that I will finally die when I am ready and only after I have had a chance to say goodbye to my loved ones.
These beliefs are not accidental. I have chosen them and I work at maintaining them. Sometimes I feel doubt, but I choose to believe
anyway. After all, the alternative doesn't do much for me. If you do not foster equally loving and supportive beliefs ask yourself why? Intelligent people argue that they can't believe things that don't make sense to them, but it makes absolutely no sense to me to choose to believe miserable things.
Many people believe in a punitive God who will on the one hand condemn you to hell if you don't believe in him but on the other forgive ALL your sins if you visit him on a Sunday. Other people have turned in disgust from organised religion and would rather not believe in a God who condemns non-Christians for their beliefs! However religion is manmade, as are all the wars that are fought over it and all the atrocities that are commited in its name.
I know that manmade religion has little to do with belief in a higher power and I choose to believe in a wonderful beautific angel who helps me live well. My guardian angel does not care what I call her or whether I believe in her. She supports me because she loves me. In a way that I do not hope to understand she eases my path, rewards me with miracles and allows me to hope for an afterlife. And if her existence is a delusion, well, its a good one.
People who consider themselves intellectual sometimes have difficulty believing in something so nebulous and are scornful of those that do. However if given the choice between believing that our lives end with our deaths, or that in some way that we do not hope to understand we are reunited with our loved ones, what would you choose?
Forget all about rational explanations and comprehension, pay attention to your emotions here. Not many of us would choose to believe that they rot. And don't we have that choice? If your intellect is forcing you to believe things you'd rather not believe, then I suggest that it isn't serving you very well!
Don't have too much "faith" (now there's an interesting word) in science. In many ways it is just another religion and far from fallible. Science does not explain why the world is so beautiful!
My belief in a higher power nurtures me and gives me strength. I visualise my angel as the Genie in Disney's "Aladdin" who boosts my best efforts and protects my interests. I truly believe that I have benefited from many miracles and that whatever happens to me (especially if I'm having a trying time) I am learning and growing.
I also believe in a cartoon devil and angel that sit in my head like numbskulls bickering over all the temptations in my life. My devil wins more of the arguements than I'd like, especially those relating to eating rubbish but my angel wins the most - thankyou God.
Another benefit of believing in God is that it gives you an opportunity to count your blessings and appreciate good fortune. Also prayer has been proved to be very powerful in alleviating distress or anxiety. When I pray I ask God to do what's best. Many times I have had a seeming disaster turn into a miracle and I now realise I am ill equiped to decide what is best for me.
So have I burbled on about God long enough? I hope so. Faith is the opposite of fear and if you are to chose an unconventional path for yourselves and your children you're going to need plenty of faith.
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"Faith is the opposite of fear." (Don't know who said this originally but it's great!)
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." Ralph Hodgson
"Faith is knowing there is an ocean because you have seen a brook." William Ward
"What I admire in Columbus is not his having discovered a world, but his having gone to search for it on the faith of an opinion." Robert Turgot
"Everyone of us has in him a continent of undiscovered character. Blessed is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul." Charles Wallis
"Strike from mankind the principal of faith and men would have no more history than a flock of sheep." Mark Beltaine
"Trust in God and do something." Mary Lyon
"Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening." Gandhi
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