Death's sing along
Mar 12, 2014 18:53:43 #
Catchy tune: "One way or the other, I'm gonna find you...I'm gonna getcha, getcha, getcha you ...."
Two weeks before I left New York City in the Fall of '84, there was a story about a young women who was shot dead while driving along the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway). From the angle of projectory and her position on the highway and the nature of the wound, it seemed a totally unexplained mystery. Besides that, the young women was found not to be involved in any illegal activity, was from a good family, and had no known enemies.
The day before I left, a fourteen year old boy confessed to the murder, of sorts. He had been given his father's old M-1 rifle for his birthday across the bay from where the shooting had occurred and was shooting at beer cans in the waters near his house. After significant scientific testing, it was determined that one of the bullets must have ricocheted off the water or something and traveled almost the full length of that bullet's capacity to strike the young women. Not only that, the only window open in her vehicle was the one bay-ward, rolled down just enough in the winter to have access to her head, striking perfectly with just enough force for a death blow just behind her right ear; had the rear window been closed, the bullet did not have enough force to break it; had the bullet struck a half inch either way, nothing but a headache. What are the odds? ("....I'm gonna getcha, getcha, getcha...")
Death, Take Two:
Taos, Nm: A Japanese photographer had won a contest that provided enough money to come to America and shoot the Southwest in summer, an ambition he had for ten years. He got a severe stomach flu a day before his departure and could not go on. He decided once he was better, he would do a Fall layout of the southwest.
A confusion with his reservations delayed him a day. Then somehow there was a problem with his credit card (which was fine) in Albuquerque, and he was delayed another day. Finally he got to Taos and was surprised a local group of fans, that kept him to the wee hours (in Taos, then, this meant around midnight); he got something of a later start than he had planned.
He was about 100 meters down off the Ski Valley road by a small creek, taking photos of the aspens. A truck coming down the hill lost a tire (which was odd in itself, as it was a fairly new vehicle and had regular maintenance). The tire made a beeline for the guardrail that marked a 15mph turn to the right. Tall pines, raising up to almost a hundred feet, fringed the guardrail. The driver recalls with amazement, like watching a high jumper, it just cleared them. Below, this foreign photographer snapped his last picture of a butterfly being attacked by another insect and carried away.
In Buddhism, realizing one's mortality--to be gone forever from air and sunlight, lost from all memory, life going on unaffected or slowed by your passing, oblivious to you ever having been, as meaningless as stepping on a bug and as quickly forgotten--is said to be the only way to be truly free in this life. A constitution, no matter how well written, is impossible to grant you an ounce of freedom. Only those who live as if already dead know what real liberty and joy is.
Christians do not disagree. We are to die to each moment, to make ourselves a living sacrifice. When Christ said the greatest gift is to give your life for a friend, he did not mean actual death, though there could be occasion for such a sacrifice. What he meant was giving up our worldliness as to be perfect servants for the lost, needy, and our brethren.
Two weeks before I left New York City in the Fall of '84, there was a story about a young women who was shot dead while driving along the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway). From the angle of projectory and her position on the highway and the nature of the wound, it seemed a totally unexplained mystery. Besides that, the young women was found not to be involved in any illegal activity, was from a good family, and had no known enemies.
The day before I left, a fourteen year old boy confessed to the murder, of sorts. He had been given his father's old M-1 rifle for his birthday across the bay from where the shooting had occurred and was shooting at beer cans in the waters near his house. After significant scientific testing, it was determined that one of the bullets must have ricocheted off the water or something and traveled almost the full length of that bullet's capacity to strike the young women. Not only that, the only window open in her vehicle was the one bay-ward, rolled down just enough in the winter to have access to her head, striking perfectly with just enough force for a death blow just behind her right ear; had the rear window been closed, the bullet did not have enough force to break it; had the bullet struck a half inch either way, nothing but a headache. What are the odds? ("....I'm gonna getcha, getcha, getcha...")
Death, Take Two:
Taos, Nm: A Japanese photographer had won a contest that provided enough money to come to America and shoot the Southwest in summer, an ambition he had for ten years. He got a severe stomach flu a day before his departure and could not go on. He decided once he was better, he would do a Fall layout of the southwest.
A confusion with his reservations delayed him a day. Then somehow there was a problem with his credit card (which was fine) in Albuquerque, and he was delayed another day. Finally he got to Taos and was surprised a local group of fans, that kept him to the wee hours (in Taos, then, this meant around midnight); he got something of a later start than he had planned.
He was about 100 meters down off the Ski Valley road by a small creek, taking photos of the aspens. A truck coming down the hill lost a tire (which was odd in itself, as it was a fairly new vehicle and had regular maintenance). The tire made a beeline for the guardrail that marked a 15mph turn to the right. Tall pines, raising up to almost a hundred feet, fringed the guardrail. The driver recalls with amazement, like watching a high jumper, it just cleared them. Below, this foreign photographer snapped his last picture of a butterfly being attacked by another insect and carried away.
In Buddhism, realizing one's mortality--to be gone forever from air and sunlight, lost from all memory, life going on unaffected or slowed by your passing, oblivious to you ever having been, as meaningless as stepping on a bug and as quickly forgotten--is said to be the only way to be truly free in this life. A constitution, no matter how well written, is impossible to grant you an ounce of freedom. Only those who live as if already dead know what real liberty and joy is.
Christians do not disagree. We are to die to each moment, to make ourselves a living sacrifice. When Christ said the greatest gift is to give your life for a friend, he did not mean actual death, though there could be occasion for such a sacrifice. What he meant was giving up our worldliness as to be perfect servants for the lost, needy, and our brethren.
Mar 15, 2014 02:50:26 #
!?!?..... Your beginning to sound like me under a full moon!
:?
:?
rumitoid wrote:
Catchy tune: "One way or the other, I'm gonna... (show quote)
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