Good to Be Alive

 Today mark exactly 4 years since my pulmonary embolism. Four extra years. I can't really think of it any other way except as extra years. Any time that I have had past that night is a gift. It really brings perspective to my life. Things may seem grim, and life might seem hard, but damn, I could have been dead. So, as I sit sequestered in my home far from the virus covered masses, and everything that I had planned to do for the next two years has been cancelled, and the current presidential race seems to be making us collectively less intelligent as a nation, and I'm wrapped up in a blanket because our heat doesn't work, all I can keep thinking about is how good it is to be alive, right about now. 

So, I guess all I can ask of people is that we love each other on this cold, miserable fall day, because the alternative is to be dead. And I think being alive is good, because if you're dead it can't get any better.  

A New Course of Study

    Immediately after my PE in 2016 I took an interest in religion, that is fairly common after a near death experience I believe. In the ensuing years that interest has waned, but damn it, I bought the bible I'm going to finally read it. I did not grow up in a religious household. My parents never took me to church, we never discussed religion except in an abstract sense, and I don't think we ever owned a bible. During high school I did have the opportunity to take a World Religions course and loved it. The idea of theology is fascinating to me as someone who never had a lot of exposure to that sort of thing. But not having that exposure can also be hamstringing in a largely biblically literate culture. So, I'm going to take the opportunity of quarantine to look at scriptures and form my opinions on them. I don't want my understanding to be tapered through the lens of someone else's interpretation so I'm going in completely cold. 

    I will be using the King James Bible, since I like the flowery language that version uses. It feels more... religious-ie. The details of which are below:

The Holy Bible

King James Version

"An English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, commissioned in 1604 and completed as well as published in 1611 under the sponsorship of James VI and I. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin." (Wikipedia)

Red Letter Edition - "Red letter edition bibles are those in which the Dominical words—those spoken by Jesus Christ, commonly only those spoken during his corporeal life on Earth—are printed rubricated, in red ink. This is a modern practice derived from the art and Roman Catholic practice in mediaeval scriptoria of rubricating headings, leading letters of sectional text, and words of text in manuscripts for emphasis, similar to italicization.

“WITH THE WORDS OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR

SET FORTH IN DIGNIFIED RED ITALICS”' (Wikipedia)

Barbour Bibles Publishing

2012 copyright

My hope that is if I put it out there and make my plan that it will give me something to stick to. So, moving forward I'll give each section/chapter a read through and prepare a small essay on each section.

So next Saturday will be Genesis, (my doesn't that sound ominous). If this goes well, I'll use the same formula for the Tanakh, the Quran and then maybe some of the Vedas.

I think about that a lot

I remember taking breaths and feeling no sweet relief. Like all the oxygen had been pulled out of the room and no matter how much my lungs expanded and contacted I couldn't seem to ease the hunger in my chest. I remember the world spinning and going dark. I remember being in the back of the ambulance and wishing I was dead because it hurt so much to try and breath. I remember the feeling of my body betraying me.

I remember that,  and  I think about that a lot right now.

The Magic Happens

I believe my cat is magic.
He only makes good things happen.
My familiar is 10 lbs of blonde amazing.
It is wrong for me to claim the magic,
he does it all I think.
I am so grateful.

Now a previously started
moody refrain.
It is not true now.
My mind is free,
more
or less.

My life is like,

the lights are on, but nobodies home,

except someone is home,

and all the curtains are drawn

and they hope that no one calls, 

or knocks.