Hi. I know that our experiences are our own. And it's difficult to relate unless we've been there too. But I want to share my near life experience before I answer your question. I do remember a place before just before my birth. I know. it seems dumb or unreal. and maybe it is. but I don't think so. I was in a place that seemed to me now like space-outer type space. there were these lights that I could see that I knew were beings. one of them was talking to me in images and impressions and everything but actual sounds or outer physical sensations. the being seemed more feminine than masculine-though I am not sure what that really means. it communicated to me that I was going to be born on earth and what my life at least in the beginning was going to be like. I did not want to be born. I sensed the years of my early existence with my family as suffering in what seemed liked a mere few seconds. let me say that I am not thinking I am something special. cuz I am not. If what if I know is really truth than we all were born before we were born. I resisted with my whole being the 'force' sending me to earth to the womb of my mother. I remember my inward resistance was a big no in my inner voice. I didn't want the terrible pain of living on earth. I felt my 'soul' enter the womb and I went to sleep. this memory of my before life never left me. It is my first memory of my existence. even as a young young child I remembered. and the last parting impression from the sending authority was " everything is going to be alright".

I personally don't think everything is gonna be alright. even if we all went to some better place I want answers too. suffering is not ok. and how do I cope. I too have thought about the questions. I do think we are going somewhere else. though I wouldn't dare to narrow it down to what. but sometimes I look up and I declare "you promised everything was gonna be alright? You didn't keep your promise. I just wanna go back home."

I guess what I am trying to say is that sometimes I can get to feeling better by knowing there is something out there beyond this. and I will get my chance to voice my questions for me and for everyone else.

maybe we were some haughty angels who thought we could do suffering better? that's just talking. but if it were true? I would take it back.

sorry, I forgot to tell you thank you for holding that baby in your arms and praying for the baby. no one should die alone. you gave yourself to pain to pray for the baby that's the kind of love that gives me heart that life is filled with people who are trying to do the right thing. even if it causes them pain. thank you for suffering so someone else could see your compassion and love.

I am sorry. don't take me wrong. I am not happy that you were hurting. but you were brave and walked with that baby. even when you had no promises of answered prayers. love suffers even when no evil is present. life is filled things that cause suffering. death is the last door. and you were with the baby to the end. that's love. real love. and your willingness to suffer for others is the truest love I know.

sorry everyone for hogging up this post. I am just wanting to make sure I say things the right way.

A great mystery of my Life is the Akashic Field. I am clueless how or where I came by the term, but it has been with me forever. Even before they used it in the tv show, Eureka. The Akashic Field is your Greek Wiki Angel.

I wanna know why we drive in a Parkway and park in a driveway.

As for why that baby died in your arms...
Think I will let the Mystery be and simply share the pain...

Thanks for how nice you were to me about the death of that baby in my arms. It's irrational, I know, but part of me felt like as a big, strong man I should have been able to do something to protect that baby that night. Irrational, yes. But still part of me felt that way.

When I was a 9 year old kid growing up in a war on a foreign mission field, I wondered why God would call my parents to take my family to serve God where I might get killed as a child. I wondered if God really cared about kids at all.

Of course, I grew up and found out that my dad's call was more about my dad than about God. My dad's becoming a missionary abroad was mostly about my dad running from his problems back home rather than dealing with them. Not serving anybody but himself. He was putting his family in danger in the process, not God.

Still, I reserved a lot of questions from those years for later in the afterlife, maybe, should there be one. When we're all safe and have the eternal time.

Yes, arfie, it's a mystery, and I don't worry myself about the great mysteries all the time. There are just those instances in which the mystery's balance is so disproportionate that I stop and do wonder. Like when something as big as death and disease take the life of something so tiny as a newborn baby right out of my hands.

I was reminded of it this week because in my Death and Dying class a parent who lost his baby daughter 7 years ago today Sat. 10-26-13 spoke about it in my class. Reminders happen, no matter how well or how much or how long you go on with life.

So I guess I kick the can down the road, so to speak, by hoping in the afterlife I'll get the comfort of my own Wikipedia angel to explain the problem of pain. Not in the abstract, but case by case through the real traumas that gave me and others our PTSD.

Mine is a sitdown with the creator...many question of why? Did I needto be hurt...this much? Taking John...that was cruel hurting more. So if you are the true and Loving "Deity"...how did this pain fit your plan...did you forget you gave us a heart? Some got granite ones others fine crystal...easily shattered.
Did you forget that memories once made are there in our brain? Good ones are nice...but the bad ones like a burrowing bugs eating and chewing our mind. Leaving these open wounds, festering, destroying the good in us?
Some get so completely destroyed there is no hope, they then go out and inflict on the innocent ...the cycle again.

Grab a cup of coffee...I am waiting until you explain.

Very interesting reading here.

My hopes? I wish to just fade to black like the Sopranos.

Fading to black like the end of the Sopranos would be a good compromise. In its own way it would be an answer right there, wouldn't it?

(By the way, speaking of the endings of TV shows, the last episode of Breaking Bad was pretty awesome, too. But that's for another thread at another time on karma, wouldn't you say?)

Fully agree on all points.
I hope you're having a relatively good day today, muji.

I drink wine, play video games and create things. And I don't believe in god. I used to. Now I believe that stuff just happens. Sometimes good stuff, sometimes bad stuff. And I still believe that life is beautiful.