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Elizabeth Edwards 1949 - 2010

John Lennon 1940 - 1980


The amount of time all of us have left on this earth is both finite and unknown. There is nothing like death to put life into perspective. Like my cousin said when my father passed away, "None of us gets out of here alive."

In spite of the never ending crush of bad news, please don't forget the miracle that life is, and what is truly important in the time together that we are blessed with.

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Well said

Death was defeated over 2000 years ago. The choice is what kind of eternity will you have.

there is a reason Jesus & Paul called death "sleep"

I do not believe in 'soul sleep', but the body is temporarily 'dead' until the resurrection. But can you really call it death if it's temporary? so.....

(BTW, have missed you on Dp, hope you and all your family are well.:)


Actually, in general, I notice that NO, people

DONT realize this. I think especially in the US, the populace expend much energy doing all "the right things" with the mistaken subconscious belief that if the do everything right, they will never die. They jog miles and miles, join the health clubs, have hysterics if a tiny whiff of smoke comes their way, go into spasms if they are exposed to ANYTHING that they feel is unhealthy. If they are exposed they want to pass a law and attack the situation head on. This over-reaction and obsession seems to dominate the US psyche. For lack of a better word I'll say "Western Culture", seems to have a grandiose attitude that somehow they have found the "secret" to living forever... and if everyone else would just cooperate, things would be perfect.

This is why when death comes it is, to the Western (US) mind such a SHOCK and so DEVASTATING. They see it as an ODDITY and feel it must be SOMEONE's FAULT, rather than as a normal part of life. They are totally unprepared for this eventuality.

In general, in the Latin cultures, or at least in Mexico, death is considered a part of life. They see each day as one more gift, and do not ASSUME that they will be here tomorrow. If you say, "see you Tuesday" to a Mexican, the response is, "si Dios quiere" (if God wills it). They celebrate their dead and visit the grave as a family with favorite foods and music. They talk to their dead and naturally assume that the dead are still with them in another, more perfect form. When someone dies, they are SAD, but they are not SHOCKED and HORRIFIED that this could POSSIBLY happen!! They have no doubt that there is an afterlife and that it is the natural course to be heading for that paradise.

It is hard to explain in full, but I think that "Western" cultures waste a lot of time and energy on silly things because they are under the impression that they can avoid death. I think it explains where we are today. Why people want to CONTROL others and lots of other things.

Thanks for this wonderful forum. What a fun way to start my day.


Viva La Revolucion!

its Anglo Saxon Arrogance

Plus the medical institutions beating their chest, pretending that they actually have control.


they have been having it pounded into their heads for many years by advertisements and public service announcements that the medical/pharma industries are the new saviors. good point


Viva La Revolucion!

only body the clothes covering soul dies

the flame lives on.

LL on Twitter: http://twitter.com/LibertyPoet
sometimes LL can suck & sometimes LL rocks!

I have this strange belief

and its that the souls of the deceased are with us until the last person that remembers or has had contact with them passes away...then they can go into 'soul sleep' and reincarnate when they are ready.

Just because the body died, doesn't mean that the work is done.

Go figure, my moms ghost is still decorating!

RIP Mrs. Edwards. I liked you.

My body might die,

but my soul charges on! :)

There You Go

Right on, Sue. Right on. Carry on. :>



Thanks Michael - I've been a FLAMING LIPS fan for years...

And this CD ("Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots") is a great one all around.

There isn't much filler on this CD. Great songs.

It just goes to show the intelligence on the DailyPaul - even as regards culture.

So I ask - Is there correlation between correct idealogical thinking and cultural preferences?

I think so.

Anyway, great post Michael!

-Ron Paul

Michael Nystrom's picture

Thanks Pawnstorm

This is a great CD. I listened to the whole thing yesterday.

Merry Christmas!

He's the man.

People You Know Will All Die.

Have you come to grips with your own mortality? You won't be watching all those people die. Some of them will see you.

Read the Gospel of John and find life.


I had been leaving this thread alone, finally worked up the nerve to say it... you already had. Let me rephrase...
When we understand that the ONLY guaranteed "Life on earth" any of us get is this one, we begin to appreciate that life.
I BELIEVE I have some connection with them, some how their love? energy? something seems to be with me still... But all the elders of my family are gone. After my mother died, and I was in my 40's, I got a letter declaring me an "orphan." I would never have guessed how devastating that could be... But I do not know... are they out there, or within me? I KNOW I carry their genetics, and memories of them, and I look like them and sound like them... I AM their "eternal life" in a very tangible way.
My best days are when I keep my own death on my shoulder as an adviser and a grandchild on my lap as a guide.

Love or fear? Choose again with every breath.

Elizabeth Edward's death

Elizabeth Edward's death saddened me also, mainly because she seemed to turn into a real person and not a media-spun caricature with her personal tragedies that were so affecting... She maintained her humanity right up until her very sudden end.

I guess we've each had our own experiences with deaths of friends and relatives. It is a thing that permanently colors our perception and may give us a little more incentive to do something with the time we have left on this Earth.

I always wonder about things like this...

Its like that movie fight club where hes sitting on the plane and says "Over a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero". Its true and its true that humans as a species are really only about 50-75 years at any given point from becoming totally extinct should something happen where no one can procreate. Or only a few years at best should the Earth wobble out of its perfect orbit with the sun and either fry us to death or freeze us to death. The closeness we are to death is very real and not exaggerated. Everyone is a few minutes away at any given moment if they are deprived of oxygen.

I often wonder about other planets around other stars and if they've had a similar fate to what awaits us here on earth, their sun expanding and swallowing them up in its ball of fire. How many places in the universe have existed with complex lifeforms that were eaten away by their own star or by space or are we the only ones ever to inhabit this huge expanse of universe? There are so many questions we'll never ever know, no matter how long we are able to go on living here.

I have always wondered why NASA never sent out "pods" of seeds from different species of plants and just shoot them across space to maybe one day land on a distant planet or to even guide it to one of the newly found planets where we believe water may exist. Could we spread life to the universe? Is life here the result of some other lifeform seeing our blue spec of a planet floating around our star and sending a pod of seeds that eventually spawned us? Or are we all the creation of an all powerful God that chose our tiny planet floating around our tiny star in a tiny solar system in a relatively normal looking galaxy in an ever expanding universe of his own creation?

BTW, I dont believe in evolution, too many holes, takes too much time for species to "evolve". When do two lizards mating end up creating something other than a lizard? it would take billions upon billions of life cycles for what amounts to a tiny microscopic organism to transform into something else and imagine how many billions for that same microscopic organism to transform into a huge dinosaur that we find regularly in fossils. So either the universe and our star are far far older than science knows or evolution is just made up. We'll never know until we die and even then we might just fall into a black oblivion similar to imagining "what it was like before we were born".

I have also always wondered what makes up our consciousness, as in, is there like one tiny atom in my brain that makes me aware that I am or is it my entire brain and can I ever have conciousness again after I die, what would it take, is it just one atom from myself that could "bring me to life" (as I exist right now) or, once im gone, its forever and there will never be a conciousness for me ever again anywhere at any point in time. But I exist as I am right now and what were the chances of that ever happening? Quadrillion quadrillion to one?

Loved this. Never heard the

Loved this. Never heard the group before. Sounded a LOT like Lennon. TY

My Brother

This is so right up my alley...Thanks for the vibes!


~Bruce Barton~

Love ya Michael!

For Freedom!

Thank you


That great philosopher, Billy Jack, said it best.

Prosecutor: "Are you saying you are never afraid?"
Billy Jack: "That's exactly what I'm saying; because HE is always with me."
Prosecutor: "Who?"
Billy Jack: "Death. Not knowing when he will take me gives me great comfort, because I feel compelled to make all of life's choices without regret."

Or words to that effect.

"The Trial of Billy Jack"



It's weird but Elizabeth

It's weird but Elizabeth Edwards death bothered me a little. I think it's because she was married to that scumbag John Edwards....

Thank you

This reminds me that I have some relationships I need to repair. it IS finite, and there are things you should not delay.

Colchester, New London County, Connecticut

From The Sweet Grass To The Packing House

We all make this journey

"You Cannot Stop An Idea Whose Time Has Come"

So has John Edwards...

So has John Edwards figured out a way to sue someone yet over his estranged wife's death?

i love the flaming lips. one

i love the flaming lips. one of the most AMAZING live bands ever.

my co-worker's 17 year old son just died five days ago. and one of my young cousins just died while having an intense seizure. everyone and every thing is always arising and passing away, changing every moment. it's up to each one of us to decide whether or not we are going to be happy or miserable experiencing it.

"i love the flaming lips." Me

"i love the flaming lips." Me too, I love them fearless freaks.

Don't take life so serious

"Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." - Porky Pine

Ĵīɣȩ Ɖåđşŏń


Great Post.

My mother passed away from cancer at the age of 49, 8 days away from her 50th birthday. She was under hospice care and I was her main caretaker. During her 15 year battle with the disease, I was angry, at God, life, whoever. My mother was the most beautiful person, (besides my wife, HA!), that I will probably ever know. She had not one selfish bone in her body, and because of this there were many who took advantage of her. And I would always think, "How could life be so unfair, to make a woman of her character suffer like this." And fight she did. Not until the end did I realize why she fought so hard to hold on to life. It was because she wanted to see "her boys" grow into young men. A miracle life is indeed. Our spirits, to love, and everything in between is one big miracle. After her passing my anger subsided, because of the lessons I learned during her transition to the spiritual world, experiences that forever changed my life. Death was not the end for her, for her journey had just begun. I along with others mutually witnessed this transition.
See, I believe our bodies are just vessels of energy, in which that energy is your soul. When your vessel breaks, your energy is shot out to God knows where. When my mom was close to death, she would slip back and forth from the spiritual and physical world. Once when she was on the other side, she was talking to her dad and her brother who she lost in Vietnam. Wherever she was, she was talking to her brother about all of the pretty flowers she can take care of and "how beautiful" it was. She then slipped back into the physical world. I rose to assist her and she thought I was her brother. She cried because she wanted to go back to where her brother was with all the pretty flowers. She is there perhaps, or were ever else she wants to go. She is free! And her memory and lessons she had taught will live on forever with those she had touched.

I ran across this song the other night. Been looking for a reason to post it here. Found it listening to Echoes Online. Good stuff.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - bibo no aozora

thank you--

my mother also died young after much suffering--

it's hard to be awake; it's easier to dream--