If you were to shrink down, down, down, past the atomic level and into the quantum foam, you would encounter the uncertainty principle, and just by observing things bring them into being. Supposedly at the quantum level, possibilities flit about like hyperactive fleas, and just the act of seeing one changes the probable to a certainty.

Complete and utter balderdash, of course (and therefore probably true...)

You encounter the same phenomena every moment of every day without shrinking at all. I am convinced that reality is only 3% "real" and 97% attitude.

If life were an Everlastinggobstopper, that little tiny seed center is barren fact and the bazillion layers of sugar and coloring is all how we FEEL about it. If we believe life is glorious, it is. If we believe life is a hoover, it is.

Think about it: try to strip perception down to just the .03 that is real. If you think "wow, it really is glorious" you haven't actually gotten to the 3%, you're still layering attitude on it. That .03 is pure, uncolored, unemotional fact. It is the real creation with no nod to the Creator. I suspect it's what lower animals exist on (not higher animals, like dogs, who also color their world good or bad, or cats, who believe they ARE the world) and that we can never even approach.

Hindus believe that existence is completely illusion, at the will of the gods. While close, I can't agree. I think each individual existence is an illusion at the will or unconscious of that individual. There is a bedrock fact of reality, created by God, and there are 6 billion illusions created by each person (though influenced by God's sovereignty). My illusion is not your illusion, and both religion and its successor "civilization" strive to synch the illusions up (the failure of which is responsible for the current war - which has its own uncertainty principle since it is whatever people think it is, which certainly isn't the same in any two cases).

Christianity, which I don't believe is a religion but a relationship, aligns the illusions to God's reality, which is more than just earthly fact and is in fact the unifying theory that brings together physical and metaphysical (containing emotion, spirit, supernatural and natural) but does so in part here, and complete in heaven. The sad thing is that even in the church a plurality of illusion exists, almost completely unidentifiable as differing until the proper divination of the Word - that terrible two-edge sword - cleaves them apart. Not just denominations, mind you, but individual understandings within the same pew.

Praise God our inclusion in the body of Christ is a work of God and not ourselves. Heaven would be pretty empty if it was.

Ah, voter frustration.

I was on my high and mighty horse, with the full intention of NOT voting for Ric Keller. His campaign was moronic, his ads insulted the intelligence of the voters (though the ads that WEREN'T from his campaign, but were in favor of him anyway, were quite good) and I was going to pointedly not vote for him (as much as I like Charlie Stuart as a person, I wasn't going to vote for him either, because of his politics. I was going to write in Bill Hufford or John Stemberger because I both like them and admire their politics. With Keller, I think he's slime even if I do agree with his politics... say, is that libel? Or since I can back up the slime assertion, is that okay????).

So I make my way through the driving rain to cast my unvote for Keller and mostly reluctant votes for the other republicans (I don't like many of them, either, with the exception of Katherine Harris, whom I do like and will probably lose)...

... and Keller isn't on my ballot. I'm not in his district.

Righteousness belongs to the Lord; self-righteousness is doomed to fail.

Sigh.

We have a Japanese neighbor who, with quite a few of his countrymen, has a near obsession with Bonzai trees. The Bonzai is a small plant that the gardner carefully snips and binds to shape into a very personal expression. Bonzai clipping is a form of active meditation.

Many Americans have a similar obsession, though it tends to be informational rather than meditative. We carefully shape it with the same diligent care as the most meticulous Japanese gardner. It is uniquely us. Very personal, and highly revealing: it is our Favorites list.

Think about it. Just by clicking the icon, I can read all about you. Mine, for example, has several writing sites and blogs, church sites and blogs, business sites, a few comic strips, some educational addresses and the library. Sums me up pretty well.

A good friend and former co-worker had a list that spanned a dozen columns. It was almost beyond the use of a Favorites list and into a Internet Listing. Which described him well... or wells :)

What does your Favorites say about you?