July/August 1999
Articles on the theme "Lifestyles"
A Look Back
by Dr. Audrey Craft Davis
Reflections on lifestyles when the
writer was a child and how they contrast with today's.
Design Your Own Lifestyle
by Edwina H. Holloway
How to customize your unique lifestyle
to fit your authentic self.
The Spirit of Caring
by Lisa Raphael
The spiritual component of lifestyle.
Comments on Managed Care vs. true caring.
Is Lifestyle Predictable?
by Magzcha Westerman
How numerologically to find the number
that represents your Life Lesson and how that number relates to lifestyle.
The Yogic Lifestyle
by Charlotte Rudeau and Piers Anthony
How yoga can help one achieve a better
lifestyle.
Exploring Your Style of Life
by Elizabeth Fenton and Renée Gillombardo
Developing a lifestyle. How one views
oneself and the world around one. Passion and the authentic self.
A Lifestyle of Love
by Rev. Pat Cross
Creating a lifestyle that is an expression
of the spirit of God within us.
Life's Stylus
by Bob Gonzalez
The connection between 'stylus,' style
and lifestyle. Our unique mark on life. Purpose and universal love.
The Victimization Lifestyle
by Cydné Battreall
What causes the victim mindset and
how to change it.
A Lifestyle of Grace
by Cheryl Smeed
Of going with the flow to achieve a
positive lifestyle.
Other Feature Articles
Natural Health Q & A
by Karen L. Mutter D.O.
Of cholesterol and various approaches
to lowering cholesterol levels.
2000 and Beyond!
by David Findlay/ Werner Huemer & Micah
Rubenstein
What is . . . Astrology?
by JoAnne Gregory
Some notes on the history of astrology
and some of the people who have used astrology. What the Sun signs, the
Moon and the planets tell us.
Mineral Kingdom
by Judy Power
Featured stones for July and August:
Zincite and Kyanite.
2000 and Beyond
David Findlay, editor
Werner Huemer & Micah Rubenstein, contributing writers
I keep trying to get off Y2K. After all, it's unlikely to be TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It). Life will, no doubt, continue past the year 2000.
However, having said this, I nevertheless feel that the current optimistic view that Y2K will only produce a 'bump in the road' is ill-founded.
What is likely to make matters worse is the lack of accurate information put out by the government and the media. In fact this may well turn out to be the most under-reported story of the decade. And, even worse than lack of accurate information are false information, emotional rhetoric and spin.
Ed Yourdon, author of the best-selling "Time Bomb 2000", in his testimony to the United States Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, puts it well: "If the government decides, in its infinite wisdom, to restrict access to (accurate Y2K) information, then it has not only usurped our freedom, but has also taken upon itself a God-like responsibility for our lives and safety."
Ed Yourdon's testimony fills many pages. Unfortunately I don't have space to give it justice. Come to our Y2K Study Group! (see details at end of this column). He stresses the need for discussion, and adds: "There are two things we must do: (1) Avoid the emotional rhetoric and social stigma that has been attached to much of the dialogue about Y2K preparedness up to this point. (2) Strive for 'full Monty' disclosure about Y2K risks, so that citizens can be as well-informed as possible when they make their decisions."
Having complained about the lack of responsible reporting in the media, I should like to give justice to one piece of 'good news' -- good, that is, in the sense of accurate reporting which does not gloss over the problems.
On May 23rd "60 Minutes" did a segment on Y2K -- and this is a program watched by about 10 million people. Here are a few quotes from the interview between Kroft (for 60 Minutes) and Mary Ellen Hanley, a top computer systems specialist who was hired by the District of Columbia to try and fix the Y2K computer problems.
KROFT: And no city is more vulnerable than Washington, D.C. The Federal Government's General Accounting Office has warned Congress that the Y2K situation is so bad here, that the nation's Capitol may be unable to effectively insure public safety, collect revenue, educate students or provide health care services. . . (my italics). When she (Hanley) took over last year, as Washington's Year 2000 Program Manager, she quickly discovered that there was no program, and not much management. It sounds like you expected the worst.
HANLEY: I expected the worst.
KROFT: And she wasn't disappointed. It turns out, no one even had a complete list of the departments and offices that make up Washington's local government, let alone a list of the computers and software they use. She quickly realized there was simply not enough time to make all the computers Y2K compliant.
(Kroft goes on to interview some officials from Montgomery County.)
KROFT: Just take a look at Washington's next door neighbor: Montgomery County, Maryland's, by most accounts, best prepared local government in the country for Y2K problems. It began preparations more than four years ago and has spent more than 40 million dollars on Y2K fixes and replacements. . . To make sure all the problems were solved, Montgomery County inventoried and checked all of its computer systems and every piece of equipment that had a computer chip in it: eleven hundred items in the fire department alone. They thought they had tested everything. So what happened on the first business day of 1999? Well, the computer that handles building permits crashed . . . The county soon learned from Microsoft that the in-house computer network that handles e-mail and stores county records -- and was supposed to be Y2K compliant -- was not.
DUNCAN (a county executive): And then all of a sudden they came back later and said, 'Uh, Sorry. We made a mistake' So now we're spending about 7 million dollars getting a total new phone system for the county.
KROFT: And these are the kind of problems being encountered in the best prepared county in America. . . You are a suburb of Washington, D.C., the nation's capitol. What happens once you cross the line into the District of Columbia? Do you have a sense of how well prepared the District is?
DUNCAN: My sense is they're going to have some very serious problems. They're not going to be able to do it in the next eight months. . .
KROFT: A survey of county governments across the country shows that 73 percent of them have no contingency plans at all for Y2K failures, and a report prepared for the U.S. Senate's Y2K Committee says 66 percent of all cities and towns will experience at least one critical computer system failure.
I'd like to give you more but don't have the space. In view of the fact the no one really knows what is going to happen, doesn't it more and more make sense to make at least some preparations?
Pinellas County Emergency Management has put out an excellent pamphlet Year 2000 - Individual and Family Preparedness. It's free and and can be obtained from fire stations or the Emergency Management's office at 400 South Fort Harrison in Clearwater (727) 464-3800.
Now for another subject closely related to 2000 and Beyond: prophecy. There are so many predictions for the millennium. Should one take any of them seriously? The following article may help to cut through the confusion.
The Value and Limitations of Prophecies, and Some Thoughts about the Future
by Werner Huemer and Micah Rubenstein
Although it seems to be human nature to want to see into the future, most of us don't have the ability to do so. And, since there are no reliable scientific methods for predicting the future, people often satisfy their curiosity by listening to those who claim to have such a gift. But even though, when one looks at the overall body of prophecies throughout time, it is clear that they are more often wrong than right, people still today continue to pay close attention to prophecies. In fact, not since the beginning of the current millennium almost 1000 years ago has there been such a profusion of predictions. What do the prophecies about the new millennium say, why have prophecies so often been wrong in the past, and where does the value of prophecy lie?
What do the prophecies say?
There are hundreds of prophecies about the new millennium, and one of the best overviews of the major ones is Tom Kay's book, When the Comet Runs: Prophecies for the New Millennium. By taking a helicopter view of the subject, one sees certain similarities among them and can therefore draw a 'picture' of what visionaries believe the future will hold:
· The worst war ever is coming. Quite often, there is talk of 'World War III' in which horrible weapons (nuclear or chemical) will be used. Many prophets warn of a 'surprise attack from the East' and that everything will take place very quickly.
· There will be unimaginable natural catastrophes throughout the world.
· There will be three days of total darkness. Remarkably, many prophets speak of this time in which the atmosphere may also be poisoned.
· There will be signs in the Heavens. Many believe in a direct role of the Creator in the structure of events leading to the new millennium. And 'heavenly signs' (e.g. comets) will appear.
· 'Good Times' will follow. Peace and prosperity will reign, but only after the world is 'cleansed of evil'. Many prophets write of a 'victory for the true belief' and say that the 'spread of truth' will be through a single preacher who will be chosen by God.
When might these prophecies be fulfilled?
Most prophecies only speak figuratively about when these events might happen (e.g., 'Dance music will be played in the churches and the preacher will sing,' etc.) One rarely finds an exact date given. The impending new millennium might seem like an obvious landmark, but there is no correlation between it and most prophecies. And if scientists and historians are right about the inaccuracy of our annual calendar, it may be that the current year is already 2006, not 1999!
What really is the future?
We talk about the past, the present and the future. 'The past' is everything that happened before the current moment, 'now.' It is a large body of time that grows ever larger every second. 'The present' though, is fleeting and minute, instantaneously becoming the past as soon as it arrived. But what is 'the future'? We say the future is 'everything yet to be.' Think about the sayings, 'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,' 'What goes around, comes around,' and 'As you sow, that shall you reap.' These sentences each have aspects of the past and the future in them, and they are descriptions of one great Natural Law that all matter, physical and spiritual, is subject to: the Law of Reciprocal Action. This Law tells us that whatever we will experience in the future is the result of choices we made in the past. Very simply then, 'the future' is the consequence of the past.
So what this means in terms of prophecies therefore, is that whatever an individual is shown or is able to recognize through visions of the future, is really only a decisive 'knot' in the 'carpet of destiny' that mankind has woven for itself. These 'knots' are the links to the repercussions (according to the Natural Law of Reciprocal Action) which we will have to experience for our past actions. Since the future is the consequence of the past, it is made up of threads from earlier decisions.
Why are so many prophecies wrong?
Most who believe in prophecies, and often those who believe they have the ability to prophesy, do not take the influence of man's free will into consideration. But it is exactly because of free will that many prophecies are not fulfilled. A prophecy shows what could be, if one continues along a certain path. For instance, say that a farmer twenty years ago started to use carcinogenic pesticides on his crops, and then other farmers followed his lead. A visionary at that time might have foreseen thousands of people dying of cancer, and this certainly might be the outcome if farmers continued using those particular chemicals until the present day. But imagine that after only a few years the farmer realized that he was eroding the soil and destroying the nutrients in his crops by spraying them with these pesticides, and so therefore exercised his free will by deciding to switch to organic pest control, instead. And imagine that other farmers came to the same conclusion and did likewise. It is very probable that the original prophecy would not be fulfilled.
The key therefore to whether or not a prophecy is fulfilled is the present. The present offers limitless opportunities for people to exert their free wills. In fact, the free will can only be implemented in the present: the past is too late, and the future is not yet! But as soon as one puts his free will into action, it becomes part of the past, and therefore carries with it, for good or bad, a future consequence. In his work In the Light of Truth, written in the 1930s, Abd-ru-shin clearly explained this: "His [Man's] free will lies solely in the decision, of which he may make many every hour. In the independent weaving of the Laws of Creation, however, he is unswervingly subject to the consequences of every one of his personal decisions! Therein lies his responsibility, which is inseparably connected with the gift of free will to make decisions, which is peculiar to and an absolute part of the human spirit."
From this then, it is clear that we will experience the repercussions of our actions, or rather, "We shall reap what we have sown." When, how and in what form these repercussions will take place, and what will occur afterwards, can only be determined through our own present actions, through our free will. It would therefore be totally futile to cut oneself off from the outside world and fall into a state of end-of-the-world panic. Since our free will is within the framework of Creation, our future is open and not predetermined. Although we will not be able to prevent ourselves from going past certain markers on the path of our development, the determination and free will of man are strong enough to influence these events decisively. In regard to prophecies this means that, through our actions or inactions, things can develop quite differently from the way in which they were originally prophesied.
The true value of prophecies
Considering all of this then, the true value of prophecies lies in how they should make one alert by pointing to possible repercussions. We can then determine to do things in the present that will ensure either that negative prophecies will not come true or, at least, might not be as severe as if we had paid no attention to them at all. However, prophecies should never mislead us to believe the future is determined, and all of our efforts to effect our destiny are senseless.
Werner Huemer is the editor-in-chief of the German magazine GralsWelt. Micah Rubenstein is the General Manager of Grail Foundation Press. "In the Light of Truth", is available at your local bookstore or by calling the publisher at 1-800-427-9217. E-mail: GFP@Knox.net. Internet: www.GrailMessage.com
Join Our Free y2k Study Group
Schedule for July/August: Mondays: July 26, August 23. Time: 6:30-8:30 pm. Location: 575 Duncan Ave. S., Clearwater. RSVP required as seating limited. Call (727) 449-8964 or e-mail me: david@altnewtimes.com.
Hope to see you!
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