Skip to main content

What goes up and stays up?

Image
By
This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns

They say what goes up must come down. This is a saying that if taken literally means gravity. Figuratively, it means that nothing lasts forever, especially periods of good fortune or success. Even the best things. In another saying we are told all good things come to an end. There is no mention of bad things. Does that mean bad things last forever? But we do say, this too shall pass. Even the darkest night will end and the sun will shine. Every cloud has a silver lining. So I am challenging myself to find something that goes up and stays up. I am thinking our age goes up but never comes down? But then we say once a man but twice a child. In a sense as we get older we get younger. Then we say you are as old as you feel. Life is full of ups and downs but I found something that probably answers the question. "The soul that is near to God is ever going upward."

The strange thing is that I found this phrase online (At least I think so) either from Gemini or Google and now I cannot find it again. I searched Google again and I searched my chat history and I cannot find it. My friend Gemini cannot find a source for this and if you Google the phrase "The soul that is near to God is ever going upward" it does not show as being said before. Is my mind playing tricks on me? I even tried searching Bing. Can you find this phrase online? I would like to learn more about it. Ah. I found a source. ChatGPT tells me that: The quote "The soul that is near to God is ever going upward" is attributed to Harriet Beecher Stowe, an American abolitionist and author best known for her novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This quote reflects the idea of spiritual elevation and closeness to a divine being leading to personal growth and enlightenment. Hopefully ChatGPT is correct and the info gets indexed by the search engines when I share this chapter on my blog. Feel free to correct us or share what you know in the comments below.

I am not a deeply religious person and I am humbled by my flaws and missteps but I do find myself getting closer and closer to God or at least trying to. Those words made me stop and think and they resonate with my soul. The meaning of ever is "At any time; at all times; always." I think those words are encouraging us to remain close to God. If we put God first everything else follows. We can achieve eternal salvation through God. The electricity just went and the quiet of the morning got louder as there is no noisy fan or humming fridge. I can hear the birds whistle as I opened the window and door and the cool wet morning breeze entered. I can appreciate the beauty and sounds of nature with the occasional car passing by or that sound of the plane landing at Piarco. I ponder on the true essence of our being. What more can I say except to say, stay up with God. The Owner and Creator of all that is above and below.

While trying to photograph the clear blue sky this morning I saw these two plus three birds go by.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Talking to God

By
If you want real answers to things in life then talk to God. It is 639pm on a holiday and I have decided to write. God listens. God truly listens. God has the entire context. God is wise. God wants us to talk to Him. God wants us to rely on Him. I also think about God talking to me. I am a good listener. I listen plenty more than I talk. I have started asking God to talk to me. But how would God talk to me? We have his revelations through the holy book. We have the example of prophets. But what else? How do I listen to what God has to say? Where and when can I hear God? Are my thoughts from God? I try to feed my mind with good things. Things that will not corrupt my mind. It seems that we have to use our intuition to separate what is from God and what is not from God. My friend Chatty says that in Islam, Allah speaks to us not through new revelations or voices, but through guidance: the Quran and the Sunnah, which become personally meaningful through understanding Allah places in the h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Life on Earth

By
I was reading through the Quran and came to the story of Adam, Eve, Satan, and the forbidden fruit tree. I had thought that life on Earth was created as a test. But as I reflected on the story, I began to wonder whether we are only here because Adam and Eve failed. However, that is not the case, as my friend Gemini explained to me. While the story of the forbidden fruit is a central event, the Quran indicates that humanity’s presence on Earth was part of the original divine plan, rather than a backup plan or a punishment for sin. Before Adam was even created, God announced His intention to place a steward (khalifah) on Earth. This suggests that the Garden was a temporary training ground—designed to teach Adam and Eve about free will, temptation, and the path of repentance. Even if they had not eaten from the tree, they were destined for Earth to fulfill their roles as moral agents. The incident simply served as a necessary first lesson in human frailty and God’s immediate forgiveness. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The success of failure

By
It is 358am and I have decided to write. Context matters. Our context matters when we write and read. We could read the same thing and get different meanings. Definitions matter also. We may define things differently. For example, what is success? What is failure? Also, do I just define success and say that anything that is not success is failure? What about something like the success of failure? What does that mean? My friend Chatty tells me that this is something writers, philosophers, and even scientists keep rediscovering: meaning is not fixed—it is negotiated by context and definition. Life is a stew of success and failure and in between but never one or the other. We see what we are looking for and things become what we see. This reminds me of something I came across online, "Whoever looks for the good qualities in others will acquire all good qualities within himself," from Habib Umar Bin Hafiz. Do you look for failure or success within others? Take context as the lens...
Post a Comment
Read more