I had a similar experience yesterday. Out here in the sticks the whole village is on oil - and at this time of year a lot of the traffic movements are various unmarked tankers darting about filling people's oil tanks for the winter, and resupplying the farms in the middle of harvest.
I ordered 1000 litres of oil on Monday, for delivery next week. Yesterday I went for a walk at lunchtime (working from home) and was passed a couple of lanes away from my house by one of those typical battered, unmarked tankers. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was our oil, so I turned round and ran after the tanker for 800 yards, catching up with it breathlessly as it pulled up, 7 days early, outside our gate. Had I not bothered, we'd have missed our slot - no one else was in the house, and you tend not to leave massive domestic oil tanks unlocked...
I am just back from my French conversation group which precipitated this thread. We had a most lively discussion, and, having no particular experiences of the supernatural of my own to recount, I borrowed from this thread two short stories which were easy to put across- thank you NEQ for the lady in the cemetery and Martin54 for the fall of ice stories.
I think the consensus has largely been summed up by Shakespeare, that, despite our rationalisations and a healthy dose of scepticism, “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Nobody else in the group is a Christian believer, so when belief in God, miracles and an after-life came up, one expressed the view that such belief is misplaced but comforting, another would like to believe but is agnostic, and the others had no interest. Not quite consistent with their approach to other stories.
I rather wished I could recount some stories attributed to divine intervention but I am - er, not that sort of person.
O well. Even if it was a Wild Boar, s/he may have been scared of you, and remained silent as a result.
Are there Badgers to be found in that forest? Or Deer? Creatures rightly wary of Humming Beans...
Deer aren't nocturnal. Badgers don't live in conifer forest. So, Occam's razor says boar or man. And men are more nocturnal. So are wolves of course... Trained humans don't move for 20 minutes. I agree a pig would move away.
Fair enough. I wasn't trying to diminish what must have been a scary experience for you - merely suggesting that there might be several explanations for it.
O well. Even if it was a Wild Boar, s/he may have been scared of you, and remained silent as a result.
Are there Badgers to be found in that forest? Or Deer? Creatures rightly wary of Humming Beans...
Deer aren't nocturnal.
Maybe German deer aren't. Whitetail are.
So it would appear. Other species are crepuscular. This was in the dead of night. But it could have been a deer. Whatever it was only made one mistake, and was perfectly silent before and after. Near a trail. Very human.
Wife had an experience we have never been able to explain. Being in her 20s she would go on trips without much planning. She had come out to California to visit me. Then she was going to drive completely cross country to her folks. She would not set up motel rooms along the way. She just felt she would find something whenever she stopped. The first night out driving home, she was exhausted by the time she got to Utah, No town in sight. Then she saw a motel on an interchange. She pulled in and checked in for the night. The motelier was very friendly, gave her a decent room, and told her not to worry about check out time. She left mid-morning completely rested.
We have driven that stretch of highway several times since, but we have never located that motel. It's as if it never existed.
Some other people we have known over the years tell us they have had similar experiences.
I wonder if these ghost motels take credit cards? And what appears on the statement?
It has been so long ago, I do not remember if there was a charge or if she paid cash.
In which case, did the proprietors put the cash in a ghostly till? 👻
Did the dollars vanish when the motel faded into the ether.
Sorry @Gramps49 but I don’t 'buy' your story at all. I think it's bollocks.
I've never been to Utah but imagine it's a pretty big place.
And if it was so long ago the obvious explanation is that your memory is playing tricks.
Anyhow, @Puzzler has raised an interesting point about divine intervention. Most of the anecdotes on this thread seem to frame 'supernatural' experience in terms of ghouls and ghosts and things that go bump in the night.
There's been very little so far about the 'supernatural' in charismatic terms - tongues, prophecy, healings and 'words of knowledge' and the like.
That probably reflects the current ecclesial make-up of the Ship. Charismatic claims were often met with scepticism here. I've often been among the most sceptical.
I'd prefer the term 'supranatural' rather than 'supernatural' and although I'm no longer a card-carrying charismatic, I wouldn't dismiss all such claims out of hand.
I don't know how any of this stuff 'works'. I sometimes come across Orthodox people who say that Saint So-and-so helped them with this, that or the other. I find myself wondering how they know it was that particular Saint who apparently put in a word for them. Generally, of course, they mean that they'd been invoking some particular Saint for some time and now received whatever result it was they were looking for.
An evangelical would say, of course, that they'd been 'seeking the Lord' on this matter for some time and now he had mercifully granted their request.
Would the response to that request been more forthcoming if Saint Papadopoulos Lopodos Floppadopolous been invoked?
Or Aunt Edna the noted intercessor?
I can certainly think of times when I experienced a strong sense of the numinous back in my charismatic days. Equally, on occasion, I've felt a sense of 'presence' before an icon or, very memorably, in the silence before Vespers began.
A friend had a very distinct impression of the Divine presence, as it were, during his chrismation.
My late wife had a similar experience/impression during her confirmation in the Anglican Church.
I certainly don't dismiss the 'affective' element in faith nor would I completely reject all charismatic claims.
But I do find myself somewhat in sympathy with good Bishop Butler in dialogue with John Wesley.
'Sir, the pretending to special revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is an horrid thing, a very horrid thing.'
Is Heaven really the place for “harsh,” though? I like a lot of your comments but this seems kind of mean, particularly on a thread in which people may be opening up about stuff they might feel awkward talking about to others because of negative reactions. This isn’t Purgatory…
I'm sure if you found yourself in the 17th C and tried to describe electronic banking, they'd have had you on a bonfire before you could say 'witchcraft'.
We all have our little corners of mystery: mine is precognition.
Is Heaven really the place for “harsh,” though? I like a lot of your comments but this seems kind of mean, particularly on a thread in which people may be opening up about stuff they might feel awkward talking about to others because of negative reactions. This isn’t Purgatory…
You are right. This isn't Purgatory. And no, @KarlLB wasn't being 'harsh.' I was.
Perhaps I've lived in the North of England top long. They call a spade a bloody shovel.
Of course @Gramps49's story is bollocks. I give it no more credence than I give pious Orthodox accounts about angels apparently retouching old murals in Macedonian churches when nobody's looking.
I call bollocks on it. Motels don't appear and disappear in the middle of Utah taking people's cash or credit card details with them into the ether.
It's clearly a load of cobblers.
I'm surprised at Gramps49 for his credulity. He's obviously either forgotten the details or driven down the wrong roads looking for the place. I don't know how many roads criss-cross Utah and don't imagine it's like Piccadilly Circus but c'mon.
Call me harsh or call me to Hell but I call bollocks on it.
More seriously, and perhaps Purgatorily, 🤔 all this begs the question of course as to why I've only challenged @Gramps49 on his story and not anyone else on theirs.
Not @betjemaniac with his terrifying account of a 15 stone rugby players spooked out of his wits. I had shrank below my duvet cover after reading that one.
Nor other accounts of ghostly relatives or household exorcism and so on.
Let us just say that your example does nothing to support the case for Welsh literary merit.
But stynt of that, as they say in Chaucer.
I would say we all have memories which we are utterly certain are veridical, but when we try to find the place again, or reconstruct the occasion, or recall it with someone we know was there - we can't. Jung has an account of viewing some mosaics in Ravenna, and discussing them with a companion, only to find they did not exist. Dreams? Imagination? A mis-interpretation of something that did happen?
@Gamma Gamaliel , I can give you an example of a spiritual supernatural occurrence - a friend had been given the gift of tongues but wasn’t sure if it was genuine or whether she was just making it up. She was at a prayer meeting and felt she had to use tongues. At the end of the meeting, the person next to her asked if she knew what she was saying - apparently she was saying “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” in Irish Gaelic.
Sorry, the heavyweight critter in the woods was obviously natural, but the fear it evoked felt like one inspired by the supernatural.
Spike comes to mind,
Things that go bump in the night,
shouldn't really give one a fright.
It's the hole in each ear, which lets in the fear,
that and the absence of light.
@Gamma Gamaliel , I can give you an example of a spiritual supernatural occurrence - a friend had been given the gift of tongues but wasn’t sure if it was genuine or whether she was just making it up. She was at a prayer meeting and felt she had to use tongues. At the end of the meeting, the person next to her asked if she knew what she was saying - apparently she was saying “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” in Irish Gaelic.
Ok. I've heard similar stories but always find them puzzling. Why would God want someone to say a Trinitarian formula in Irish Gaelic rather than in their own language?
I've also heard of English tourists 'interpreting' prayers in Welsh-speaking parts of Wales as though they were 'tongues' - and coming up with something that bore no relation whatsoever to the actual Welsh which was spoken.
Conversely, my brother-in-law claimed to have been overheard speaking Afrikaans when 'praying in tongues.'
Content warning: racism
When I asked him what he'd apparently said, he joked,
'You bleck bestid. Get orff our land, Kaffir!'
Naughty, but...
I've heard all sorts of stories both debunking or promoting tongues and I put most of them- on both sides of the argument - in the category of urban myth.
That said, I've heard some accounts from people who are by no means either active promoters or active denigrators which give me pause.
It's no longer something I'm particularly exercised about one way or the other though.
@Firenze, I'll offer you Dylan Thomas, R S Thomas and sundry other Welsh poets as exemplars of eloquence. But you have to admit that my old boss's quip has a certain ring to it.
And yes, absolutely, to your observations about memory. I can vividly remember seeing things as a child that I know I didn't see but my twin brother saw instead.
@Gamma Gamaliel it’s not “naughty” it’s racist and offensive and, per forum guidelines, you should not be be posting reference to such material unless there is a pressing need to do so and then behind spoiler tags with a content warning.
A strange thing that I am convinced happened to me. I attach no great import to it, FWIW, it's just a bizarre, inexplicable thing that I put on a level with Arthur Dent's biscuits.
In 2001, I had a summer job working in an Alsace hotel. Part of my wages were paid by cheque, but another part, for being on call and the like, in cash (the owner was trying not quite legally to reduce his tax bill). One month, the cash part came to 2000 FF. (Equivalent to about 200 GBP at the time.) The owner handed it over in 200 franc notes.
I went back to my room and counted the loot, and was rather surprised to find not 10, but 11 notes. After some umming and aahing about whether I should give the extra one back, I decided for right or wrong not to say anything. (I was quite a scrupulous little evangelical at the time, but I thought he might be embarrassed if he'd intended to give me that much.)
I put one note in my purse to spend, and the remaining ten aside to pay into the bank a couple of days later. On arrival in the bank, I counted them again, twice, and found eleven of them. Assuming I must have forgotten to keep one out, I looked in my purse, and found that one still there.
Finding the whole situation very odd, I headed over to the counter to pay in my (now apparently) eleven notes. The guy on the counter, who for some reason refused to believe I spoke French, asked "'Ow much eez eet?" so I counted them out onto the counter and this time got to ten, eleven... twelve. He agreed there were twelve and gave me a slip for 2400FF paid into my count.
I walked out of the bank with my head spinning.
The only explanation I can come up with is that they were stuck together and I miscounted, but it really doesn't work for me. They weren't new notes, I was a broke student, and very careful about money. People who work in banks also usually don't make mistakes when they count money and he also counted and got to twelve.
And presumably the extra 200FF wasn't just what you needed to save the family farm or buy vital medicine for your little brother - you were just a little better off. I can believe that happened because it is just so inconsequential.
And presumably the extra 200FF wasn't just what you needed to save the family farm or buy vital medicine for your little brother - you were just a little better off. I can believe that happened because it is just so inconsequential.
That’s funny, i believe the usual reaction is just the opposite—to believe if there seems to be a purpose or meaning. (I confess that I’ ve been dealing with a series of improbable events—but impossible, just unlikely—and the fact that they seem inadequately motivated is definitely messing with my head. Like, “Why am i being given such gifts when i was perfectly fine before?” It makes me feel like I’m taking up resources better spent on someone else. I wonder if lottery winners feel that way.)
@Gamma Gamaliel it’s not “naughty” it’s racist and offensive and, per forum guidelines, you should not be be posting reference to such material unless there is a pressing need to do so and then behind spoiler tags with a content warning.
Doublethink, Admin
[/Admin Warning]
Apologies. I have shared this anecdote before and asked for it to be put behind spoiler tags with a health warning. I don't know how to do that, but should have asked for that to be done this time or better still, replaced it with another 'tongues' anecdote. I have several and the rest aren't as offensive as this one.
FWIW, my brother-in-law didn't intend the comment to be racist but as a jab at Apartheid. One could argue that it is racist against Afrikaaners though.
Well, of course there can be odd coincidences which are not directly miraculous but are still providential. One could look at the line of causation leading up to it without any apparent supernatural elements, but that doesn’t mean God’s not involved (but in my theology He’s kind of involved in everything across all space and time and beyond at once…).
That’s funny, i believe the usual reaction is just the opposite—to believe if there seems to be a purpose or meaning. (I confess that I’ ve been dealing with a series of improbable events—but impossible, just unlikely—and the fact that they seem inadequately motivated is definitely messing with my head. Like, “Why am i being given such gifts when i was perfectly fine before?” It makes me feel like I’m taking up resources better spent on someone else. I wonder if lottery winners feel that way.)
If I may, I think your mistake here is thinking that there are a limited number of improbable things ("resources") to go around. Me apparently having money multiply in my hand in no way precludes God, or the Universe, or whatever you want to call it, doing an infinite number of nice improbable things for other people.
That’s funny, i believe the usual reaction is just the opposite—to believe if there seems to be a purpose or meaning. (I confess that I’ ve been dealing with a series of improbable events—but impossible, just unlikely—and the fact that they seem inadequately motivated is definitely messing with my head. Like, “Why am i being given such gifts when i was perfectly fine before?” It makes me feel like I’m taking up resources better spent on someone else. I wonder if lottery winners feel that way.)
If I may, I think your mistake here is thinking that there are a limited number of improbable things ("resources") to go around. Me apparently having money multiply in my hand in no way precludes God, or the Universe, or whatever you want to call it, doing an infinite number of nice improbable things for other people.
Well technically she didn’t say that she thought that, but that she felt that way. My emotions and my intellect are often not remotely in harmony with each other.
That’s funny, i believe the usual reaction is just the opposite—to believe if there seems to be a purpose or meaning. (I confess that I’ ve been dealing with a series of improbable events—but impossible, just unlikely—and the fact that they seem inadequately motivated is definitely messing with my head. Like, “Why am i being given such gifts when i was perfectly fine before?” It makes me feel like I’m taking up resources better spent on someone else. I wonder if lottery winners feel that way.)
If I may, I think your mistake here is thinking that there are a limited number of improbable things ("resources") to go around. Me apparently having money multiply in my hand in no way precludes God, or the Universe, or whatever you want to call it, doing an infinite number of nice improbable things for other people.
No, actually I didn't have my brain engaged enough for even that!
Though I appreciate the kindness of your explanation.
I don't believe in the zero sum game, and I have seen things similar to what you describe in my own life. It's just that the reactions I've seen from people who I've told (and I often don't tell, anymore) seems to be more often positive if they can catch hold of what seems to them an adequate "reason"; but without that, they seem more resistant to the idea that it could have happened at all.
As for me personally, I have no trouble believing your story, it's very like something that happened to me as a very poor student in college. A tad more miraculous, but not much.
As a very hard up young couple with a specific financial need, we received an envelope through the letter box containing £600. No indication of who posted it, though I had an idea. I don’t consider it a supernatural event, or miraculous, but I do think it was an act of generosity from a Christian prompted by God.
Maybe to a non-believer it is a supernatural event. If you don’t believe in God then there is no rational explanation.
@Gramps49 I don’t know exactly what happened involving the phantom motel, but I believe that is how the events appeared to happen, at very least. ❤️ I think this thread should be a place where we can share our experiences without being slammed. I’m not quite comfortable sharing my own at the moment…
FWIW, when I posted previously about the woman in the graveyard, and KarlLB suggested that a rational explanation was that she was stealing the flowers, I was amused, delighted and impressed. So I hope that no-one else thinks KarlLB was being "harsh" on that occasion.
I have a non-supernatural story. My mother was shopping in Marks & Spencer when an elderly woman walking towards her stopped, stared and seemed distressed. Mum, thinking that the woman was taking ill, went up to her to see if she needed help.
The old lady apologised, and said that Mum looked so much like an old friend of hers, who had died many years ago, that she thought she'd seen a ghost. As she chatted to Mum, it transpired that her late friend had been my grandmother. Mum had been mistaken for the ghost of her own mother!
Those resemblances, while perfectly explicable in genetic terms, can nevertheless raise a shiver.
A cousin posted a photograph of my great-grandmother (of whom I know nothing) but there, between the bonnet and the bombazine, was a face not unlike my own, and with one specific feature identical.
Those resemblances, while perfectly explicable in genetic terms, can nevertheless raise a shiver.
A cousin posted a photograph of my great-grandmother (of whom I know nothing) but there, between the bonnet and the bombazine, was a face not unlike my own, and with one specific feature identical.
Paging @Celtic Knotweed who I know can tell the tale better than I can.
Those resemblances, while perfectly explicable in genetic terms, can nevertheless raise a shiver.
A cousin posted a photograph of my great-grandmother (of whom I know nothing) but there, between the bonnet and the bombazine, was a face not unlike my own, and with one specific feature identical.
Paging @Celtic Knotweed who I know can tell the tale better than I can.
Ok, I'll talk!
One day @Sandemaniac and I were at my parents house, and ended up looking at assorted old family photos with Mum. I think it was about then he realised that the little blonde lass in some of the pictures on the walls was me (with brown hair by then). There was one black and white photo that confused him a bit. A young girl, sat reading a book, in the sort of position I sit in, with her head tilted to one side exactly as I do, looking exactly like the shots he'd seen of me at that age. But it was in a bundle with people in Victorian outfits. Took him about 5 minutes of puzzling before he asked Mum... she explained that the picture in question is of one of her mother's sisters (so my great-aunt), and was taken in the 1890s. The resemblance is startling.
As a very hard up young couple with a specific financial need, we received an envelope through the letter box containing £600. No indication of who posted it, though I had an idea. I don’t consider it a supernatural event, or miraculous, but I do think it was an act of generosity from a Christian prompted by God.
Maybe to a non-believer it is a supernatural event. If you don’t believe in God then there is no rational explanation..
Something similar happened to us, and we were able to do something similar twice when we were rather better off .
Which brings us back to Mrs @Gramps49 motel. It doesn't have to be an angelic manifestation, simply a place of safety and an example of human kindness when she needed it.
These things stay with you, and if your world view disposes you to see them as in some way transcendent of ordinary reality, what odds?
Allow me to reiterate what @Boogie posted, let's keep our posts Heavenly.
Some of us may want to share here, but might feel like they can't because someone may make fun of them or disbelieve their experience.
Back to Florida shorts and t-shirt
jedijudy
Heaven Host
I don't care if you think what I have shared is bull.
Let's face it, you more often than not have attacked me personally. Your enmity is showing. 'nuff said.
Many apologies. I will impose a self-restraining order on myself on this thread so as not to deter others from posting about these things for fear of jibes.
I was being far too Purgatorial and Hellish even and it hasn't been at all helpful a contribution on my part.
I bear you no ill-will @Gramps49 but I have reacted rather testily to some of your posts at times. I will amend that and try to be more careful in future.
My late husband was riding alone on his motorcycle one day just for the pleasure of it. He saw a store that he had never been in before and had no reason to go in, yet he pulled off of the road, parked his bike, and went inside to look around. Walking down an aisle, he saw an older woman counting money in her hand and putting several items back on the shelf. She was poorly dressed. He took a 20-dollar bill out of his pocket, walked up behind her, and said, excuse me, I believe you dropped this and gave her the money. She said, No, but he said well, it was right behind you, so it must be yours and he walked out of the store and rode away. He said the strangest feeling made him stop at the store, a feeling he could not ignore.
So it would appear. Other species are crepuscular. This was in the dead of night. But it could have been a deer. Whatever it was only made one mistake, and was perfectly silent before and after. Near a trail. Very human.
I'd lost track of this. It woke me up from insomnolence very early this morning.
It would seem that our white-tail are as well. Experience living amongst them for quite some time, however, has shown me that between rush hours, particularly at night, they are quite busy.
Whatever you heard that night, I'm glad it only caused fright.
Comments
I ordered 1000 litres of oil on Monday, for delivery next week. Yesterday I went for a walk at lunchtime (working from home) and was passed a couple of lanes away from my house by one of those typical battered, unmarked tankers. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was our oil, so I turned round and ran after the tanker for 800 yards, catching up with it breathlessly as it pulled up, 7 days early, outside our gate. Had I not bothered, we'd have missed our slot - no one else was in the house, and you tend not to leave massive domestic oil tanks unlocked...
I think the consensus has largely been summed up by Shakespeare, that, despite our rationalisations and a healthy dose of scepticism, “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Nobody else in the group is a Christian believer, so when belief in God, miracles and an after-life came up, one expressed the view that such belief is misplaced but comforting, another would like to believe but is agnostic, and the others had no interest. Not quite consistent with their approach to other stories.
I rather wished I could recount some stories attributed to divine intervention but I am - er, not that sort of person.
Indeed. I value having my tires kicked.
So it would appear. Other species are crepuscular. This was in the dead of night. But it could have been a deer. Whatever it was only made one mistake, and was perfectly silent before and after. Near a trail. Very human.
In which case, did the proprietors put the cash in a ghostly till? 👻
Did the dollars vanish when the motel faded into the ether.
Sorry @Gramps49 but I don’t 'buy' your story at all. I think it's bollocks.
I've never been to Utah but imagine it's a pretty big place.
And if it was so long ago the obvious explanation is that your memory is playing tricks.
@KarlLB isn't the only one who can do 'harsh'.
Anyhow, @Puzzler has raised an interesting point about divine intervention. Most of the anecdotes on this thread seem to frame 'supernatural' experience in terms of ghouls and ghosts and things that go bump in the night.
There's been very little so far about the 'supernatural' in charismatic terms - tongues, prophecy, healings and 'words of knowledge' and the like.
That probably reflects the current ecclesial make-up of the Ship. Charismatic claims were often met with scepticism here. I've often been among the most sceptical.
I'd prefer the term 'supranatural' rather than 'supernatural' and although I'm no longer a card-carrying charismatic, I wouldn't dismiss all such claims out of hand.
I don't know how any of this stuff 'works'. I sometimes come across Orthodox people who say that Saint So-and-so helped them with this, that or the other. I find myself wondering how they know it was that particular Saint who apparently put in a word for them. Generally, of course, they mean that they'd been invoking some particular Saint for some time and now received whatever result it was they were looking for.
An evangelical would say, of course, that they'd been 'seeking the Lord' on this matter for some time and now he had mercifully granted their request.
Would the response to that request been more forthcoming if Saint Papadopoulos Lopodos Floppadopolous been invoked?
Or Aunt Edna the noted intercessor?
I can certainly think of times when I experienced a strong sense of the numinous back in my charismatic days. Equally, on occasion, I've felt a sense of 'presence' before an icon or, very memorably, in the silence before Vespers began.
A friend had a very distinct impression of the Divine presence, as it were, during his chrismation.
My late wife had a similar experience/impression during her confirmation in the Anglican Church.
I certainly don't dismiss the 'affective' element in faith nor would I completely reject all charismatic claims.
But I do find myself somewhat in sympathy with good Bishop Butler in dialogue with John Wesley.
'Sir, the pretending to special revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is an horrid thing, a very horrid thing.'
I do. I don’t know for sure what happened but I think it could be one of those Weird Things.
Is Heaven really the place for “harsh,” though? I like a lot of your comments but this seems kind of mean, particularly on a thread in which people may be opening up about stuff they might feel awkward talking about to others because of negative reactions. This isn’t Purgatory…
We all have our little corners of mystery: mine is precognition.
You are right. This isn't Purgatory. And no, @KarlLB wasn't being 'harsh.' I was.
Perhaps I've lived in the North of England top long. They call a spade a bloody shovel.
Of course @Gramps49's story is bollocks. I give it no more credence than I give pious Orthodox accounts about angels apparently retouching old murals in Macedonian churches when nobody's looking.
I call bollocks on it. Motels don't appear and disappear in the middle of Utah taking people's cash or credit card details with them into the ether.
It's clearly a load of cobblers.
I'm surprised at Gramps49 for his credulity. He's obviously either forgotten the details or driven down the wrong roads looking for the place. I don't know how many roads criss-cross Utah and don't imagine it's like Piccadilly Circus but c'mon.
Call me harsh or call me to Hell but I call bollocks on it.
(I think you could say that without quite so many bollocks and cobblers).
To quote a boss I once had, 'I'm a bloody Welshman. I say "shit", I say "f***", I say "bastard."'
Note the rhythm of that. Genius.
Two short monosyllabic swear words followed by a two-syllable one. Fantastic.
Boom-boom BOOM.
Boom-boom BOOM.
Boom-boom BOOM. BOOM.
More seriously, and perhaps Purgatorily, 🤔 all this begs the question of course as to why I've only challenged @Gramps49 on his story and not anyone else on theirs.
Not @betjemaniac with his terrifying account of a 15 stone rugby players spooked out of his wits. I had shrank below my duvet cover after reading that one.
Nor other accounts of ghostly relatives or household exorcism and so on.
Why pick on poor old Gramps49?
Keep it Heavenly please. 😇
++Removes hostly flat cap++
But stynt of that, as they say in Chaucer.
I would say we all have memories which we are utterly certain are veridical, but when we try to find the place again, or reconstruct the occasion, or recall it with someone we know was there - we can't. Jung has an account of viewing some mosaics in Ravenna, and discussing them with a companion, only to find they did not exist. Dreams? Imagination? A mis-interpretation of something that did happen?
Spike comes to mind,
Ok. I've heard similar stories but always find them puzzling. Why would God want someone to say a Trinitarian formula in Irish Gaelic rather than in their own language?
I've also heard of English tourists 'interpreting' prayers in Welsh-speaking parts of Wales as though they were 'tongues' - and coming up with something that bore no relation whatsoever to the actual Welsh which was spoken.
Conversely, my brother-in-law claimed to have been overheard speaking Afrikaans when 'praying in tongues.'
Content warning: racism
When I asked him what he'd apparently said, he joked,
Naughty, but...
I've heard all sorts of stories both debunking or promoting tongues and I put most of them- on both sides of the argument - in the category of urban myth.
That said, I've heard some accounts from people who are by no means either active promoters or active denigrators which give me pause.
It's no longer something I'm particularly exercised about one way or the other though.
@Firenze, I'll offer you Dylan Thomas, R S Thomas and sundry other Welsh poets as exemplars of eloquence. But you have to admit that my old boss's quip has a certain ring to it.
And yes, absolutely, to your observations about memory. I can vividly remember seeing things as a child that I know I didn't see but my twin brother saw instead.
I don't put any supernatural explanation on that.
(ETA Spoiler text, Doublethink, Admin)[/i)
@Gamma Gamaliel it’s not “naughty” it’s racist and offensive and, per forum guidelines, you should not be be posting reference to such material unless there is a pressing need to do so and then behind spoiler tags with a content warning.
Doublethink, Admin
[/Admin Warning]
In 2001, I had a summer job working in an Alsace hotel. Part of my wages were paid by cheque, but another part, for being on call and the like, in cash (the owner was trying not quite legally to reduce his tax bill). One month, the cash part came to 2000 FF. (Equivalent to about 200 GBP at the time.) The owner handed it over in 200 franc notes.
I went back to my room and counted the loot, and was rather surprised to find not 10, but 11 notes. After some umming and aahing about whether I should give the extra one back, I decided for right or wrong not to say anything. (I was quite a scrupulous little evangelical at the time, but I thought he might be embarrassed if he'd intended to give me that much.)
I put one note in my purse to spend, and the remaining ten aside to pay into the bank a couple of days later. On arrival in the bank, I counted them again, twice, and found eleven of them. Assuming I must have forgotten to keep one out, I looked in my purse, and found that one still there.
Finding the whole situation very odd, I headed over to the counter to pay in my (now apparently) eleven notes. The guy on the counter, who for some reason refused to believe I spoke French, asked "'Ow much eez eet?" so I counted them out onto the counter and this time got to ten, eleven... twelve. He agreed there were twelve and gave me a slip for 2400FF paid into my count.
I walked out of the bank with my head spinning.
The only explanation I can come up with is that they were stuck together and I miscounted, but it really doesn't work for me. They weren't new notes, I was a broke student, and very careful about money. People who work in banks also usually don't make mistakes when they count money and he also counted and got to twelve.
For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.
Apologies. I have shared this anecdote before and asked for it to be put behind spoiler tags with a health warning. I don't know how to do that, but should have asked for that to be done this time or better still, replaced it with another 'tongues' anecdote. I have several and the rest aren't as offensive as this one.
FWIW, my brother-in-law didn't intend the comment to be racist but as a jab at Apartheid. One could argue that it is racist against Afrikaaners though.
But point taken.
If I may, I think your mistake here is thinking that there are a limited number of improbable things ("resources") to go around. Me apparently having money multiply in my hand in no way precludes God, or the Universe, or whatever you want to call it, doing an infinite number of nice improbable things for other people.
Well technically she didn’t say that she thought that, but that she felt that way. My emotions and my intellect are often not remotely in harmony with each other.
No, actually I didn't have my brain engaged enough for even that!
Though I appreciate the kindness of your explanation.
I don't believe in the zero sum game, and I have seen things similar to what you describe in my own life. It's just that the reactions I've seen from people who I've told (and I often don't tell, anymore) seems to be more often positive if they can catch hold of what seems to them an adequate "reason"; but without that, they seem more resistant to the idea that it could have happened at all.
As for me personally, I have no trouble believing your story, it's very like something that happened to me as a very poor student in college. A tad more miraculous, but not much.
And it's lovely when things go like that.
Maybe to a non-believer it is a supernatural event. If you don’t believe in God then there is no rational explanation.
I don't care if you think what I have shared is bull.
Let's face it, you more often than not have attacked me personally. Your enmity is showing. 'nuff said.
I have a non-supernatural story. My mother was shopping in Marks & Spencer when an elderly woman walking towards her stopped, stared and seemed distressed. Mum, thinking that the woman was taking ill, went up to her to see if she needed help.
The old lady apologised, and said that Mum looked so much like an old friend of hers, who had died many years ago, that she thought she'd seen a ghost. As she chatted to Mum, it transpired that her late friend had been my grandmother. Mum had been mistaken for the ghost of her own mother!
A cousin posted a photograph of my great-grandmother (of whom I know nothing) but there, between the bonnet and the bombazine, was a face not unlike my own, and with one specific feature identical.
Paging @Celtic Knotweed who I know can tell the tale better than I can.
Ok, I'll talk!
One day @Sandemaniac and I were at my parents house, and ended up looking at assorted old family photos with Mum. I think it was about then he realised that the little blonde lass in some of the pictures on the walls was me (with brown hair by then). There was one black and white photo that confused him a bit. A young girl, sat reading a book, in the sort of position I sit in, with her head tilted to one side exactly as I do, looking exactly like the shots he'd seen of me at that age. But it was in a bundle with people in Victorian outfits. Took him about 5 minutes of puzzling before he asked Mum... she explained that the picture in question is of one of her mother's sisters (so my great-aunt), and was taken in the 1890s. The resemblance is startling.
Something similar happened to us, and we were able to do something similar twice when we were rather better off .
These things stay with you, and if your world view disposes you to see them as in some way transcendent of ordinary reality, what odds?
Allow me to reiterate what @Boogie posted, let's keep our posts Heavenly.
Some of us may want to share here, but might feel like they can't because someone may make fun of them or disbelieve their experience.
Back to Florida shorts and t-shirt
jedijudy
Heaven Host
Many apologies. I will impose a self-restraining order on myself on this thread so as not to deter others from posting about these things for fear of jibes.
I was being far too Purgatorial and Hellish even and it hasn't been at all helpful a contribution on my part.
I bear you no ill-will @Gramps49 but I have reacted rather testily to some of your posts at times. I will amend that and try to be more careful in future.
jj-HH
I'd lost track of this. It woke me up from insomnolence very early this morning.
It would seem that our white-tail are as well. Experience living amongst them for quite some time, however, has shown me that between rush hours, particularly at night, they are quite busy.
Whatever you heard that night, I'm glad it only caused fright.