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Gerald Henthorn

Me and Sid Out at the Break Table

  • I’ve heard this expression quite often in recent years, “You are a spirit having a materiel experience.”  For some reason, that expression conflabergasted me.  I just wasn’t grasping the concept.  I should say I wasn’t getting a good grip on it, it kept trying to slip back out of my fingers.

    One day a month ago, or so, I decided to sit down and contemplate the subject.  I got comfortable, and cleared out my mind, then asked myself the question, “What does ‘You are a spirit having a materiel experience’ mean?”

    I’m walking around in my mind examining the subject.  My thoughts take me to the outside break area of my ‘real job.’  Not where I really wanted to have my mind go at that point in time, but I went with it.  I sat down on one of the industrial type out doors picnic tables, and lit a cigarette.  At the table with me was an old fork lift operator my mind had conjured up to talk to me … an involuntary imaginary co-worker named Sid.

    “What are you doing here?” Sid asked, “It’s your day off.”

    “I’m thinking.” I said.

    “What about?” Sid asked.

    “Stuff.” I said.

    “What stuff?” he asked.

    “Stuffy stuff stuff.” I said.

    “Whatever, Dude!” he said, “I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”

    Then it dawned on me that this person my brain conjured up to talk to me may not have been a distracter dispatched by my Ego.  His function may not have been to keep me doubting, and pouting, and fretting over the funny sound my car made that morning.  It dawned on me that this person my brain conjured up to talk to me may have been dispatched by a place way down deep in my sub-conscious mind where I am not skilled enough to reach directly.  This person, this imaginary friend sitting across from me at a table in my mind may have been a research assistant, of sorts.

    “No, wait.” I said to Sid, “Maybe you can help me find the answer to a question I’ve been thinking about.”

    “What?” he asked.

    “You’ve heard the expression, ‘You are a spirit having a materiel experience?’” I asked.

    “Yes.” he responded.

    “OK,” I said, “I can’t seem to get a handle on the concept.  Do you know what that means?”

    “Sure I do.” he said, and pointed out into the vast, mostly unpaved parking lot where the wind was kicking up dust devils, little miniature tornadoes.  “See those whirlies out there in the parking lot?”

    “Yes.” I responded.

    “That’s the air having a dirt experience.  Same thing, only different.”

    “I don’t get it.”

    “OK,” he said, “the atmosphere … the air, for whatever reason, gets moving out there over the parking lot in such a way that it gets dirt tangled up in it, and the two cart around with each other till, for whatever reason, the air can’t cart the dirt around anymore and lets it drop back to the ground.  The air is still there, it just isn’t carting around dirt any more, and the dirt is still there, it just isn’t being carted around by the air any more.  Same thing, only different.”

    “But, I’m not a swirly whirly cone of dust caught up in a minie wind storm, and … “

    “No,” he said, “you are a highly organized mud puddle, when you get right down to the nitty gritty facts, and as for the Spirit … for now lets just say that the Spirit is nothing more than the Will of the Cosmos acting on the matter and the energy it has at its disposal for such functions as Life in this neck of the woods.  Same thing, only different.  Still lost?”

    “Not as bad as I was.” I said, “I think I have all the parts I need to piece it together, though.”

    So, I left Sid to filter his way back down into the depths of my mind, got up, wandered next door to the ice cream shop, treated Sid to a double cheeseburger and fries before he got too deep, causing me to ingest way too many carbohydrates,  subsequently inducing a nap, which I wandered into after wandering back home.

    Bob Proctor pointed out that Albert Einsteins brain is preserved in a mason jar somewhere.  Possibly the most efficient and powerful thinking mechanism producible by mankind rendered useless.  Even if the rest of Albert were present and attached to it it would not function without the fleeting, indescribable, immeasurable, indiscernible Holly Spirit … which in Hebrew is Roakh ( Rosh/Khet ), whose literal translation is ‘The Breath (or Wind) Whom Precedes The Presence of God.’

    Thank you for reading my post.  Till I can yakkety shmack at you  again, remember, you are spectacular.