have you lost family?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
I've always believed that faith is an intensely personal thing, and that religious institutions with all their rituals and whatnot (which is different from just plain old faith) isn't always the path a person needs to take in order to find enlightenment.

It probably all sounds somewhat New Age-ish, doesn't it?

No, in fact you pretty much summed up my feelings about spirituality there as well. For some people it's fine to follow the rituals and be comforted by them. But others have to find their own path, the standard explanations don't suffice.

PS For me it's not so much that I don't want to talk about things, but since it's so personal they'll never quite get what I'm trying to explain anyway, so why bother.

[Rex Little]

All my grandparents are gone. Not many people my age have a living grandparent; one grandfather died nearly 50 years ago.

My dad's older brother died two weeks short of his 80th birthday. Not bad for a lifelong chain smoker.

My mom died three years ago of a form of leukemia. She'd been fighting it for about a year. We expected her to last longer, but we also expected most of that extra time to be spent suffering, so on balance I consider it a blessing.

That's it, unless you count the miscarriages my sister-in-law had before my first niece was born. Not bad for a guy in his 50's.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Rex Little
Not bad for a guy in his 50's.

Alright, another member of the "Apolyton Old Fogey's Club"!