Holding a smooth, round stone in your hand, feeling the slightly rough surface and the weight of it in your fingers.

Watching a pair of squirrels chase each other up and down and around a tree.

Striking your mallet against the end of the chisel as you make the very first mark on a piece of stone.

Reading the last page of a really good book, taking a deep breath and opening it at the beginning to read it again.

Coming home after a long trip, dropping your bags on the kitchen floor and falling onto the bed, still fully dressed.

Eating a perfect soft boiled egg, with just the right amount of salt and pepper.

Walking barefoot on freshly mown grass.

Watching a flock of tame pigeons circling in unison as some guy directs them from his Brooklyn rooftop, waiting for that moment when the entire flock swerves away from the sun and it illuminates their pale underbellies in an epiphany of light and movement.

I don’t believe in ghosts, or mediums or fortune tellers or witches or goblins. I believe that coincidences occur that we attribute to the supernatural.

Here’s what happened to me, which I consider the strangest thing that ever happened to me:

My sister received a Ouija Board as a gift. The first time I played it with her, I was given the opportunity to ask the board any question I wanted. I looked around the living room in which we were playing with the board and noticed a bottle containing stick matches. I asked the board to tell us how many matches were in the bottle.

The small heart-shaped piece of plastic called a planchette moved our fingers first to the number 7 and then to the number 6. We counted out the matches in the bottle. There were 76.

I believed in ghosts, mediums, fortune tellers, witches and goblins thereafter, for many years, until I finally concluded I was punked by the true reality principle called “coincidence.”

A girl texted me to ask if I wanted to have a baby with her.

She didn’t mean this as a metaphor…

She meant, like, have a baby for real.

I hadn’t talked to her in ages.

I thought: she can’t be serious.

But, no, she actually meant it:

• She wanted a baby.
• She didn’t have a boyfriend.
• She was sick of white men.
• She thought our baby would be cute.

These were her arguments.

I tried to deflect with a joke.

She was serious!

I asked her if she was drunk.

She said nothing back.

It's a wonderful memory that I look back on every so often. It was me and a dear friend of mine. We were inside of the church we go to, practically alone spare a few people. Candles were lit. We talked, about life really. It's a pleasant memory that helps me in my dark times, and one I think of whenever I think of her.

But guess what? IT NEVER HAPPENED!! I had a memory of something that never even happened!! Yet I ‘remember’ it so vividly.

Why is this the case. Because of something called The Mandela Effect. (Note: Mandela was a man who EVERYBODY) swore that he went to jail, but he never did.)

Now the Mandela Effect, in pure essence, is the occurrence when you remember something so vividly, and yet it never happened. A perfect example is the debate of the “Berenstein Bears” or “Berenstain Bears”. People so vividly think it's Berenstein, when in actuality it is Berenstain.

This theory of the Mandela effect actually also stretches as far as you remembering memories from a you in a parallel universe.

So why did I bring this up?

Because in my case, it could have also probably happened maybe!!

There is no reason for me to think that it didn't happen! It very well could have, and I'm just getting certain factors wrong.

Maybe I'm just remembering the wrong person, which is likely, or its all together just a figment of my imagination. Or its a memory of something that happened in another FREAKING parallel universe.

Either way, it is confusing and somewhat terrifying because now I am questioning basically all memories that I have, and whether or not they even actually happened!

The incredible, deep-blue water of Crater Lake.

Crater Lake is located in southern Oregon state, United States. It is in the collapsed caldera of a large shield volcano, where water pools forming a large lake.

Sure, I’d seen pictures of Crater Lake, showing off “pristine” blue water. But so many scenic pictures are like that, with oversaturated colors; then when you get there it’s much more drab than the pictures let on. I had my doubts.

Then, when we took a family vacation one year when I was a child, we visited Crater Lake National Park. Dad drove the steep, winding road up to Rim Village. He parked the car. We got out, ran to the artistically crafted stone wall protecting the edge of the rim and… WOW!

It’s really not that blue. It’s bluer. Pictures don’t do it justice.

The incredible richness of the blue color of the lake is due to the clarity of the water. Crater Lake, which is fed only by rainwater and snowmelt and has no surface outlet, contains some of the clearest naturally occurring surface water in the world. It has a clarity depth of about 30m (clearest recording of Crater Lake is 41m).

What you are seeing when you view Crater Lake is the natural color of water. We think of clear water as having no color, but water actually absorbs other colors of light, allowing the blue region of the visible spectrum to pass through and be reflected. Usually, the surface water we see is fairly turbid, containing a lot of sediment and organisms. This is what gives water its usual appearance. When that stuff isn’t there, you see the natural color of water. Crater Lake is an extremely deep lake, with an average depth of 350m and a maximum depth of 594m (nearly 2000 feet deep). This depth, combined with the clarity of the water, results in colors other than blue being almost completely absorbed by the water; some of the blue light is reflected, and the rest is absorbed. The product of this almost total absorption of light and reflection of only a narrow spectrum of blue gives the lake the appearance of cobalt.

It’s not that the water in Crater Lake is just reflecting the blue of a clear sky; Crater Lake is still incredibly blue even on a cloudy, overcast day.

Expensive paper towels.

What the hell, Bounty? You think you’re worth twice as much as my grocery store-brand paper towels?

Oh, you’ve got “super-absorbent pockets” that can soak up that entire sippy cup’s worth of juice and then still have room for the drips the other leading paper towel left behind?

Riiiiiiight.

The “quicker, thicker picker-upper”?

Screw your fancy camera tricks and stupid, gimmicky pockets! I’m not going to fall for your crafty advertising and excessive -er-ending tagline!

Oh, what a fool I was.

Enter: the Infant.

Through drips and spills and mud and snot, the infant could take out an entire store-brand roll in a single afternoon. My discount paper towels may as well have been tissue paper against the sticky onslaught of a lunchtime feeding. Spit and mucus passed right through those weak sheets, so much so that I would have been better off just wiping my daughter’s mouth with my own hand.

Oh, “just double them over,” you say?

Ha! The acrobatic, one-handed tear needed to secure a double sheet (while holding a leaking child) would simply rip a corner sliver from those generic towels, leaving the bulk of the sheet flapping wildly off the roll and onto the floor.

In a delirious panic, I’d resort to mummifying the child and letting the mess soak through, sheet after sheet, until she was just dry enough to slip a new shirt on.

There had to be a better way…

I finally caved and bought a roll of the more expensive Bounty brand—they were on sale. I figured maybe I could stick my daughter into one of the “super-absorbent pockets” and just let her eat from there like a quilted, drooling baby kangaroo.

Dear sweet sanitary Jesus.

Those paper towels are amazing.

Yes, they can soak up the sippy cup juice, and the snot, and the milk, and the spaghetti sauce, and the toilet water on the floor, and—why is there toilet water on the floor?!—and the strange brown mess that probably isn’t that, but you’re not going to get close enough to smell it.

All of it.

And double sheets? Ha! Only if you want to clean out a frying pan right off the stove because those babies can insulate like a fiend when you need to wipe hot grease out of a pan.

Bounty paper towels are freaking magical. I buy them all the time now—though I still wait for sales. They are worth every penny, and they are every bit as amazing as the attractive hand models on the commercials imply they are.

Thank you, super-absorbent pocketed picker-upper. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.

Note: I answered this question under a different thread, this is mostly a cut and paste.

Many people think God is responsible for all the suffering and pain that is going on in the world. People reason this way; if I was God and had the power to end suffering and pain, I would certainly do so. I would stop natural disasters, terrorist attacks, automobile accidents, cancer, heart disease, crime, cruelty, war, genocide, mental illness, etc.

Why does God allow suffering? If God is all-powerful, loving, wise, and just, why is the world so full of hatred and injustice? Some of the prophets in the bible asked the same questions but with slightly different words. Here’s what Habakkuk had to say:

“Why do you make me witness wrongdoing? And why do you tolerate oppression? Why are destruction and violence before me? And why do quarreling and conflict abound?” Habakkuk 3:1

Habakkuk was a prophet and a bible writer and he was distressed by what he saw going on in the world around him. He too wanted answers.

People blame God because they think that he is the ruler of this world. They do not know a simple but important truth that the Bible teaches. The real ruler of this world is Satan the Devil.

“We know that we originate with God, but the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” 1 John 5:19

“among whom the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through” 2 Corinthians 4:4

How did this come to be? Adam and Eve rebelled against God because Satan lied to Eve and she listened to Satan and got her husband Adam to go along with the rebellion.

“At this the woman said to the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. 3 But God has said about the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden: ‘You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it; otherwise you will die.’”4 At this the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die. 5 For God knows that in the very day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and bad.” Genesis 3:2–5

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, in effect, they said: We can decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong. We don’t need God to rule us; we are capable of ruling ourselves. So God allowed them to do so. He does not intervene in human affairs because the issues raised in the garden of Eden need to be settled.

Millions of Angels were watching these events as they unfolded. If God had just killed Adam and Eve the issues would have gone unanswered. It would take time for the issues to be settled. Much time has passed since then; who has been shown to be a liar? What has been the result of humans ruling themselves? Humans have tried every form of government they could dream up; democracy, socialism, autocracy, kings, queens, republics, dictatorships, communism, etc. Have any of those governments worked for the good of their subjects?

“I know, Jehovah, that man’s course does not belong to him; walking and placing his step does not belong to any man.” Jeremiah 10:23 Byington translation

Humans were not designed to rule themselves. They were designed to be ruled by God. The time that has passed since Adam and Eve has shown that beyond doubt.

“All of this I have seen, and I applied my heart to every work that has been done under the sun, during the time that man has dominated man to his harm” Ecclesiastes 8:9

Soon now the time that has passed will be enough and God will step in and take control of this earth and those people on it. This is what Christians have been praying for for centuries when they repeat the “lord’s prayer.”

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10 KJV

God’s kingdom will stop the suffering and pain caused by Satan and his corrupt world and will replace it with rule by God. When that happens then the following will be true:

“……And God himself will be with them. 4 And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:3,4