I was lucky to meet and talk with him several years ago when he was in town performing at a Dinner Playhouse. A true gentleman.

I read the other day that the only two actors on the show who couldn't stand each other were Bob Denver and Tina Louise. He wanted to keep it a family show and she wanted it to be, uh, more realistic about what a bunch of male castaways would really do on an island with Ginger and Mary Ann around, with the focus on her instead of Gilligan, of course. Bob Denver's response was something to the effect of the title of the show was Gilligan's Island, not Ginger's Island.

Other trivia. At some time in their lives, Dawn Wells sent Bob Denver some pot in the mail. Bob Denver liked the idea but got busted, so blamed it on a nameless fan rather than blaming Dawn. Years later, Dawn indeed get busted for pot in her home state of Idaho.

Anyway, RIP professor. And yes, I think it was your evil plan to keep everyone on the island so that you could get a crack at Ginger and Mary Ann.

Forged by Cahaya, the Brave and True

Bob Denver was an original pot head, if his role as Dobie Gillis was any indication.

So hey Dan, you doing OK?

Yes. Good to see you back.

Hi guys, and thanks for the welcome back. I've actually been lurking in here for quite some time, but have felt ill-equipped to keep up with your quips.

I'm been buried in doing my thesis. It's about sexual abuse distorting one's image of God, and that it makes it difficult to become healed of the abuse (when you're convinced that an all-powerful, unseen force protects your abuser and not you, and is out to destroy you, it can make life a bit difficult). Definitely a party killer when people ask you what you're writing about; found that out the hard way -- really got yelled at for bringing up such a horrible subject.

Oh well, as one of my profs said, what do these people think they're going to do when they graduate -- write pretty poems about Jesus?

What will they say when someone looks them in the eye and gives them legitimate reasons that Jesus and/or God failed them? I tackled a hard subject. Gack!

Forged by Cahaya, the Brave and True

I think it's a great subject, I'm sure that sexual abuse (and other abuse, bigotry, loss of loved ones, horrors in the world, etc.) would affect one's religious views.

Kudos, Dan.

But I have some advice. Next time when some nosey parker asks you the subject of your thesis, tell them that you are writing to expose the unfair societal isolation that child molesters suffer, and how life treats them so unfairly. You might mention how your Day Care service has suffered as a result.

I bet they stop bothering you.

LAST EDITED ON 01-22-14 AT 09:16 PM (EST)

What will they say when someone looks them in the eye and gives them legitimate reasons that Jesus and/or God failed them?

That's one of the hardest questions a believing person (of any faith) can ask themselves after being beset with a personal or family tragedy or constant and seemingly endless hardships. Some family (particularly on DW's side) and friends of mine see it as a divine test of their own faith, inner beliefs and character. I personally don't subscribe to this view, although I think I understand it.

I'm curious what you find out in your thesis research and how you answer this question.

Good to see you, I smile when I see that sigpic again!

"What will they say when someone looks them in the eye and gives them legitimate reasons that Jesus and/or God failed them?"

The only way to respond honestly to the implied 'why?' in that statement is to simply let the tears well up in your eyes and quietly admit that no one who has ever lived or who will ever live can even begin to answer that question.

I think that the giver of pastoral care has to accept that he/she has a responsibility to help the troubled individual to receive comfort whether they seek it from a spiritual source or from a non-spiritual one.

The moral imperitive has to be focused upon care, comfort and healing not the retention of a member of the flock.

That being said... I am so aware right now of how hard it must be to provide counselling to a person in this situation. I doubt that I have ever or will ever possess that kind of strength and grace.

Such angels clothed in flesh have my deepest and most abiding love and respect.

LAST EDITED ON 01-23-14 AT 03:36 AM (EST)

Random, unintegrated thoughts:

I've lived that question for my entire life. What has made this thesis so brutal was that I was essentially writing my autobiography. I never saw my results for my tests for PTSD and depression until a few weeks ago. Even with decades of therapy, both are still off the charts. Not just from the Vietnam war, but the war that was my life.

I've screamed at God, flipped off God, have written papers about God being the most cruel and sadistic bastard who could have ever existed. This coming from a Baptist preacher's kid made this especially challenging.
I still flip off God now and then.

Part of the issue is our image of God. Our image of God comes from our images of our earliest authorities, who is then projected onto an unseen force. So, if our early authorities are jackasses, then God will be a jackass. Or, if God is omniscient and omnipresent, that means that God is sitting there watching a little girl being raped by her father and doing nothing; or so it seems to the victim (and possibly to the perpetrator).

At any rate, given that our particular images of God are based upon our early relationships, that means none of us really can know the truth about God without some divine experience that breaks through all the bull. I've been fortunate enough to have those kind of experiences, but very few people are.

Addressing the question of whether or not God has failed them is Jennifer Beste's "God and the Victim". She was your basic cheerleader type who did an internship in a mental institution. There was an 11-year-old girl there who was simply off in her own world. She was the daughter of a prostitute whose johns raped her starting at the age of 2, and then continued for the next 7 years. The staff considered her a lost cause. Beste was heartbroken, and it was a life-changing moment for her. She has dedicated her life to helping such victims. Her book focuses quite a bit on God's grace. Where is it? How is it possible? She takes on respected theologian Karl Rahner's theory that God's grace is open to everyone who asks for it, and simply surrenders their will and ego to God --- then God will heal them. She has him for lunch. She asks the same question I was asking: what if the person is too fried to even consider surrendering to God, or whom they perceive is a monster? As for surrendering one's will and ego, that is the worst thing a damaged person can do --- that's what cults and religiously insane people are about.
Given that, she does agree with him on one thing. We don't know how much worse things could have been without God's grace.

I've been fortunate to turn my adversity and abuse into a spur for spiritual development and growth. But, I consider myself fortunate. What about those who are too gone to have the choice to do that? When I was in the Navy, I ran into 6-year-old girls who were prostitutes, and boys the same age who were drug dealers and pimps. What is their hell? Where is their choice?

Given the unfairness of life, perhaps we simply need to accept life is unfair, and build from the adversity. Maybe it was never meant to be fair. I see our lives on this planet and dimension as one place in our lives that began long before we were born in this existence and will continue long after we've gone on to more existences from here. Our job is to simply help each other through it all while we're here and hold the bad guys at bay.

ETA: Sister Joan Chittister's "Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope" is also an excellent book. She's a nun/social activist/other stuff person.

Forged by Cahaya, the Brave and True

You've made your way to the edge of the flames and have turned around to face the depths of the inferno, reaching back in to to pull others out.

That's the only way I can put into words something that I cannot fully comprehend having not walked your path.

If the simple fact of you being who you are right now isn't clear proof of a merciful God, then I don't what is.

Thank you, Dan, for something that has made my faith stronger.

All that having been said (and well said, I might add), let's hold a vote, Mary Ann or Ginger? I'm a Mary Ann man myself.

And how come Gilligan was always the one to mess up every escape plan? Gilligan always managed to inadvertently defeat the best laid of Professor's plans. Was the Captain orchestrating these failures behind the scene because his monthly note on the Minnow was due when he returned to the mainland? There's more here than splashes over the Starboard gunnels, I'd bet.

These questions too require deep faith and sober reflection to understand and to come to grips with.

Given my orientation, I'd have to vote for Denny Miller, who played a surfer once and some sort of ape man in another. And, given those two, it would be Denny as the surfer.

Gilligan? Was framed. It was a conspiracy between Mrs. Howell and the Skipper.

Forged by Cahaya, the Brave and True

Thanks, Icey and Kingfish.

Forged by Cahaya, the Brave and True

Thank you, Dan, for your insights and personal experience from which we learn.

This pulls me back to a discussion on a disease support board from not too long ago.

How can anyone dare to even say they find some blessing in the horror and torture that I and others are going through. Even if the person seeing that blessing in disguise suffers as I suffer. (and especially in a disease where people feel their doctors say well it's ONLY.... that unless you are going to die tomorrow you shouldn't even complain about any symptoms, even when quality of life surveys show that people with "it won't kill you, it will just make you wish you were dead" diseases is often worse than people with "it probably will kill you" problems.)

To me it comes down to some of the Buddhist thought of how much of our suffering is optional? Often all we can choose is our attitude, it always amazes me that some people who I would think should never even be able to choose based on the horror they have been through still manage to find that choice and manage to make a transcendent one.

And that idea if all there is was happiness and joy and bliss would anyone really feel contentment and be at peace? When there are no contrasts would you know what the good things are?

And yeah, seems like God could let those contrasts happen with a hell of a lot less misery than there is. Do we really need for some of these horrors to exist. Can't we learn with maybe just a little less extreme badliness?

As much as I hate to think of life as a test to see what you do with what you got, and how unfair some of the initial distribution is...sometimes I wonder if the bigger test is being overly blessed. Can you maintain your empathy, grace, and love when you want for nothing and can easily believe that God must see you as much more deserving than all others because if he really does micromanage our lives their must be some reason you were rewarded beyond all measure and everyone else has to do without.

I hope you didn't think I said I see blessing in the suffering that others go through. I certainly didn't mean to imply that. I was simply saying that I was blessed to use most of mine as a blessing --- although there was certainly some I could do without.

My acupuncturist is Buddhist from Taiwan, and she kept going on how I have been processing much of my bad karma from previous lives -- and that I've finally accomplished that. I'm not sure what I think about that.

And combining the notion of karma with what you said about the uber-rich, I'd certainly hate to have their karma. And you're right about about being "overly blessed." I often think of a newscast I saw here a few years ago. There had been a flood with accompanying landslides. They interviewed a woman was who devastated and nearly collapsing in tears: they had a very nice home they "deserved" and a landslide took out part of their deck. The news piece then cut to a woman who had obviously seen the much worse side of life; it showed in every wrinkle on her face that looked much older than her years. When asked what she lost, she casually said, "Everything. My home's gone, my stuff's gone. But so what? It's just stuff. I'm alive, my friends are alive. That's what's good."

Forged by Cahaya, the Brave and True

That is the language from the other discussion, not that you would call your history a blessing, but sometimes there is the good within the bad and choices you may have been forced to make ended up not being so terrible in the long run (like eating healthy your whole adult life rather than wait until after the big hospital bill from a week in the ICU).

One person saw that enforced healthy lifestyle as a blessing from the illness, another thought that saying that was anything from insane to down right the most evil thing one could do.

I do sometimes have the same issues with karma as the how can a merciful God allow this mess to happen. What actions could possibly be so bad as to deserve this fate in this life?

Although given how much collating and organizing I ended up doing in this life I must have been a chaos demon in the last one.