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Offline Rob_h

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Re: religious experience?
« Reply #30 on: September 14, 2011, 03:32:02 PM »
Hi Bill,

I am taken with your comment about your donation being connected with your parents.  I am quite amazed at how often the children are living/resolving/striving to resolve the parents life issues.  In some ways I wanted to "set right the moral ledger", but its far afield from the "yes I can" experience that lead to this interesting discussion. best wishes, Rob Halverson

Offline WilliamLFreeman

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Re: religious experience?
« Reply #31 on: September 14, 2011, 09:31:02 PM »
Rob,

Thanks for your comment.

I was just continuing to emulate behavior I had long admired and that had undergirded much of what I had done all my life -- like being a family doc & being in the Indian Health Service my entire medical career (and now, working for a Tribal College, Northwest Indian College).  My father did, and I try to do, "pay forward" for all that we have received.  I am impressed that for many living donors, donation was "more of the same" -- a quantum "more," but nevertheless, "of the same."

Bill
Bill - living kidney donor (non-directed, Seattle, Nov 24, 2008), & an [aging] physician  :-)

Offline julian

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Re: religious experience?
« Reply #32 on: October 02, 2011, 12:24:11 AM »
Hey folks,
I can trace my desire to donate back to a trip that I took to Morocco in 2005. I was traveling from Agadir to the Marrakech and while at the Tizi n Test pass in the Atlas mountains I was struck my how beautiful the whole place was. It occurred to me that there were people in my family that would never see such beauty (because none of them fly) and then I realized that there were people who didn't have their health as I did and they would never see such beauty. Then it occurred to me, I ** COULD ** help someone and like that, I realized that I could donate a kidney.

Why did I think this? I don't know, it just happened.

I had been donating platelets before that so I guess I had been in a donating mindset naturally.

I wouldn't say it was a religious motivation though but what do I know? Until 1997 I was an atheist and a hard core one at that. Without going into great detail my father passed on in 1997 and that was when I started following the buddhist path. I have since done monastic study and although I am not a religious man, I do believe in the infallibility of karma. Call it reaping what you sow, the law of cause and effect, etc., etc.

I find these days  that although I don't accept a deity as a given, I do not rule it out either. For me  I think it's analogous to pondering the architect while standing in a burning house.

I think all my life I just had to give myself permission to accept that I don't know the answer and it was then I guess I found peace.

So is He guiding me? Quite possibly. The Lord works in mysterious ways and since I was in Morocco, maybe he asked Allah a favor since I was in his neighborhood. He probably has a great sense of humor.  ;D
Julian
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Free Range Human - http://juliancook.com

Offline leah.faith

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Re: religious experience?
« Reply #33 on: October 03, 2011, 11:03:56 PM »
"The guide noted that if you burn your hand on hot stove your other hand will instantly reach out to hold/comfort the burned hand. You don't even think about it. It just happens because the body knows that all the parts are one."
Thank you Fr. Pat. I could not put it into better words. That's exactly the experience, that's exactly what I felt when I found out my friend needed a kidney.
I think RE is the best way to describe the feelings I've been having (when I'm not angry) and even though I believe in nothing (no gods, no deities, nothing supernatural) I still have the same emotional experience as someone who is religious. I know, because I used to be religious. I feel like nothing has been more clear in my life. The lines connect so blatantly "She needs a kidney, I have a kidney" and while I am a little scared, I feel oddly calm about this decision and I am usually very very indecisive. I mentioned before that I wish I was religious because it would be so much easier to describe why I feel the way I feel. It's hard to tell my mom I'm doing this because evolution is telling me to.

Offline Clark

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Re: religious experience?
« Reply #34 on: January 11, 2016, 10:38:12 AM »
Stumbled across this thread while looking for something else. To me, this thread represents us at our best in many ways. A deep question, likely uniquely related to our shared experience. Kind responses from many widely varied viewpoints. Considered, articulate positions, on topic cross talk among those replying and the original poster, and reflections amplifying prior statements over months. I never see anything remotely like this on Facebook.
Unrelated directed kidney donor in 2003, recipient and I both well.
620 time blood and platelet donor since 1976 and still giving!
Elected to the OPTN/UNOS Boards of Directors & Executive, Kidney Transplantation, and Ad Hoc Public Solicitation of Organ Donors Committees, 2005-2011
Proud grandpa!

Offline RKEM

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Re: religious experience?
« Reply #35 on: January 11, 2016, 04:11:55 PM »
I don't know if I can speak of a religious experience, because I don't consider myself religious. I'm a pretty firm believer in the law of thermodynamics but that's about it. I've often joked that the donation was me jumping the gun on my atoms being recycled into something else.

Maybe because of my lack of belief in a higher power or life after death, there was a time when I struggled quite heavily with depression and the sense that nothing mattered, that the world would be better off without me and the usual self-depreciating spiral of negative thought that can happen. It got bad enough for me to seriously contemplate suicide. Thankfully I got wonderful help and I think I got out of it knowing a lot more about myself.

And in a way, even though the depression happened more than 10 years ago, giving a kidney gave a certain meaning to my life. I didn't set out for it to be something as life changing as it turned out to be. It's just something I felt compelled to do. If I could then I -had- to do it, often struggling to explain rationally the drive I felt to donate.

And now, all those old thoughts that my life didn't matter, didn't have an impact, were all measurably proven wrong. To someone somewhere, it mattered, big time. I won't purport to have found the meaning of life, but seeing how life affirming donation felt, it helped me understand that meaning and happiness, doesn't magically happen or isn't found in a bank account, it's not even inside you. It's inside others and how we make them happier.

Maybe it's sort of post-donation high that will subside over time but I've found that I'm far happier post donation. It's like a weird little invisible badge of bad-assness that my self-esteem can hang on to when the going gets rough. It's the one accomplishment that nobody or nothing, not even depression, can ever take away from me.

So, religious experience? I don't know. But definitely life changing.

Offline jgivens

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Re: religious experience?
« Reply #36 on: September 05, 2016, 09:52:31 AM »
I donated on February 12, 2014 and my donation was very much a result of my religious views.  As a Christian it is my responsibility to "not with hold good from those to whom it is due when it is within your p ower to act" (Proverbs 3:27). My recipient and I attend the same congregation.  He and his family never asked anyone to test or try to donate.  They simply asked for prayers.  My husband and I didn't think twice about testing.  I knew from the beginning that I was going to be a match  I just knew.  I only told my husband this because I thought others would think I was crazy.  However, I was a PERFECT match.  Because of this, I was never scared or nervous. The entire process, I only focused on God's will.  If it was his will it would happen, if not it wouldn't.  My recipient and I are both doing great.  It strengthens my faith to look across the aisle at church and see him worshiping with his lovely family.  God is so good!

 

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