I am awakening this blog out of hiatus to post this story, which I received from a friend via Facebook. You might have already seen it, but if not, then please regard it as my little Christmas gift to you all.

The story concerns a “bonus” question in an Arizona University mid-term Chemistry exam. The answer given by one student was so unorthodox that the professor evidently shared it with some colleagues, and then it hit the internet.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas – and thank you for being a part of this wonderful/crazy/loving PGS blog…

Here’s my little gift to you –

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

“First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave.Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

“Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

“This gives two possibilities:

“1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

“2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

“So which is it?

“If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct–leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being. Which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’” 

This student received an A+.

A dwarf bought a new car. 

He went out for his first drive, and a truck slammed into the back of him. 

The dwarf got out of the damaged car, furious. 

“I’m not happy!” the dwarf screamed at the truck driver. 

“Well which one are you then?” the truck driver asked.

(You know – Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy etc…)

Now, shutters down! Bye!

I’m putting this blog into hiatus until April 1st, 2014.

I’m doing this because I’m really busy, and the blog consumes me. It eats into my creative time each day – time that is better spent doing what I do, which is make movies.

Writing a daily post doesn’t take much time – responding to comments takes more time – but what takes a big whack of my time is thinking about you all. I take that with me all through the day, and often into my dreams.

I need my dream time back.

Has the Sister Clare episode influenced my decision? No, it just delayed it. I was becoming increasingly concerned that I didn’t have enough cognitive bandwidth to do both the blog and my other creative endeavours.

Have these trolls, such as “Satan” and “Dorothy” forced me to bring down the shutters? If you think that, then you don’t know me.

Anyway, they were just bed bugs.

Some of you have suggested I just do the blog less regularly. I can’t do that. When I do something, I do it completely, and with total commitment. Even a part time blog would still be consuming. It’s better I just put it into hiatus and come back when the tour starts.

If you want to interact, I’d suggest you flip across to the PGS The Way forum –
http://pgsthewayforum.com/forum/

 I’ll have a presence there as a moderator, and I’ll contribute from time to time.

For those of you on the tour, I’ll be posting regular updates on that website –
http://pgspilgrimtours.com/

I’ll also be doing a weekly Sunday post on my Road Food blog –
http://billsroadfood.com/

If you want to contact me directly, you can do so at –
billpgsblog@gmail.com

The reason I started this blog was to draw attention to my concept of PGS – and the importance of trusting and following your intuition. I did my pilgrimage using my PGS. I hope that some of you, through this blog, have started to give some thought to living more intuitively.

I’ve begun writing my PGS film, and quite frankly I can’t do that and the blog at the same time. For me it’s not possible.

So thank you for hanging in there with me this year on this roller coaster of a blog. What with burning dwarfs and nuns with guns, it’s been a hell of a ride.

You’ve inspired me, informed me, you’ve made me laugh, made me humble, made me grateful, kept me honest – and I’ve grown very fond of some of you. Already this blog has spawned some very real friendships, which will continue, I hope.

I will miss you, and I’ll miss this blog – but I hope you understand why I’m doing this.

So until April…

Bill Bennett

– to the people in our lives whom we love.

– to the people in our lives who love us.

– for the beauty each day brings.

– for the joys each day brings.

– for the opportunities all around us.

– for our health.

– for our illnesses.

– for music that moves us.

– for pets that love us.

– for being free.

– for being alive.

photo:
A walk to Paradise Garden – by W. Eugene Smith

I still haven’t heard back from Sister Clare, despite public and private entreaties to her.

It seems like she might be gone for good from this blog.

It’s time maybe now for me to reflect more generally on what happened, and the aftermath.

I’ve spoken of the emotional toll on me, so I won’t go into that. But some people privately have asked – why did I engage with Sister Clare from the outset? I’m not a Catholic, and I’m not conventionally religious. So why bring her onto this blog, and give her Moderator Permissions on the forum?

I don’t really know. I am not a nun guy. This is the first time I’ve had anything to do with nuns, other than a cursory hello when I’m at funerals and weddings where nuns are in attendance.

Actually, I tell a fib.

I was talking to my mother the other day. After coming back from the trip. I was born in London – my parents are both Australian, but at the time of my birth they were working in London as dentists. Doing the Australian thing of working overseas before settling back down in Aussie.

My mother asked if I’d taken the time to visit the hospital where I was born – at Wimbledon. I told her I hadn’t – anyway I thought the hospital had burnt down. She said no – It’s St. Anne’s Hospital. You should go visit it next time you’re in London.

I asked what kind of hospital it was, and she said Catholic.

This was a complete surprise to me. My parents were/are Anglican, and I remember growing up aware that they had a pretty sniffy attitude towards Catholics. You have to remember this was Brisbane in the 1950s. Very conservative.

My mother told me that I was brought into the world by Catholic nuns. I was stunned. I had no idea. And I found this out only a couple of days ago.

Weird, huh?

Anyway, getting back on point – I saw no harm in engaging with a nun on the blog, then later on the forum. And I thought it might be good for those who are Catholic, and are religious, to have a nun to chat to, and get advice from.

But later I started to have some misgivings.

Privately Sister Clare began telling me some harrowing stories – often emphasising her poverty. And as I stated in one of the Strange Tale posts, she also began to take umbrage at some of you folk on the blog. She asked me at times to admonish those she thought had treated her with disrespect.

But she was enormously popular on the blog, and I had no real grounds to bring her into line, and so I let things slide.

Susan Sande then organised the Kit the Nun campaign, and some of you responded with enormous generosity. Sister Clare blossomed during this time. Publicly and privately, she gushed with gratitude.

I didn’t realise that Susan was sending the goods collected onto Sister Clare. I thought she was holding them until closer to the tour. When I discovered that she was forwarding stuff, I contacted Susan and asked her not to – to hold onto the stuff until I told her it was okay to on-send.

I told Susan at the time that I was concerned that Sister Clare might not be able to make the tour, for health reasons. And this was true. But my deeper concern was one of credibility.

It was around this time that Sister Clare told me she needed $500 urgently to attend the Retreat – and if she couldn’t pay the Retreat fees she would be expelled from her Order.

This sent up some immediate red flags for me. I saw it as a thinly disguised plea for money. When I told her I wasn’t in a position to send her that $500, she immediately came back saying: “Oh Bill, I would NEVER ask you for money…”

Huh.

So when the email came in saying she’d been robbed – I was immediately suspicious. Rght from the first email. I then set about trying to determine whether she was telling the truth. For me, the key was the Police Report, which she claimed she had filed. If I could prove there was no Police Report, then I could prove that she’d lied to me. So I employed my dormant journalistic skills to determine the truth.

Okay – you all know the rest of the story.

During those posts the stats on the blog went nuts. A lot of people tuned in. And some tuned out, too. There are some people who were regulars here who I haven’t heard from since. Who comes to the blog and who goes never worries me. Numbers come and go.

It’s of passing interest, but that’s not why I post.

I can’t now take Sister Clare on the tour. She was presented as a Spiritual Counsellor, and I can’t in good conscience offer up as that, knowing that she used her vows as a nun to try and justify her lies to me.

That to me is the worst thing that Sister Clare did during the whole episode. I lost respect for her after that. I can forgive her, but I’m not sure if that respect will ever be fully restored.

What did I learn?

I learnt a lot about the veil of the internet. I thought I knew Sister Clare – but then I realised that perhaps I didn’t know her at all. Is her gravatar picture really her? I remember now very early on, I wanted to speak to her to check her out, and I suggested we Skype. She didn’t want to do that – claimed she didn’t know how Skype worked.

She might have been right – I put it down to nuns being technologically challenged – and didn’t think anything more of it. But later I began to wonder – perhaps she didn’t want me to see her face?

And then Ingrid, making several attempts to come and see Sister Clare – always being rebuffed for one reason or another. Did Sister Clare not want Ingrid dropping in because she would see that she wasn’t the person in the photo?

I have no idea. But it all made me think.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned from the episode though was to consider a black and white issue in subtler shades of grey.

A nun lied to me. Black & white.

But does she have mental health issues? Does her relationship with her handicapped son impact on her state of mind – her behaviour? Were the lies important in the whole scheme of things? Was she only seeking attention, approval, sympathy, love – as she later claimed? And if so, can the lies be forgiven?

There’s still a lot for me to process.

The black & white of me is that I publicly persecuted a nun. That’s nothing to be proud of.

I’m not going to put that in my CV.

Bill Bennett.

During our scout for the April Camino tour, my wife and I found our local liaison person –

Her name is Catarina – she lives in Arcos right on the Portuguese Way. She is a lawyer by training, doing post graduate studies, as well as working with her mother and her partner in their beautiful boutique hotel, catering for pilgrims.

Catarina is a delightful young lady. She’s quick to laugh, and my wife and I were immediately impressed with her energy, enthusiasm, and her people skills.

We’d just flown in from London, driven from Porto airport in heavy rain, and we were frazzled. Catarina made us feel immediately at home – and could not have been more welcoming.

She speaks Portuguese (doh) and Spanish, as well as English. She can drive the support vehicle, and I believe she will bring a wonderful fresh energy to the tour group.

Jennifer and I are thrilled that she’s agreed to join us…