“Aaahhh…” I said to myself. Maybe out loud, maybe not.
I’m 65 and I think I might be dead. I don’t have any evidence, but it’s just one of those things you kind of know. I find myself sitting, resting in a chair. It’s a sturdy chair, upright, nothing fancy. It’s not a recliner. It’s just a regular chair. It’s firm, but not hard. I can’t tell if it’s cushioned or not. Everything is a bit wonky. My vision is not quite right. There isn't really an impairment, but it is different than a I remember. Hmmm, what do I remember?
This is a great chair. But maybe it’s not the chair. I’m pretty fit for 65. Was. Am. Still not sure. Anyway I came into this pretty fit. I have aches and pains. Had. Have. But they don’t hinder my day to day and they are dull enough that I don’t pay much attention to them, but wherever I am now, those aches have been lifted. The chair is good, but the relief is better. It’s like the first time you try really good drugs. You feel relieved of all aches and burdens. It’s like being severed from the world, a kite cut from it's string and drifting. Peace. Comfort. It’s nice. With drugs you can’t quite enjoy all of it with a clear head and of course eventually it wears off, but this feels different. It’s more than a relief, it’s a different state of being all together. And my vision is weird. There is so much light. It’s not blinding but its everywhere I look. Except it’s different light on the periphery of my vision. The periphery seems more focused. I’m sitting in this chair, at ease and it seems like I’m in a meadow, with maybe a forest nearby. It doesn’t feel like I’m out in the open though, it feels like I’m in a space. Not a room but a space. When I try to look at what’s in the periphery all I see is light. The light is pleasant to look at though. It is soothing. Looking at the light is more like the feeling of a warm bath. Or maybe cool water on a hot day, but without the jolt, just the refreshment. It’s not like light at all really, but that is the only thing I can call it because it seems like I’m using my eyes to view it. But that doesn’t seem quite right either. The sound in this space is similarly elusive. If I try to listen for something in particular it fades away. Because I feel like I’m in the outdoors I expect outdoor noises and I even think I hear them, but when I try to identify the noises, they fade into something else. But it’s not irritating, it’s…soothing. It’s comforting. I imagine it’s what a baby feels like when it’s being carried close to it’s mother, on the verge of sleep and the constant jostling puts the child into a state of pleasantness. In between…not quite sleeping and not quite awake. I feel a weight in my hands. My hands have been resting in my lap, but up until this point I have not been aware of them. The weight feels like a magazine. The magazine has a smooth glossy finish. It has a heft to it. The periphery seems to have changed to a waiting room…but still outdoors…maybe. There may be walls, but when I try to look it is only light. I still haven’t looked at my hands, but just felt the magazine. If I lifted the magazine to smell it, I know what it would smell like. As I tilt my head down to look at my hands, the magazine comes into focus. When I look away, everything is still just the light. But when I look at the magazine, I can see it clearly. It seems to be some information or entertainment publication for wherever it is that I am. I think I am dead. Perhaps I am dreaming. But dreams aren’t quite like this. Although maybe they are when you are in them and it’s just that you cannot make sense of them once you are out of them. I can’t read the title of the magazine. I can, but I can’t. I know what it says but I can’t put it into specific thought. Reading the title gives me a feeling and I know what the feeling means. I know that I have been here before, or maybe I have always been here or maybe I just knew I would be here. Seeing and trying to read the name is like a memory that hasn’t been accessed for a very long time and once it comes back a whole flood of memories and feelings come back with it, like a whole new portion of your brain or soul just got opened. The title of the magazine is mysterious, but the descriptions of the stories inside are very familiar and practical. “The Limits of Humans: why they think they have them.” “False Compassion: Why humans try to Love without Truth.” Oh and here’s an interesting one, “What I got wrong about Revelation. By Mark Twain pg. 18” I flipped right to page 18. On page 18 is a full page picture in glorious color and glossy finish. It is the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen and I’m not even sure I really saw it. Across the page in quotes is the famous Mark Twain quote, “It is not the things which I do not understand in the Bible which trouble me, but the things which I do understand.” The picture is of a creature. And even though I never saw the creature before, I knew exactly what is was. It was from Revelation 4 “In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back.” I remember so vividly in my living life, however long ago that was, trying to picture what a creature covered with eyes would look like. Nothing I imagined, try as I might was anything other than grotesque. Frightening really. It might have been a Twain quote wondering about these creatures, that if this is what existed in Heaven, how awful must Hell be! But in this picture it all became clear and it was beautiful and glorious and it made complete sense. And not only that specific revelation, but so much more became clearer about those creatures. Their presence at the throne also made sense. It made sense in a Universal way, a Cosmic way. All of creation felt smaller and impossibly big all at once. Looking at this picture made me feel like I had gained the most important information of the Universe and still knew nothing. I gasped at the realization. I sank into my chair with the realization that I was going to have questions. I was going to have questions based on the enormity of these new answers that I hadn’t received yet. But how long was this going to take? Will there be more magazines?
I remember how much I loved magazines…or love magazines…or will have loved. Time seems woozy. The childhood love I had of these publications seems present and now. I can feel the stacks of National Geographic’s, old volumes given to me by my grandmother. Smithsonian. Sports Illustrated. I once kept a year’s worth of T.V. Guides when I was 11 year’s old. Eventually, we had to get rid of them as we ran out of room. Popular Mechanics and Car and Driver were among my favorites. I don’t know that I ever read the articles. I skimmed the captions, and studied any infographics and diagrams, but I didn’t have much patience for actual reading. At least not as a boy. But I did crave information. I think that is why this magazine is here now. It’s my preference. It’s familiar.
As I pick up the magazine again, I notice a few more interesting articles. On one page there is a centerfold illustration of a glowing bodied connected to a greying one. The title across the top of the illustration is “Bound: Soul and Flesh intertwined.” There are labels pointing to different parts of the illustration: The Heart, The Head, The Wrist, etc. Under each label was a marvelous and enlightening and succinct description of the connections between soul and flesh. Even the properties of the elbow has implications for the soul…or perhaps the soul’s elbow has implications in the “world”. It’s such a subtle thing. Things that you know to be true and have always known, but with just a little enlightenment it allows you to see everything new…everything as it really is and always has been. Consider the elbow, it’s functionality gives it purpose. We rest upon it, we put our head in our hands while the weight of it rests upon the elbow. With the biceps and triceps the elbow becomes a fantastic and powerful lever. These small functions in the world have a corresponding impact on the function of our Soul. I wish I could explain it. If you could see the illustration you would know. Or perhaps, maybe it is this space that allows enlightenment. Maybe, like the chair, it is just the removal of burden that allows you to see all of the connections. As I flip through the magazine I come to the last few pages. “How did you get here?” is the heading on the final page. On the page is a picture of a face. I know who it is, but I can’t say his name. It’s the first time I’ve seen his face, but it is a face that has been in my consciousness for all time. My soul’s heart enflames with such a pace that if I were still dependent on my flesh’s heart, it would have exploded. A song bubbles up in my heart. As the chorus rings through my head I find my lips speaking the main verse, “I trusted Je…” but I can’t quite spit it out. In that moment I notice another presence in the space.
The periphery becomes heavily wooded. It is cool, a refreshing cool. It soothes the turbulent emotions I had just experienced. I look around but can only see the Light. That warm and comforting light. It’s a Light that urges you to action and bids you peace all at the same moment. In my living body this tension would have been unbearable, but now it is pure joy. I finally rest my eyes on a familiar face that comes into focus as I scanned the space. It’s not the face from the magazine. It’s my face. It’s me.
As I stand up to greet myself I feel as if I might fly off into the “atmosphere”, but I don’t. I have a lightness. I don’t quite feel as if I could fly or float and it’s not quite as unruly as an astronaut in zero gravity, but it’s something like that. It is a lightness with a distinct weight, but the weight isn’t gravity. It’s more like purpose. Have you ever had a really great conversation and you are so in tune with the person that you are talking to and the more you talk the more that things open up and then you get really excited about where the conversation is going even though you don’t really know where it’s going. There is a feeling that you could go anywhere, but there is also a feeling of destination that keeps you focused. That is a bit what movement feels like in this space.
“Hey!” I shake hands with myself. Self-loathing was previously an issue for me, but I find that I am genuinely excited to meet myself.
“Hey.” He says.
“How long have you been here?” I ask. He gets the biggest, warmest smile on his face. He looks younger than I was. I wonder how I look to him. Am I old? Am I 65? Can you determine age here?
“Seems like forever.” He says with a grin. Because he is me I can tell that this is a joke. It’s like an inside joke with himself. I don’t quite get the joke, but because it is me I get a sense of the joke. He is joking about forever and time. He is just so pleasant. It’s me, but not quite. All the things I hate about myself are absent in him. The arrogance and insecurity give way to a gentleness and patience. It’s a knowing warmth that is not unlike what the Light feels like. His demeanor seems to radiate without blinding in the same sort of way.
“Look,” He begins “The thing is that you have lot’s of questions…curiosities I suppose is more accurate. There isn’t an urgency to the questions you have, but they are still there. In fact, the dumb questions you had in your life, which of course seemed relevant and clever at the time, are just the thumbnail to the mind-blowing questions you have now. Does that seem right?”
“You know it does!” I say with my own playful joke. I know he is asking just as a means of comfort for me and facilitating the process and my little joke is a way of acknowledging that. He smiles proudly in response. Interacting with him… it’s just so weird and wonderful.
I was really good at Frisbee Golf in my 40’s and one time a friend recorded one of my drives in slow motion. My form and footwork were so good and my extension and release were spot on for generating power and accuracy. It was the best possible version of that thing at the point when I was doing that thing at my best. I used to watch the 27 second clip over and over. It was me, but better than me. I was obsessed, but not in a gross pride sort of way, but a sort of sweet admiration. It was me on the video and it was me watching, but the pride I was feeling was not FOR me, but for the possibility that I could do something so well. On Earth, if we are open to the possibility, we long for the best version of ourselves. I mucked it up as much as the next person. When I found surrender though, I got a different sense of what that version might be. I tried to be of service because that seemed in line with what I should be. But then whenever my good service got noticed I tried to leverage that into power and influence. It was a disgusting cycle that I repeated over and over. As painful as it was, this faint picture remained. And now that faint picture is coming into clearer, but not quite perfect, focus. Being with him makes me feel like everything is going to be okay. I have a question about what this space is, but I know he is going to answer, so I just remain present in the moment.
“It’s a point in the process. It’s like a waiting room, but not the kind of waiting room that you are familiar with…obviously.” He explains, anticipating my curiosity.
“It’s like I’ve never quite had to wait before…” I spit out.
“Exactly. In your fleshy life, you never actually waited, it just felt like it because of time. In a sense, you are waiting for the first time.” He reinforced my statement.
“I can sort of see the edges of what that means…it all sort of happened at once, the history of things…but history isn’t quite the right word now, but it had already happened, my life that is…and history, or rather it had always happened, but I couldn’t see it all because of the slices…what are they, the foggy sort of things…”
“Time.” He said matter of fact. “Time won’t let you see the whole thing at once.”
My fleshy and soul heart raced as the implications: I WILL get to see it all at once now that I’m here.
“Yes you will.” He confirmed proudly.
Awe. You get twinges of “Awe” in your life. We say “Awesome” way too much. But this was my first real dose of Awe.
“So, I’m waiting. These magazines are just for comfort?” I asked. I had realized that I wasn’t going to get the answers piece by piece through these publications. The answers were waiting on something too…waiting for me
“They are for fun. They suit you. They are a sort of preparation for you to receive the fullness of what is to come. They are perspective while you still have the capacity to have perspective.” He explained.
“Oh, because once I can see without time, I’ll lose perspective?”
“You won’t lose it, you just won’t need it.”
“So we’re waiting…are you waiting?” I ask him.
“I’m you.” He seemed to give a cryptic response. But it wasn’t, somehow it was perfectly clear. This felt like a conversation between two people, but it was actually more like a long look in the mirror. If you had gone an eternity without seeing yourself and then you finally got a chance to, you would take your time and the discover of the new person you had become. The discovery process would feel like a conversation. Still, the person on the other side of the mirror had shed something that still felt present to me.
“Time.” He said. Then he gave me one of my favorite quotes to help explain. “You HAVE a body, You ARE a soul.” It’s CS Lewis quoting his idol George MacDonald.
“You, your soul, knows what is happening now, but it has been bound in your flesh for the past 65 years. Your soul…YOU, an eternal being were dipped in flesh and as a result, dipped in time, like Achilles being dipped by the heel into the river Styx. Your soul wriggled it’s way into Earthly existence through the conception of your parents…” He went on.
“I forgot…” I interrupted because I thought I grasped something. I had the sense that I was something before my birth and I will be again, but in between, I forgot.
“Not quite.” He said. “It’ll be clear enough soon, we just have to wait. ‘HE’ has set forth something that has happened, is happening and has always happened and chose you to be a part of it. There had to be a choosing though.”
“I see.” I said. I did not see. I changed the subject, “The Connections…” I remembered the illustrations from the magazine where the soul was connected in ways to the flesh. “I’ve shed the connections!”
“That’s right!” He said. “But…”
“Time!” I interrupted.
“And so we wait.” He said. I understood, but he went on to explain anyway. I didn’t mind. I loved the way he explained things. “You, your soul, you is eternal. You have always remembered and known this about yourself, but time won’t let you see eternity. For Moses it was the same. The Eternal God was before him, but Moses could not see. He would have perished from the earth if he had. The best he could do was cleave himself in a rock and let God pass by. Moses is such a beautiful expression of the tension…the contradiction between the eternal purposes of our creator and the temporary importance of his creation. It’s all one though…it’s all one….”
As he continued the speak, I felt the periphery fading away. The light got more. Not bigger or brighter, just more.
“…and so, Time, the fading of it is like a drug wearing off. You are here until your soul…YOU, sheds the last of Time from your being.” He finished.
“I think it’s getting close.” Such a fascinating concept, waiting for Time to end. When the waiting is over it shall be clear that waiting never actually existed. When you experience the Seasons, there are two or three moments in the year when everything is perfect: the weather, yourself, the people around you are all in perfect alignment. And we remember and wait for those moments. At least it feels like waiting because of time. The reality is that those moments are always there and always present, the Kingdom of God is and has been within us the whole time.
I looked at myself and he looked at me. “Ready?” I said to me. “Ready.” As he faded and merged with me the light now overwhelmed my vision. I wasn’t blind, but the only thing to see was perfect light. Then in the distance, like a single star shining in a black night sky, there was a piercing light. The brightness of this pin point made the light I had known before seem black as pitch. The piercing light either came closer or just got bigger I could not tell. It should have overwhelmed me but it did not. “Birth.” I muttered to myself.
“Beginning.” I said again.
“The End.” I replied to myself in confirmation and correction.
The Fear I felt produced a great Joy. All the magnificence and wonder and comfort and peace and satisfaction that I had felt in this space previously was obliterated by this new light. The new light was an explosion that lasted forever, yet somehow dissolved into a new reality. Time faded. A new presence appeared. Of course it wasn’t new, it was always there. He had always been there…with me, for me and in me.
“Hello Scott.” Jesus said.
“Hello Father, here I am.”
