Death may lead to healing and bliss

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen writes: "Sometimes the particulars of the way in which someone dies, the time, place, even the circumstances, may cause those left behind to wonder whether the event marks the healing of hidden patterns and personal issues, and answers for that person certain lifelong questions. Death has been referred to as the great teacher. It may be the great healer as well. Educare, the root word of ‘education,’ means to lead forth the innate wholeness in a person. So, in the deepest sense, that which truly educates us also heals us.

"The theory of karma suggests that life itself is in its essential nature both educational and healing, that the innate wholeness underlying the personality of each of us is being evoked, clarified, and strengthened through the challenges and experiences of our lifetime. All life paths may be a movement toward the soul, In which case our death may be the final and most integrating of our life’s experiences.

Anything that is real has no beginning and no end. The stories in your life and in mine do not stop here.

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal (Riverhead books, 1996), pages 325, 331. 

Mozart wrote to his father in 1787 at the age of 31: "As death, strictly speaking, is the goal of our lives, I have for some years past been making myself so familiar with this truest and best friend of man that its aspect has not only ceased to appall me, but I find it very soothing and comforting! And I thank my God that he has vouchsafed me the happiness of an opportunity (you will understand me) to recognize it as the key to our true bliss. I never lie down to sleep without reflecting that (young as I am) I may perhaps not see another day—yet none of those who know me can say I am morose or melancholy in society—and I thank my Creator every day for this happiness and wish from the bottom of my heart that all my fellow men might share it."

"Mozart on Death," National Library on Medicine, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1116853/.

The Christmas story in Luke 1-2

The anonymous gospel attributed to Luke, a missionary colleague of Paul, begins with the story of the birth of John the Baptist. Elizabeth and Zechariah are elderly and without a child. Yet Elizabeth conceives and an angel tells Zechariah that the child's name will be John. Six months later the angel Gabriel comes to Mary to explain that she will give birth to a child with the help of the Holy Spirit and to tell her that Elizabeth is also pregnant. When Mary visits Elizabeth, the older woman feels her babe leap in her womb. Elizabeth says to Mary, "Blessed are you among women . . .." Then Mary sings praises to God, in words that have come to be known as the Magnificat — words that bring to mind (for those who know the Bible well) Hannah's song of praise after her prayers for a son have been answered with Samuel's birth. (1 Samuel 2:1-10).

The story of the birth of Jesus follows. We hear of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem, finding no room in the inn, and taking shelter in a stable. During the night Jesus is born, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, and then shepherds are directed by angels to come and adore him.

The Christmas story in the gospel of Luke gives a prominent role to women, in contrast to most of the narratives in the Bible. The story also emphasizes the humble birth of Jesus in a stable, attended only by his mother and father, and then by shepherds. At the very beginning of Luke's gospel we read the author is writing his account for Theophilus, a Greek-speaking Christian. If we know our Bible well, we also know that Acts of the Apostles is a companion volume written by the same author. Thus the story of Elizabeth and Mary, and their children born in Judea, is the beginning of a story that includes not only accounts of the ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, but also of the conversion of Saul (who becomes the apostle Paul) and of Paul's missionary work until his imprisonment in Rome.

What meanings might this birth story have had for Theophilus and the other Greek-speaking Christians of his largely Gentile church? The birth story in the gospel of Luke sets the birth of Jesus within the Roman Empire at the time of a census decreed by Caesar Augustus. When the author of the gospel of Luke and Acts concludes his narrative with Paul in Rome proclaiming new life in Christ to Jews and Gentiles, we see clearly that the “good news” of this story is directed far beyond Galilee and Jerusalem to a much larger and more diverse Greek-speaking, Jewish and Gentile community throughout the Roman Empire.

In the second century some Christians began to claim that Jesus was a divine being who merely appeared to be human. Luke's gospel became a defense against this "Gnostic" heresy, because the birth story emphasizes Mary's pregnancy and the human birth of Jesus. Yet we don't hear of a Christmas celebration in the life of the church until the fourth century, when it is listed in an almanac as the Feast of the Nativity. Most likely this feast began in churches dominated by Gentiles during the reign of Constantine, after he was converted to Christianity in 312. In the Julian calendar of that period the Feast of the Nativity was celebrated on December 25th, which was the winter solstice. As the birth story in the gospel of Luke does not mention any date, the winter solstice was undoubtedly chosen to coincide with the pagan celebration of the rebirth of the sun. Thus, Jesus was proclaimed in the Roman Empire as the "true sun."

Probably Christians in Rome were unaware that shepherds in Palestine did not tend sheep in the fields during the winter. When Christian scholars in the Middle Ages were confronted with this factual inconsistency, they concluded the shepherds had stayed in the fields because of the winter solstice. European Christians adapted the story in other ways. The manger was represented in paintings and crèche scenes as a wooden rack or "crib." In Palestine, however, it would have been a stone ledge, trough, or a niche in the wall of a stable, in which fodder was placed. In Middle English the Feast of the Nativity was called "Christes masse," that is, the mass of Christ. This eventually was shortened to "Christmas."

It is interesting to recall that after the Protestant Reformation, Christmas was rejected by most Protestant denominations because it emphasized the baby Jesus rather than the risen Christ. In 1659 the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony made the observance of Christmas a punishable offense, and Protestant opposition to celebrating Christmas continued in some denominations well into the 19th century.

The flood of immigrants to the United States turned the tide. Germans brought their Christmas tree. Irish put lights in their windows. Catholic immigrants from Eastern Europe sang their native carols and protested having to work on Christmas Day! It was the Roman Catholic Church that kept the "Christ mass" tradition alive until the holiday became acceptable to all Christians and to many others as well.

Eventually, a surge of enthusiasm swept away all resistance. Neither the moral authority of the church, nor the power of the state could prevent the celebration of Christmas. It is almost as if the spirit of Christmas has a life of its own ― undisciplined, chaotic, commercial, fantastic, seemingly irrepressible!

As the Christmas story is told in the gospel of Luke, what meanings might it have for us today? I suggest, first, that as a very human story of mothers becoming pregnant and giving birth it reminds us that life, as we know it, is the medium in which God chooses to dwell. Jesus is born and grows up in a family, before as an adult he challenges religious and political authorities, suffers, is crucified, and then appears after death to his followers. 

Second, the gospel of Luke reminds us that poverty is not a mark of human failure or divine rejection. The origins of the church are humble and poor. The gospel story shows that the kingdom of God is not for those who claim to have earned salvation because of their success in the world, but for those who have faith.

Third, this story of women, a baby in a manger, and shepherds in the fields who come in wonder to the stable, should elicit in us a renewed sense of awe and gratitude for life. Each child is a wondrous creation, and the birth of a child is cause for joy. 

At Christmas, therefore, we celebrate the birth of the true sun, the light that enters the darkness and is not overcome by it, the life we know together in Christ, and the joy we share with one another and with the world.

Robert Traer

 

Resurrection is spiritual not physical

The New Testament gospels are anonymous. The shortest gospel is attributed to Mark, a colleague of Paul. The earliest version of this gospel reports that Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Salome (another follower of Jesus), come to the tomb, find the stone rolled away, and are told by a young man in a white robe that Jesus "has been raised" and gone to Galilee, where he will meet them. The gospel ends by saying the women "fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." (Mk. 16:1-8)

In the gospel attributed to the disciple Matthew, an earthquake opens the tomb and an angel delivers to the two Marys, who come to the tomb, the same message as in the gospel of Mark. When the two women run to tell the disciples, Jesus appears and speaks to them, and the gospel says: "they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him." After the women tell the disciples what they have witnessed, the eleven disciples go to Galilee, see Jesus, and worship him. But, the gospel adds, "some doubted." (Mt. 28:17)

The gospel attributed to Paul’s colleague Luke says two men in dazzling clothes tell the two Marys and Joanna (another follower of Jesus), that he has been raised from the dead. Jesus doesn't appear to the women, but does appear to two other followers and to Peter, before appearing to some of his disciples in Jerusalem. He says: "Look at my hands and my feet, see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." (Lk. 24:39) This gospel says Jesus eats a piece of fish, tells his disciples to stay in Jerusalem, blesses them, and then is lifted up into heaven. (Lk. 24)

In the gospel attributed to the disciple John, Mary Magdalene comes alone to the tomb and finds the stone rolled away. Jesus appears to her and says, "Do not hold me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father." He gives her this message for his disciples: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." The gospel of John also says the disciple Thomas doubts the resurrection, until Jesus appears to him by the Sea of Galilee and eats fish with him and several other disciples. (Jn. 20-21)

Paul’s resurrection account differs with all of the gospel stories. Paul tells the Christians at Corinth: "I handed on to you . . . what I in turn had received [from the disciples] that Christ appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time. . . . Then he appeared to James [the brother of Jesus, who became the leader of the church in Jerusalem], then to all the apostles. Last of all . . . he appeared also to me." (1 Cor. 15:3-8)

As Paul is writing in the 50s and the gospel authors wrote after the Jewish revolt that begins in 66, Paul’s resurrection account is earlier. Moreover, Paul seems unaware of stories about Jesus appearing to women at an empty tomb or eating with his disciples.

Paul is, however, aware that some Christians doubt in the resurrection, for he writes to the Corinthians: "how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?" Paul explains that resurrection is the fulfillment of God’s will for all creation, not merely the raising of Jesus from the dead. Christ is the beginning of the resurrection of the dead that will come for all those, he says, "who belong to Christ." (1 Cor. 15:20-23) And he argues that the resurrection of the Christians in Corinth will be the same as the resurrection of Christ.

It appears that some among the Christians in Corinth, have asked: “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” Paul answers: “Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies." And he explains: "There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. . . . What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. . . . It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1 Cor. 15: 40, 42, 44)

The authors of the New Testament gospels ignore the earlier resurrection account Paul received from the disciples and also his explanation that resurrection is not physical. We, too, may doubt the resurrection, but there is no doubt that Paul's spiritual experience of the risen Christ transformed his life and the course of history over the following two millennia. 

Grace and peace . . . Bob Traer

Living with love and hope

You have been raised with Christ, so set your hearts on things above. For you have died and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 2:1-4)

 

Resurrection is not about what happens to a body after it dies. As Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15, resurrection is a spiritual reality. A final hope, but now a Way of living. As Paul says in his letter to followers of the Way in Colossae, a small city near Ephesus in what is today Turkey, faith is dying to life as an everyday, material existence and being born anew in a life marked by hope and love. This is what Paul means by living "in Christ."

Grace and peace . . . Bob Traer

Living without fear of death

May the God of perseverance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves following the example of Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and one voice you may glorify God. (Romans 15:1-6)

Paul struggles to achieve support for his teachings in Rome and elsewhere. Paul argues that diversity can exist within the body of Christ, but his teaching is also a cause of division. He blames the conflicts on those who oppose him, but Paul's opponents must have blamed Paul. And who are Paul's opponents? The former disciples of Jesus, the apostles in Jerusalem who, we learn in Galatians 2 and in the second half of Acts, are led by James, the brother of Jesus.

The apostles in Jerusalem seem to believe that some if not all of the commandments of Jewish law must be kept by all following the Way of Jesus. As they knew Jesus during his lifetime, it is hard to believe that the historical Jesus set aside the Jewish law as Paul claims the risen Christ does. Paul never knew the historical Jesus, but he acknowledges that both he and the former disciples know the risen Lord. Why then do they differ?

Paul was a Greek-speaking Jew from a Roman city; the disciples of Jesus who were the first apostles were Aramaic-speaking Jews from Galilee. Perhaps their experience of the risen Christ was different, because their lives were so different. Yet, despite conflicting beliefs about Jesus, the first apostles and also Paul were transformed by their experience of the risen Christ.

In our time, thousands of survivors of near-death experiences have been transformed by the love and light that embraced them when they were unconscious and their brains were incapable of constructing perceptions, feelings, or memories. Nonetheless, these witnesses had striking perceptions, feelings, and memories. And now tell us that we all are going home. If you trust in their testimony, you too can live without fear of death.

Grace and peace . . . Bob Traer

 

Easter Life

News editor for the New Scientist, Anil Ananthaswamy, ends a remarkably clear explanation of a mysterious reality by acknowledging: “The case remains to be solved.”1 He was writing about the famous two-slit experiment in which a single photon of light may appear when measured to be a particle or a wave, depending on how the observer measures it.

 

I am writing about a very different case, the resurrection celebrated by Christians on Easter, which I affirm also “remains to be solved.” Ananthaswamy explains how “a sunbeam split in two” has shed “light on the underlying nature of reality.” I suggest the resurrection has shed light on the underlying nature of life.

 

The resurrection of Jesus after his death on a Roman cross has given Christians hope that conscious life can survive physical death. The dominant paradigm in science, which holds that all conscious life depends on a physical brain, assumes that physical death is the end of every form of conscious life. Yet, quantum physics has discovered that matter comes from energy, like the photon arising from the wave function of light. Material reality itself arises from energy that, like conscious thoughts and feelings, is not in itself material.

 

Near-death experiences, too, when a person’s brain is non-functional, are immaterial events that have significant consequences. My father remembered such an experience when during surgery his heart stopped, and his conscious awareness “awakened” despite anesthesia and observed the life-saving efforts of the medical team. Furthermore, my father’s conscious awareness left the hospital and “traveled” toward a brilliant but not blinding light, which he experienced as unconditional love. He also saw my mother in front of the light and wanted to remain there with her. But she communicated telepathically that it was not his time to die.

 

        James K Traer            

My father, a scientist, knew that materialist scientific explanations could not explain his near-death experience. Nonetheless, he told me, the experience was absolutely “real” and ended his fear of death. In addition, I knew that he had become a more compassionate person after his near-death experience. Moreover, research has confirmed that this character change is common among those who have shared their near-death experience with researchers. 2

 

Four hundred scientists have affirmed a “Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science” that asserts: “Conscious mental activity can be experienced in clinical death during a cardiac arrest.”3 And other scientists have affirmed in “Beyond a Materialist Vision” that “the belief that consciousness is nothing but a consequence . . . of brain activity . . . is neither proven, nor warranted.”4

 

I am not suggesting near-death experiences explain the resurrection. I am suggesting the materialist assumptions of scientists have not resolved our experience of consciousness—even when we are physically healthy, much less in cases such as near-death experiences.

 

The resurrection was a conscious experience for those who were its initial witnesses, and Easter has been and continues to be a real source of hope for many. The case for conscious life after physical death has not been resolved but remains both a scientific and spiritual possibility.

 

Humbly, I wish you all an inspiring Easter . . . Robert Traer

 

---

1 Anil Ananthaswamy, “Through two doors: How a sunbeam split in two became physics’ most elegant experiment, shedding light on the underlying nature of reality,” Aeon, Oct. 2, 2018, https://aeon.co/essays/the-elegant-physics-experiment-to-decode-the-nature-of-reality

 

2 Bruce Greyson, After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2021).

 

3 See https://opensciences.org/about/manifesto-for-a-post-materialist-science.

 

4 See https://galileocommission.org.

Extraordinary Experiences: On Our Way Home

I begin my book by relating life-transforming experiences of scientists. After struck by lightning, surgeon Tony Cicoria heard music “from Heaven” and became a pianist to play it. Biophysicist Joyce Hawkes, after her near-death experience, heard a voice calling her to be a healer, studied with indigenous teachers, and became a cell-level healer. No longer agnostic, Cicoria and Hawkes now trust in the Source of life many call God. Some scientists, such as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs, acknowledge extraordinary intuitive experiences revealing the secrets of nature. Other scientists report life-transforming healings, visions, and dreams. 
 
Stars, water, and life are natural phenomena but remain fundamental mysteries that may generate extraordinary human experiences. I explain why in chapters on Consciousness and Subjectivity, the Origin and Evolution of Life, a Creative Universe, Purpose and Meaning, Ethics and Ecology, and Nature and God.
 
These wondrous experiences offer evidence that we have come from and will return to an eternal dimension of reality, as unbounded by time and space as quantum reality. Some call it Heaven, the Other Side, or Cosmic Consciousness. Knowing this truth makes everyday life on earth extraordinary. And whether we know it or not, we are on our way home.
 
This is why I end the book by recognizing that the first line of the Lord’s Prayer is as compelling now as it was two millennia ago. Abba, may your kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Abba is the Aramaic word for father that Jesus used, and Paul in his New Testament letters also refers to Abba. Source of all life and forgiving love, may we open our hearts to You during our extraordinary lives on earth. Amen.

 

Available in paperback ($8) and Kindle ($1) editions at https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Experiences-Our-Way-Home/dp/B09JDX8ZLV/.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home.


Swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home.                      

 

I looked over Jordan and what did I see?


Comin’ for to carry me home.


A band of angels coming after me.


Comin’ for to carry me home.                               

 

If you get there before I do.


Comin’ for to carry me home.


Tell all my friends I’m coming, too.


Comin’ for to carry me home.                               

 

I'm sometimes up and sometimes down.


Comin’ for to carry me home.


But still my soul feels heaven bound.


Comin’ for to carry me home.                               

Measha Brueggergosman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpLszBOka0k

A prayer and a song for an Easter faith

To hear this click on https://christian-bible.com/songs/contemporary/abba-hallelujah.html

 

 

 

 

A prayer for life and death

O God of life and death.

May your grace and peace come,

may your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Keep us healthy and humble 'til our time has come.

And as we forgive those who've done us harm,

forgive us for the harm we've done.

And do not tempt but keep us safe from evil.

For you are the Way, the Truth, and the Light,

now and forever. Amen

Experiences of grace and going home

Wendy writes: I knew that I had died and would be leaving behind my baby and my husband, but I didn’t care. I wanted to go into the light. I wanted to go home. I felt like a blanket of love was wrapped around me. When I went through the light, all my dead relatives were there. I knew everyone even though then I hadn’t met them before. They were so happy to see me and welcomed me home. Even though they appeared in human form, I sensed that that wasn’t their true form. I had a connection with everyone—like some kind of collective consciousness. {GA, 74}

Sandy, who had a near-death experience at age five, later wrote: The Light was a sparkling glowing cloud. I heard a voice in my head and knew it was God. We never talked about God at my house, and I never went to church. Yet I knew this place, with this beautiful light, was God and my real home. I was surrounded by the light and one with it. It was like being scooped up and held safe by my daddy when a dog was barking at me, only more so. {GA, 121}

Another NDE survivor treasures this memory: On the other side, the arms of my loved ones welcomed me home. The feelings weren’t of this earth. {GA, 14}

After becoming unconscious during a grand mal seizure, Stacy recalls: I was totally relaxed, calm, and peaceful, and I knew I could comprehend everything about my life. I was home in God’s arms, and I was being given a peek at Universal Knowledge through the eyes of God. {GA, 115}

Words are inadequate to describe Heaven, Diane says, recalling her NDE experience. But I knew I was home. I knew this was where I’d come from. {GA, 151}

And another NDE survivor remembers: At the top of this mountain was a beautiful city. I knew some of the people there, but couldn’t make out the faces of others. I started walking up the mountain to get to the city, but a voice behind me said, “No, you can’t go up yet; it’s not your time.” I argued with the voice because I felt that if I could get to that city, I would be at home. {GA, 23}

After recalling in her NDE being “cleverly mean” to a childhood friend, and feeling remorse, Carol writes: Then I was embraced by love with layer upon layer of compassion. It felt like Home! Like coming inside from the snow to a warm fire, the smell of good cooking, and the laughter of family. I was euphoric beyond anything I’d felt before or anything I’ve felt since. {GA, 100}

These are not experiences of ordinary consciousness, for everyone having a near-death experience is dying and suffering cardiac arrest or in a coma or unconscious due to lack of oxygen or a general anesthetic or brain trauma. Breathing has stopped, the heart is no longer beating, eyes are closed—and yet the dying person “sees” and “hears” words that are unspoken, and also and has strong feelings as well as enduring memories. Furthermore, many NDE survivors remember that during their extraordinary experience separated from their human bodies, they were “back home” in the heavenly realm of Love and Light.

These NDE affirmations reminded me of African-American spirituals that refer to “going home” after death. “Swing low sweet chariot,” which tells of the prophet Elijah being taken up to heaven (2 Kings 2:11), is followed by the words: “coming for to carry me home.” The chorus of “Steal Away” is: “Steal away home, I ain’t got long to stay here.” And all the verses of “Precious Lord” end with the three words, “lead me home.”

Also during slavery, at the end of the 17th century, two English Christians wrote hymns that remain popular, perhaps because of the image of going “home” after death. Isaac Watts, minister of a Congregational Church in London, wrote “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past,” with opening and final verses that end by affirming God as “our eternal home.” John Newton, a former slaver trader who after his conversion served as curate in the village of Olney, wrote the words to “Amazing Grace.” It’s third verse reads: “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; ‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

These experiences and hopes challenge our faith and beliefs. Is our everyday consciousness an embodied and limited experience of the greater consciousness that we each are? Do near-death experiences reveal an eternal Consciousness that gives purpose and meaning to our embodied experience? Do the experiences of near-death survivors verify that our real home is a transcendent realm of timeless Light and Love? 

{GA} quotes from Jeffrey Long, God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience (2016).

NDEs have renewed my Christian Faith

Not long after my mother died, my father during surgery suffered a cardiac arrest. As the physicians worked on his unconscious body, he “awoke” floating above the operating table―seeing the physicians working frantically to revive him and hearing their voices. Then he found himself moving through a dark tunnel toward a bright light, where he saw my mother, smiling and waiting. As he came near to her and into the light, he felt an overwhelming sense of being loved and forgiven. But my mother communicated to him that it wasn’t his time yet, and then he floated back through the darkness and into his aching body.

For several years my father didn’t tell anyone of this extraordinary experience, but finally he shared it with me. Trained as a scientist, he had no way to explain his near-death consciousness during his cardiac arrest under general anesthesia. His life was altered, however, by what he experienced and remembered. My father was not a religious man, but his near-death experience (NDE) left him without any fear of death. Also, I believe, he became more loving and accepting. At age 90, when a second stroke left him unable to swallow, he told me his time had come. He asked that his IV be disconnected and that a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order be entered into his medical record. After a day without water or food, he slipped into a coma and three days later died peacefully.

My father’s NDE not only changed his life, but mine as well. Since his death I have read many accounts of near-death experiences and studied the research reported by physicians and other scientists. My father’s experience and my research have also affected my recent writing about faith, consciousness, and science. My essays are available online primarily on two of my four web sites, but especially on the web site at www.doingfaith.com. I cannot adequately summarize all these readings and how they have changed my thinking, but here are few paragraphs that try . . .

First, I am now convinced we are souls having a human experience, rather than human beings who some believe have souls. By “soul” I mean living-perceiving-meaning moments of consciousness that come from (and in this life continue to be part of) the sustaining timeless source of all living-perceiving-meaning. NDEs such as my father’s verify an enhanced consciousness that is not the result of brain activity—and in fact seems to require the loss of ordinary consciousness. NDE survivors affirm we all are part of an enhanced and endlessly creating consciousness.

Physicists describe this unfolding or evolving consciousness as the nonlocal background for all that is. In the words of Christian teaching, we “live and move and have our being” in “the kingdom of God.” This kingdom, of course, is immaterial, but hints of it enter our material experience. NDEs especially reveal the power and purposes of this spiritual realm, or what several of the authors in this collection call “the Other Side.” I believe the Light my father and millions of others have experienced during an NDE confirms the Christian witness that “nothing can separate us from the love of God”—whether we are Christians or participate in other religious traditions or are agnostics or atheists.  

Second, I know that our purpose in this life is to grow in the Light of this unconditional Love. In every moment, in the trials of living and dying, and in all our relationships, this is our challenge and opportunity. We always have a choice to love creatively, with courage and hope. We can strive to be forgiving, as we have been forgiven. We can embrace our living and dying with gratitude and joy. Each of us has our own fate—a calling to our individual quest to wrest faith and hope from suffering. Yet, we all are One in this extraordinary adventure.

Along the way each of us will have guides from the Other Side—from loving angels or caring ancestors or other beings. Or from what psychologists identify as our unconscious. This guidance will usually be ambiguous, as we each must find our own way. Our evolving-loving-consciousness is part of the timeless evolving-loving-consciousness that gives meaning and purpose to all reality. I encourage you to look for your guidance in prayer, meditation, humor, art, music, and children, as well as in your disappointments.

Third, I am filled with hope that we come from and will return home to the everlasting Light offering unconditional Love. We enter life on earth with a purpose, I now believe, and whether or not this purpose is fulfilled we will end our embodied experience on earth with a forgiving life review and new insights into the meaning of our cosmic adventure. 

 

The photo shows my father and oldest child, Kim Traer. I'm grateful for the lessons I've learned from each of them.

A New Testament Prayer

O God of love,

may your grace and peace come,

may your will be done on earth as in heaven.

Keep us healthy and humble ‘til our time has come.

And as we forgive those who’ve done us harm,

forgive us for the harm we’ve done.

And keep us safe from temptation and evil.

For you are the Way, and the Truth, and the Light,

now and forever. Amen.

Your will be done on earth as in heaven

Your will be done . . .

You, who Jesus called father

Your will for all creation

A doing we can do

Will do

 

As in heaven . . .

Your eternal realm

No where or when, but real

Our home too

With you

 

On earth . . .

Here and now

Your will becoming our will

Amazing grace

Now we can see

And we will