talking to myself

Forgiveness by Nora Gallagher

I think that forgiveness is the probably the most important thing that any of us can do in life. Forgiveness can be very difficult but it is the only way to healing and letting go of baggage that only pulls us down into cycles of pain and recrimination. Funny how we often cling to what is hurtful and harmful in our lives and are afraid to let it go so that something better can surface in our lives; like freedom. I struggle with forgiveness and over the years have learned that healing can only come from not only giving it but being able to receive it as well. Forgiveness of self can be just as difficult as forgiving others.

Peace Mitch

Forgiveness by Nora Gallagher

I say it every Sunday just like all the other people standing next to me in the pews, "Forgive us our trespasses," (which I often see in my mind as sneaking into my neighbor's yard through our mutual hedge), or "forgive us our sins," (which feels much worse), and the kicker, "as we forgive those who trespass, (sin) against us." And then I hold next to my heart all the sins and trespasses I don't forgive. Actually, there are only a few. But they are big ones. Here is one. Twenty-four years ago, a man killed my husband's best friend-- I will call him James--when James picked him up hitchhiking. I was the one who got the call, and I was the one who had to tell Vincent. I was the one who watched Vincent, my boyfriend of only a few months, the person I loved then and love now more than anyone else in my life, fall to the ground on hearing those words out of my mouth.

The man was crazy. He hanged himself in his prison cell some months after they caught him, after they found him with James's silver cigarette case. I know his crime's reverberations, like rings from a stone thrown into a pool of water. I know how the loss of James changed, shaped, distorted my husband's life. I know what James's death did to James's widow and to her two boys. From his crime, we had to pick up the pieces. I know what this killer's crime cost other lives; he does not.

And worst of all, what it cost James.

We never even got to talk to James's killer about James's last moments on this earth. The people who testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa say there was an odd intimacy between those who were murdered and those who did the murdering; that the person who did the killing knew what the victim said and looked like moments before he or she died. And the relatives of the victims wanted to know.

Jacques Derrida says that forgiveness is only really meaningful when we forgive what is unforgivable. He was speaking, as a Jew, of the Nazis.

I wonder if I had been able to see James's killer, what might have happened. Had I visited this crazy man in prison, would I have felt something move in my heart?

In the documentary about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, A Long Night's Journey into Day, the parents of a young American woman who was killed by a South African boy, visit the mother of the boy to speak to her, and to forgive him. Almost everyone in the audience immediately begins to weep. The act of forgiveness makes everyone cry.

A psychologist who worked with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission says that when you forgive a person, you restore that person to his or her humanity. This is done because the forgiving person understands that he or she could have committed the same crime. You understand you could have done it yourself. A story from the Nuremberg Trials: A man who had been a prisoner in one of the Nazi death camps was supposed to testify against another man who had been a guard in the camp. When the witness saw the guard in the courtroom, he fainted. All those around him thought it was because he was so horrified to see his oppressor again. But when the man regained consciousness, he said, "No. I fainted because I realized I could have been him."

I know that forgiving James's killer is for myself, blah, blah. I mean, he's dead. Why do I hold this against him? Because I had to say, "Vincent I have something terrible to tell you. James has been killed." We were standing in the driveway of the house we had only moved into a few months before, starting our new life together, as a young man and a young woman, full of hope. He fell against the fender of the car. Our new life, full of unfettered hope, was killed.

I want to take the man responsible for this, and rub his nose in it. I want to tell him of everything that happened because he pulled the trigger of a gun on a remote highway in southern California. I want to tell him of how James's widow moved from Santa Barbara because she could not afford to stay here. Of his elder son's face, five years old, on the day of James's funeral. Of the boys growing up without a father. Want more, I will ask him? One of those boys later died, too. He hanged himself in the basement. I want to sit there and force this crazy murderer to feel what his work has wrought. But of course he did feel it. Something made him take a strip of cloth one morning and thread it through the light fixture in his cell.

And that does not feel like it resolves anything. Ashes in my mouth. And it would not have resolved anything had the state executed him. More ashes. What is done is done. More death cannot undo it.

And that's really the point, isn't it? If you don't forgive, you don't break the cycle of violence. It just goes on and on until there is no one left standing. In the Philadelphia Museum there is a room of drawings by Cy Twombly on Homer's Iliad, his poem about the Trojan War. One is of a huge red cloud, filling most of a canvas that must be six feet tall. Scrawled underneath are the words, "It consumes everything in its path."

The truly terrible part is that Jesus loves that man who died in his cell as much as he loves James. As much as he loves me. I actually get this. Or some part of me does. Jesus loves James's killer because he knows that there is something more to him than that one terrible act. Just as there is more to James and more to me.

I think of Jesus tunneling back from the dead, a gossamer figure, thin as lace, threading his way through keyholes in locked doors. To say over and over, Forgive others. Forgive yourself. Take this second chance. Begin again.

And that, too, is the point. I must leave that young man falling to the ground, and the young woman standing helpless beside him, as if they were a photograph, in the past. James's killer changed our lives. So be it. Even James's widow and her surviving son have endured the unendurable. I must let my hatred and fury at James's killer loose into the wind, into God's heart, so that it lies in the past where it finally belongs. Forgiveness is a way to unburden oneself from the constant pressure of rewriting the past. It's a gesture towards the future. Not for the future as a future in time, but for what the French call avenir, to open the way for what is to come, for the unexpected.

Copyright ©2004 by Nora Gallagher

Nora Gallagher is the author of two memoirs, Things Seen and Unseen and Practicing Resurrection both published by Knopf and Vintage books. To purchase a copy of Things Seen and Unseen or Practicing Resurrection visit Sacred Path Books & Art. This link is provided as a service to explorefaith.org visitors and registered users.

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Julian of Norwich and the Enigma of Divine Revelation

SPIRITUALITY TODAY Spring 1992, Vol.44 No. 1, pp. 37-47

John Noffsinger: Julian of Norwich and the Enigma of Divine Revelation

Divine love clarifies and unifies our relationship to God.

John Noffsinger, Ph.D. is chair of the English department at Norfolk Academy in Norfolk, VA.

ON May 13, 1373 Julian of Norwich was graced with a series of visitations from God in the form of sixteen visions. Shortly after these revelations, or "showings" as Julian referred to them, she wrote a description of them as well as a brief analysis of their content. Almost twenty years later, still puzzling over the nature and meaning of these signs, she expanded her original work and wrote an extended treatment of the revelations, her search leading her to an exploration of the nature of the soul, the mystery of the soul's relationship to God, the problem of sin, and the nature of divine love. (This later work is the so-called "long text," the subject of most modern editions of her writings.)(1)

That day in May of 1373 transformed Julian's life. While she remained an anchoress and spiritual counselor in Norwich, much of the rest of her life was devoted to deciphering the cryptic meaning behind this experience of divine revelation. Interpreting the visions is made even more difficult by the complexity of her experience of the visitations, for Julian informs us that she was aware of three modes of perception. She received the showings "by bodily vision and by words formed in my understanding and by spiritual vision"
(192). "Bodily yision" implies sensory perception of physical reality, while "words formed in my understanding" consists of words "dictated" to Julian interiorly. The last mode of understanding spiritual vision -- is what we might term "insight" or an immediate, intuitive understanding of significance.

In her work Julian describes some visions with disarmingly simple and vivid prose -- Christ crowned with thorns, for example, or the discoloration of his face. Other visions are more abstract or philosophical -- the thirteenth revelation, for example, which declares our need to value the works of God. While Julian had all sixteen visions consecutively, sometimes their spiritual significance was the fruit of years of brooding. All three modes interweave in the Showings to suggest how extraordinarily rich was. the totality of her spiritual experience.

MULTI-FACETED MEANINGS

While some measure of religious import is embedded within the visions, liberating this meaning is difficult. The anchoress spent years of her life trying to interpret the message encrypted in these enigmatic utterances. In the Showings Julian sets herself the task of recovering an experience of God that was momentary yet whose mark on her life was ineradicable. At the deepest level what seems to be left after the visions depart is not a fully articulable meaning but rather wonder, the faint trace of God's visitation.

As the Showings make clear, Julian's visions are an expression of the realizable, felt presence of God. Having had the visitations to some extent forces her to spend time clarifying her sense of what this experience of divinity is like. When we encounter God, according to Julian, our proper attitude is one of "reverent fear" before the awe- inspiring majesty of divine power. This is not simply a subjective or mental state but a spontaneous response to the objective reality of God's presence.(2)

But we do not experience God solely as a being outside ourselves; we also perceive divine reality to exist within. Julian begins with a traditional theological model in her discussion of the nature and relationship of body and soul. God created our bodies from "the slime of the earth, which is matter mixed and gathered from all bodily things" (284). The creation of our souls, however, is attributable to nothing except divine spirit (and this creation is hence literally "inspiration.") The theological consequence of this act of creation is that "man's soul is kept whole" (284) -- that is, divine reality underpins the very fact of our humanity and unites us to God, defined by Julian as "substantial uncreated nature" (284). Realizing the true (i.e., divine) nature of our being is simultaneously an act of "creating God." God is thus not only creator but is also continually created, given form, and realized through the instrumentality of humanity. Julian comments that God

wants us to know that this beloved soul was preciously knitted to him in its making, by a knot so subtle and so mighty that it is united in God. In this uniting it is made endlessly holy. (284) The consequence of this divine union is that humans provide the locus for the continual coming-into-being of God; this human expression of the energy of the godhead confirms our identity and existence as co- creators of sacred reality. Our soul is created to be God's dwelling place, and the dwelling of our soul is God, who is uncreated. It is a great understanding to see and know inwardly that God, who is our Creator, dwells in our soul, and it is a far greater understanding to see and know inwardly that our soul, which is created, dwells in God in substance, of which substance, through God, we are what we are. And I saw no difference between God and our substance, but, as it were, all God; and still my understanding accepted that our substance is in God, that is to say that God is God, and our substance is a creature in God. (285) The divine part of our being -- our soul -- realizes the nature of God through a metaphysical correspondence or a kind of cosmic resonance that is set in motion when we encounter this Presence. But not only does our soul share divinity in being created by God; we also create God out of the divine nature of our souls. Because of the congruity between divinity and humanity, we "shape" the creation of God in the course of realizing our humanity. SELF KNOWLEDGE, GOD KNOWLEDGE

Throughout her meditative explorations in the Showings, Julian ponders further such theological concerns as the nature of the soul, the nature of God, and the connection between them. If God is in fact the divine ground of our being, both physical and spiritual, then by "knowing" our souls we should come closer to a knowledge of God. For Julian a reciprocity exists between the human and divine worlds so that self-knowledge both presupposes and preordains a knowledge of God. One consequence of this insight is that the path toward spiritual perfection lies not in rejecting the human condition but in embracing it, for

by the leading through grace of the Holy Spirit we shall know them [soul and God] both in one; whether we are moved to know God or our soul, either motion is good and true. (288) Julian is suggesting here the possibility of achieving a unified consciousness, one not split between the false dichotomies of human and divine or body and soul. It i's a startling voice indeed that boldly proclaims: our sensuality is founded in nature, in mercy, and in grace, and this foundation enables us to receive gifts which lead us to endless life. For I saw very surely that our substance is in God, and I also saw that God is in our sensuality, for in the same instant and place in which our soul is made sensual, in that same instant and place exists the city of God, ordained from him without beginning. He comes into this city and will never depart from it, for God is never out of the soul, in which he will dwell blessedly without end. (287) But a serpent lurks in this potential paradise, for we obviously find ourselves in a world in which we perceive a split between self or soul and God. Julian comments that "though the soul may be always like God in nature and in substance restored by grace, it is often unlike him in condition, through sin on man's part" (258). Two phenomena are in operation here. One, grace, emanates from God and the other, sin, blocks the possibility of receiving God's presence or realizing the divine ground of our being. The unrealized potential of the soul is to be united to God, but our sinful human condition prevents our ability to do this. When grace is operative, however, and our souls are with humility ready to receive it, the "substance" of our souls is restored, and we perceive the true (i.e., sacred) nature of our humanity. Faith helps us recover the divine ground of our being and assures us that with self-knowledge comes knowledge of the infinite mystery of divine presence: "When we know and see, truly and clearly, what our self is, then we shall truly and clearly see and know our Lord God in the fullness of joy" (258). SPIRITUAL THIRST

Julian uses the metaphor of spiritual thirst to examine this search for self-knowledge, for God, and, somewhat surprisingly, for God's desire to become known to us. For Julian the paradox of encountering divine presence is that while God wishes to be known, our knowledge is partial and fragmentary. How can such an elusive God be known? According to Julian:

It is God's will that we believe that we see him continually, though it seems to us that the sight be only partial; and through this belief he makes us always to gain more grace, for God wishes to be expected, and he wishes to be trusted. (194) Although our experience suggests only a fleeting encounter with divine presence, faith leads us to desire a more unconstrained and continual experience of God. While, on the one hand, Julian posits a God who "wishes to be seen, and . . . wishes to be sought;" on the other she makes it clear that it is the nature of God to elude our sincerest attempt to achieve full awareness of divinity. Because our experience of God, as manifested in Julian's visions, is fleeting and fragmentary, we are left with a yearning for more complete knowledge. But this quest itself, irrespective of its outcome, contains meaning. One of Julian's visions teaches her that "the soul's constant search pleases God greatly. For it cannot do more than seek, suffer, and trust"
(195). Out of God's will to be known and our own desire to encounter God arises a gap, one that can only be closed by what Julian calls "grace": "It is God's will that we seek on until we see him for it is through this that he will show himself to us, of his special grace, when it is his will" (195). While our desire for divine encounter is infinite in its longing, the object of this desire only reveals itself, if at all, "when it is his will." Longing in and of itself is no guarantor that we will encounter the presence of God.

SURRENDER TO GOD

Julian ultimately suggests that the function of the soul is to "surrender" itself to God in the quest for divine presence. This surrender can take one of two forms: "seeking" or "contemplating":

It is God's will that we receive three things from him as gifts as we seek. The first is that we seek willingly and diligently without sloth, as that may be with his grace, joyfully and happily, without unreasonable depression and useless sorrow. The second is that we wait for him steadfastly, out of love for him, without rumbling and contending against him, to the end of our lives, for that will last only for a time. The third is that we have great trust in him, out of complete and true faith, for it is his will that we know that he will appear, suddenly and blessedly, to all his lovers. For he works in secret, and he will be perceived, and his appearing will be very sudden. And he wants to be trusted, for he is very accessible, familiar and courteous, blessed may he be. (196) Julian here counsels patience, diligence, and trust. She has faith that God will be revealed, but the "accessibility" of God is dependent on our own expectancy and readiness of soul. One of Julian's greatest strengths lies in her willingness to confront such difficult theological issues as the nature of the soul. Another one of her theological preoccupations is the question of sin and its personal and metaphysical manifestations in pain and suffering. The paradox of Christian belief -- the coexistence of a just and loving God with a world containing great suffering -- is in fact the subject of Julian's first revelation, in which she receives a vivid image of the crucified Christ. After a graphic depiction of "the red blood running down from under the crown, hot and flowing freely and copiously, a living stream;" Julian seems inexplicably filled "full of the greatest joy" (181). All of Julian's discussions of suffering and her attempts to find meaning in the pain of the human condition must be viewed in this context of the archetype of the suffering Christ. Julian even defines "sin" in terms that link humanity with the Passion of Christ:

In this naked word "sin," our Lord brought generally to my mind all which is not good, and the shameful contempt and the direst tribulation which he endured for us in this life, and his death and all his pains, and the passions, spiritual and bodily, of all his creatures. (225) HUMAN SUFFERING For Julian, Christ is both the symbol of human suffering and the sign of divine triumph over suffering. The meaning Julian derives from her first visitation is not that humans are destined to suffer (though we are), but more important that we have been given a sign through the Passion of Christ that we will ultimately triumph over the frailties of the flesh:

For [God] does not despise what he has made, nor does he disdain to serve us in the simplest natural functions of our body, for love of the soul which he created in his own likeness. For as the body is clad in the cloth, and the flesh in the skin, and the bones in the flesh, and the heart in the trunk, so are we, soul and body, clad and enclosed in the goodness of God. Yes, and more closely, for all these vanish and waste away; the goodness of God is always complete, and closer to us, beyond any comparison. (186) But the philosophical problem still remains. If, as Julian insists, God resides in us and is "present in all things" (197), how can this goodness share divine space with the presence of evil? Julian states the difficulty of the case with characteristic directness: Our Lord God . . . is at the center of everything, and he does everything. And I was certain that he does no sin; and here I was certain that sin is no deed, for in all this sin was not shown to me . . . . For a man regards some deeds as well done and some as evil, and our Lord does not regard them so, for everything which exists in nature is of God's creation, so that everything which is done has the property of being God's doing. (197-
198). Julian seems to imply here the heterodox view that sin has no reality whatsoever, the acts we label "evil" being merely products of our faulty perception. But a still, small voice within Julian is troubled by this explanation, this act of abolishing sin by linguistic fiat. Inspired both by humility and by curiosity, she presents an argument for the reality of sin from the human perspective: It seemed to me that if there had been no sin, we should all have been pure and as like our Lord as he created us. And so in my folly before this time I often wondered why, through the great prescient wisdom of God, the beginning of sin was not prevented. For then it seemed to me that all would have been well. (224) The answer she receives to this childlike query is enigmatic but reassuring: "Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well" (225). Julian, however, is not quite ready to let go her persistent questioning. After contemplating this reassurance, she again asks "with very great fear: Ah, good Lord, how could all things be well, because of the great harm which has come through sin to your creatures?" (227) Again she receives a measure of condolence: "You will see yourself that every kind of thing will be well . . . . Accept it now in faith and trust, and in the very end you will see truly, in fullness of joy" (232).

But Julian will not relent. Despite these supernatural comforts (the latter reassurance being consolation in the form of resignation to Divine Mystery), Julian is still troubled by certain aspects of the faith:

Our faith is founded on God's word, and it belongs to our faith that we believe that God's word will be preserved in all things. And one article of our faith is that many creatures will be damned, such as the angels who fell out of heaven because of pride, who now are devils, and many men upon earth who die out of the faith of Holy Church, that is to say those who are pagans and many who have received baptism and who live unchristian lives and so die out of God's love. All these will be eternally condemned to hell, as Holy Church teaches me to believe. And all this being so, it seemed to me that it was impossible that every kind of thing should be well, as our Lord revealed at this time. And to this I had no other answer as a revelation for our Lord except this: What is impossible to you is not impossible to me. I shall preserve my word in everything, and I shall make everything well. (233) GOD'S LOVE TRANSCENDS OUR SIN Besides the untroubled voice of divine reassurance, what reality could possibly lift the weight of sin? According to Julian it is the supreme sign of the reality of God: the unfathomable mystery of love. It must be remembered that Julian herself calls the showings a "revelation of love," and the glory of reading her work is that we come away not with a sense of the affliction of sin but with the possibilities of transcending sin through the power of love. Julian establishes an intimate connection between the two when she states:

God showed that sin will be no shame, but honour to man, for just as there is indeed a corresponding pain for every sin, just so love gives to the same soul a bliss for every sin. (242) To answer Julian's earlier troubling question, then, sin is necessary so that we can become, in the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, "instruments of love in the hands of God." Because God is "endless supreme truth, endless supreme wisdom, [and] endless supreme love uncreated" (256), Julian suggests we have a divinely ordained imperative to actualize on a human level the 'divine potentialities we attribute to God. Love connects the inherent affinities between the human and divine worlds. The theme of love in fact provides a leitmotif throughout the Showings. Julian asserts that we are "bound to [God] in love" (309) and that "our life is all founded in love, and without love we cannot live" (263). Moreover, she implies that even our salvation is in part "this-worldly," for "we cannot be blessedly saved until we are truly in peace and in love, for that is our salvation" (264). One final question remains, however, and it is one Julian returns to with wonder at the end of her work. In an extraordinarily moving passage Julian presents to us the fruit of her years of pondering and reflection:

And from the time that it was revealed, I desired many times to know in what was our Lord's meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said: What, do you wish to know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same. But you will never, know different, without end. (342) "In my end;" says T.S. Eliot, "is my beginning." As Eliot echoes the spirit of Julian of Norwich, so does Julian reciprocate by "arriving where we started, and [knowing] the place for the first time."(3) Thus Julian ends where she began, with a "revelation of love." The mystery of the showings is finally revealed to be no less than the mystery of love itself, a reality vouchsafed to Julian as both human and divine.

Endnotes

Julian of Norwich, Showings, trans. Edmund Colledge, O.S.A. and James Walsh, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1978). This edition is the most authoritative and scholarly modern translation, reprinting with extensive critical apparatus both the short and long texts. All citations in this essay are to the Paulist Press edition of Julian's work.

Julian's experience perfectly exemplifies the category of "numinous dread" analyzed by the German scholar Rudolf Otto, who sees "awe" as one component of the mysterium tremendum. See Otto's Idea of the Holy
(Das Heilige).

Both Eliot quotations are from the Four Quartets, the first from "East Coker" and the second from "Little Gidding." But compare Eliot's "All shall be well, and/All manner of thing shall be well," also from "Little Gidding."

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Jane Fonda/ Her Faith

Beliefnet: Although you didn't identify with a particular religious path until recently, your book seems to tell the story of someone whose spiritual consciousness has been developing her whole life. You were raised as an agnostic, or an atheist?

Fonda: I always assumed it was as an atheist. Looking back now, I guess it was more an agnostic upbringing. My father's parents were Christian Science practitioners.

Things began to change for me—as I think they do for many people—when I was in crisis. I think that the reason that that happens is because pain can break you open. And you can go several ways with it. You can pretend that it's not happening and you can cover the broken places with busyness or alcohol or whatever—you can numb it.

What happened to me was, and I remember exactly where I was on the day: I mean, I was really in pain, and I said out loud—I was by myself—"If God wants me to suffer like this, there must be a reason." And it took me by surprise; I did a double take. I thought, "Where is that coming from?" And from that time forward, I became aware of, I call them coincidences. I just became very aware that the absolute right person would come into my life at the moment that I needed to know something. The exact right book would come into my hands. Oftentimes by people I didn't know. They were like sign posts! And I thought, "Has this been going on all along and I just didn't notice?"

And along about that time, I heard Bill Moyers say, "Coincidences are God's way of manifesting," and that lodged in me. That just really struck me and about that same time, I met Ted Turner and moved to Georgia—[laughs] Atlanta, Georgia!

When I need an answer, or I need someone to be helped, it's always the same: my hands in prayer position and my thumbs pressed against my third eye, my forehead...

Now, I had never lived in an environment where people went to church regularly and had a living faith. And I was, utterly fascinated because they were smart people, President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn and Ambassador Andrew Young and many others who were friends with Ted and people of deep faith. And I was married to Ted, a professed atheist, for ten years and for eight of those years, I spent a lot of time listening and talking and asking questions of these people.

By that time, it had come to feel like I was being led. It was a somatic feeling that I was being beckoned, and I often felt that there was a light drawing me. And I'm not a woo-woo kind of person! I'm not a New Age person. I grew up in the fifties. But it was a very powerful feeling.

What I realized writing my book was that I had been empty since adolescence. Whenever I try to figure out how to describe it, it always manifests for me in terms of emptiness. I feel like when I was an adolescent, and felt so unworthy of love and so empty, I moved outside of myself. Myself emptied out of myself. And what was left was a more perfect me that maybe people could love, and I wasn't going to show them the other part. And when you do that, you fill in the emptiness—well, it fills up with anxiety real fast, and to numb the anxiety you do many things. I suffered from eating disorders, and drinking, and you know, there are many ways of numbing it.

So if you leap almost 50 years later and I'm living in Georgia and I'm having this feeling of being led and I find myself so curious about this faith that these people all around me are practicing. I felt my emptiness being filled up with reverence.

This is the hunger that you talk about in the book—

Yes, yes.

--and finally that hunger is being satisfied.

With what I was really searching for all along. It was spiritual hunger. I was learning to be satisfied by spirit, [whereas before] I had been trying to satisfy the hunger with other things. And so, you know, like many people, I could have sort of settled with being spiritual.

You mean, settled with being spiritual, as opposed to becoming religious?

Correct. It would have just been meditation, but it became prayer.

I think it's partly that I live in Georgia; it's partly that it's my culture. You know, I wasn't attracted to Buddhism although I really respect it. I wasn't attracted to Islam although I really respect it. Or Judaism. I'm attracted to Jesus.

And so for a number of years, I thought, what am I going to do with this? I'm living with a man who I very much love and who is an atheist and who has called Christianity "a religion for losers" and yet, I'm feeling drawn.

Somebody in south Georgia, a very hostile person who doesn't like me at all, said, 'Have you been saved?' And I wasn't even sure what it meant, and I kind of tap danced around it 'cause he was hostile, and I didn't want to engage. But I then came back and I asked a friend of mine what did it mean, to her? And she said, "Well, to me, it meant going the next step." Well, boy, I mean, I'm a going-the-next-stepper! If there's a next step that can be taken, I'll take it. And so she had me read the Book of John and I was—I was experiencing grace at that time.

Did you feel a divine presence?

Yes, yes. I was feeling… I was humming with reverence. I felt the presence of the Almighty very much in my body—and I wasn't having a nervous breakdown [laughs] and I wasn't spacing out, or anything like that. It was very heavy and—you know, it's hard to get the words out these days because it's so loaded politically, and it scares me to say it—but I was saved.

Listen "And then I began to go to Bible study..."

And then I began to go to Bible study class, and it didn't take long for me to think, "Uh oh, I've made a terrible mistake, this is not for me." I started going to churches and I fled. I just fled.

Because the teachings led you to believe it was a patriarchal system?

Yeah, yeah. What I was feeling on my own was not a "Lord above." It was not—well, it certainly had nothing to do with woman being the downfall of man. You know—

You couldn't relate to the "old man in the sky" idea—

It wasn't a man in the sky! It was, it was: Come on! When we talk about—depending on how you talk about it—God, the Almighty, Sophia, a greater power, whatever—can't you understand that this is beyond gender? This is beyond anything that we can imagine. I mean, we can't even describe it. I understand why people latch onto gender things, but this is not a man. But because people have taken it so literally, it becomes gender and hence, hierarchal. And it just made my teeth grate. The more I studied, in the very kind of linear, fundamentalist way, the more I felt reverence leaking away from me.

I never ever would have gone public with this, ever. A person who had been driving me at that time (because Ted and I shared a car) went on a website and said he had brought me to Christ. And it just spread like wildfire and became front page news. I was outed, and it was just a tremendous betrayal. I never would have [gone public with this] because it was too new. And then I discovered that it wasn't what I was—I thought, this is wrong for me.

Did you stop going to Bible study?

Yes. Yes, I did. And I went for a couple of years feeing bereft. And I was really very sad. So now I'm on my own [in 2000 and 2001, after separating from Ted Turner] and for about a year, I'm confused. I think I've made a mistake.

And I read Elaine Pagels. I had read "The Gnostic Gospels" years before and it had really impressed me. In fact, I read it when I was first feeling God. And then I read "Beyond Belief," which is a book she came out with recently, and it had a lot of references to early Christians and Gnostic Gospels, and so I read the originals. In fact, I got the whole Nag Hammadi library and through that reading, I began to realize that I am on the right path. That Christianity is my spiritual home. This is where I'm meant to be. And that I have to discover for myself what that means.

I think feminism is another way of teaching what Jesus taught, that we are all full human beings with the right to have our humanity seen and respected.

And this is very new and so you know, it's hard for me to go into it in great detail because I'm only a few years into this journey. But I am riveted, I am fascinated with religious history, with Biblical history, with the early Gospels, with Robert Graves, King Jesus, I'm just, I can't get enough. This is a very real journey for me.

Have you been able to find a spiritual community in Atlanta that you can identify with?

I want very much to do that. I would have to say that I have been for the last five years, writing my book which means that I don't leave home very much.

I started venturing out when I finished the book last fall and discovered that there's a whole community nationwide of feminist Christians. I finished the book and then I heard about this book "Faith and Feminism" by Helen LaKelly Hunt, and now I've gotten to know her and through her, discovered that there's a lot of us out there. And it's like, "O.K., this was waiting. I needed to finish [the book] and this was waiting for me." And it's very exciting.

And of course there was Anne Lamott. When I first became a Christian, I read "Traveling Mercies" and I realized, "Oh, I'm not alone, thank you." It was this book that literally came to me by accident that was my view of what it means to be a Christian. And I gave it to my children because I said, "This is what I'm talking about" because they're just sort of horrified [laughs] with my whole process.

Did that help them understand you? Did they read it?

I don't know. I think my daughter read it because she loves Anne Lamott—so I think she did—but they just, they just don't want to deal with this trip that I'm on.

Was there one "Ah ha" moment for you?

No. It's been a journey; little baby steps. And then long about 1998, it became very vibrant and vivid for me and that's when I began to pray—and prayer, it was very powerful for me.

And you hadn't ever prayed before then?

No. I had meditated and still do. And it's different.

What kinds of things do you pray about?

Well, a lot of times it's thanks. You know, I feel uncomfortable always asking for something [laughs]. So there's a lot of things. And I have a lot to give thanks for. But when I need an answer, or I need someone to be helped, it's always the same: my hands in prayer position and my thumbs pressed against my third eye, my forehead. I find that I need to do that. And I need to be sitting or kneeling. It's like sending up. It's like my prayer and my thoughts go from my head through my fingers upward. And I'm sending this upward and as I describe within the book, I feel "hooked up."

And then when you have questions and you're going through a difficult time, are your answers revealed to you through coincidences, or how things happen in your life?

Yes, yes.

What role did religion play in your break-up with Ted Turner? Is this why you split up?

Oh, it was one among other reasons.

When did he say that Christianity was a "religion for losers" (for which he later apologized)?

Before I met him. And you know it's funny because he ends all his speeches with "God Bless". He studied; you know, he was an altar boy. He was considering becoming a missionary. He's read the Bible cover-to-cover twice. He's been saved seven times, including twice by Billy Graham.

How does he feel now? Do you ever talk about your spirituality with him? Do you think he might change his views?

I pray for that sometimes, but I don't know what will happen. We don't talk about it much.

You seem to consider him a soul mate, and yet you don't have a spiritual connection—unless it's something that's there but he doesn't recognize as such…

I feel it in him, and I feel it blocked, and it makes me sad.

"Monster-in-Law" is your first movie in 15 years, so this is the first time you're going back to Hollywood as a Christian. Do you think it's hard to be a spiritually grounded person in that business?

I sure think it helps. I'm not sure that I would have become a Christian if I had continued to live in Hollywood because the notion wouldn't have occurred to me. I think I would have continued to identify the coincidences and the sense of being led, but in a secular way.

You mentioned that you read Helen LaKelly Hunt's book, "Faith and Feminism." Do you agree with her argument that the feminist movement needs to incorporate a spiritual element?

I think it has a spiritual element. I think feminism is about the spirit. I think feminism is another way of teaching what Jesus taught, that we are all full human beings with the right to have our humanity seen and respected. That is what feminism is, and that's what Jesus taught. I just think that for too long—not in the beginning, not at all in the beginning; it was very faith-based in the beginning, the women's movement. It's become secular and I think that that's beginning to shift and I think it needs to shift.

Lisa Schneider is a Beliefnet editor.

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START WHERE YOU ARE by Pema Chodron

This is from a different religious and spiritural tradition but I found it helpful.  Reading an author from a different perspective, and religion, can open up creative ways in dealing with life and our own personal problems.

We can get so used to the "language" from our own religious literature that it will often not open up different avenues of thought and insight, because we get to comfortable or used to it.  Enough of the language below may be "other" enough to perhaps help jump start a different way of looking at life.

Peace Mitch

START WHERE YOU ARE  by Pema Chodron

Love and compassion are like the weak spots in the walls of ego. If we connect with even one moment of good heart and cherish it, our ability to open will gradually expand. The Buddhist term bodhicitta means completely open heart and mind. Citta is translated as heart or mind; bodhi means awake.

The cultivation of the noble heart and mind of bodhicitta is a personal journey. The very life we have is our working basis; the very life we have is our journey to enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something we're going to achieve after we follow the instructions, and then get it right. In fact when it comes to awakening the heart and mind, you can't get it right.

On this journey we're moving toward that which is not so certain, that which cannot be tied down, that which is not habitual and fixed. We're moving toward a whole new way of thinking and feeling, a flexible and open way of perceiving reality that is not based on certainty and security. This new way of perceiving is based on connecting with the living energetic quality of ourselves and everything else.

Bodhicitta is our means of tapping into this awakened energy and we can start by tapping into our emotions. We can start by connecting very directly with what we already have. Bodhicitta is particularly available to us when we feel good heart; when we feel gratitude, appreciation or love in any form whatsoever. In any moment of tenderness or happiness, bodhicitta is always here.

If we begin to acknowledge these moments and cherish them, if we begin to realize how precious they are, then no matter how fleeting and tiny this good heart may seem, it will gradually, at its own speed, expand. Our capacity to love is an unstoppable essence that when nurtured can expand without limit. Bodhicitta is also available in other emotions-even the hardest of feelings like rage, jealousy, envy and deep-rooted resentment.

In even the most painful and crippling feelings, bodhicitta is available to us when we acknowledge them with an open mind and heart and realize how they are shared by all of us-when we acknowledge that we are all in the same boat feeling the same pain. In the midst of the most profound misery, we can think of others just like ourselves and wish that we could all be free of suffering and the root of suffering. When we tune into any of our feelings, become aware any of our feelings, they have the capacity to soften us and to dissolve the barriers we put up between ourselves and others.

On Cape Breton Island, where I live in Nova Scotia, the lakes get so hard in the winter that people can drive trucks and cars on them. Alexander Graham Bell flew one of the early airplanes off that ice. It's that solid. Our habits and patterns can feel just as frozen as that ice.

But when spring comes, the ice melts. The quality of water has never really disappeared, even in the deepest depths of winter. It just changed form. The ice melts, and the essential fluid, living quality of water is there.

The essential good heart and open mind of bodhicitta is like that. It is here even if we're experiencing it as so solid we could land an airplane on it.

When I'm emotionally in midwinter and nothing I do seems to melt my frozen heart and mind, it helps me to remember that no matter how hard the ice, the water of bodhicitta hasn't really gone anywhere. It's always right here. At those moments, I'm just experiencing bodhicitta in its most solid, immovable form. At that point I often realize that I prefer the inherent fluidity of situations to the frozenness I habitually impose on them. So I work on melting that hardness by generating more warmth, more open heart.

A good way for any of us to do this is to think of a person toward whom we feel appreciation or love or gratitude. In other words, we connect with the warmth that we already have. If we can't think of a person, we can think of a pet, or even a plant. Sometimes we have to search a bit. But as Trungpa Rinpoche used to say, Everybody loves something. Even if it's just tortillas. The point is to touch in to the good heart that we already have and nurture it.

At other times we can think of a person or situation that automatically evokes compassion. Compassion is our capacity to care about others and our wish to alleviate their pain. It is based not on pity or professional warmth, but on the acknowledgment that we are all in this together. Compassion is a relationship between equals. So in any moment of hardness, we can connect with the compassion we already have-for laboratory animals, abused children, our friends, our relatives, for anyone anywhere-and let it open our heart and mind in what otherwise might feel like an impossibly frozen situation.

Love and compassion are like the weak spots in the walls of ego. They are like a naturally occurring opening. And they are the opening we take. If we connect with even one moment of good heart or compassion and cherish it, our ability to open will gradually expand. Beginning to tune into even the minutest feelings of compassion or appreciation or gratitude softens us. It allows us to touch in with the noble heart of bodhicitta on the spot.

When I was a child there was a comic-strip character named Popeye. At times he was really, really weak and at those vulnerable moments, the big bully Bluto was always standing there ready to reduce poor Popeye to dust. But old Popeye would get out his can of spinach, open it up, and gulp it down. He'd just pour the spinach into his mouth and then —wham! Full of confidence and strength, he could relate with all the demons. That's what happens when we use our emotions to touch in with our noble heart. Bodhicitta, it's like spiritual spinach. But please don't quote me on this!

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Julian of Norwich and the Enigma of Divine Revelation

 
SPIRITUALITY TODAY
Spring 1992, Vol.44 No. 1, pp. 37-47

John Noffsinger:
    & nbsp; Julian of Norwich and the Enigma of Divine Revelation

Divine love clarifies and unifies our relationship to God. 

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John Noffsinger, Ph.D. is chair of the English department at Norfolk Academy in Norfolk, VA.
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ON May 13, 1373 Julian of Norwich was graced with a series of visitations from God in the form of sixteen visions. Shortly after these revelations, or "showings" as Julian referred to them, she wrote a description of them as well as a brief analysis of their content. Almost twenty years later, still puzzling over the nature and meaning of these signs, she expanded her original work and wrote an extended treatment of the revelations, her search leading her to an exploration of the nature of the soul, the mystery of the soul's relationship to God, the problem of sin, and the nature of divine love. (This later work is the so-called "long text," the subject of most modern editions of her writings.)(1)

That day in May of 1373 transformed Julian's life. While she remained an anchoress and spiritual counselor in Norwich, much of the rest of her life was devoted to deciphering the cryptic meaning behind this experience of divine revelation. Interpreting the visions is made even more difficult by the complexity of her experience of the visitations, for Julian informs us that she was aware of three modes of perception. She received the showings "by bodily vision and by words formed in my understanding and by spiritual vision" (192). "Bodily yision" implies sensory perception of physical reality, while "words formed in my understanding" consists of words "dictated" to Julian interiorly. The last mode of understanding spiritual vision -- is what we might term "insight" or an immediate, intuitive understanding of significance.

In her work Julian describes some visions with disarmingly simple and vivid prose -- Christ crowned with thorns, for example, or the discoloration of his face. Other visions are more abstract or philosophical -- the thirteenth revelation, for example, which declares our need to value the works of God. While Julian had all sixteen visions consecutively, sometimes their spiritual significance was the fruit of years of brooding. All three modes interweave in the Showings to suggest how extraordinarily rich was. the totality of her spiritual experience.

MULTI-FACETED MEANINGS

While some measure of religious import is embedded within the visions, liberating this meaning is difficult. The anchoress spent years of her life trying to interpret the message encrypted in these enigmatic utterances. In the Showings Julian sets herself the task of recovering an experience of God that was momentary yet whose mark on her life was ineradicable. At the deepest level what seems to be left after the visions depart is not a fully articulable meaning but rather wonder, the faint trace of God's visitation.

As the Showings make clear, Julian's visions are an expression of the realizable, felt presence of God. Having had the visitations to some extent forces her to spend time clarifying her sense of what this experience of divinity is like. When we encounter God, according to Julian, our proper attitude is one of "reverent fear" before the awe-inspiring majesty of divine power. This is not simply a subjective or mental state but a spontaneous response to the objective reality of God's presence.(2)

But we do not experience God solely as a being outside ourselves; we also perceive divine reality to exist within. Julian begins with a traditional theological model in her discussion of the nature and relationship of body and soul. God created our bodies from "the slime of the earth, which is matter mixed and gathered from all bodily things" (284). The creation of our souls, however, is attributable to nothing except divine spirit (and this creation is hence literally "inspiration.") The theological consequence of this act of creation is that "man's soul is kept whole" (284) -- that is, divine reality underpins the very fact of our humanity and unites us to God, defined by Julian as "substantial uncreated nature" (284). Realizing the true (i.e., divine) nature of our being is simultaneously an act of "creating God." God is thus not only creator but is also continually created, given form, and realized through the instrumentality of humanity. Julian comments that God

wants us to know that this beloved soul was preciously knitted to him in its making, by a knot so subtle and so mighty that it is united in God. In this uniting it is made endlessly holy. (284)
The consequence of this divine union is that humans provide the locus for the continual coming-into-being of God; this human expression of the energy of the godhead confirms our identity and existence as co-creators of sacred reality.
Our soul is created to be God's dwelling place, and the dwelling of our soul is God, who is uncreated. It is a great understanding to see and know inwardly that God, who is our Creator, dwells in our soul, and it is a far greater understanding to see and know inwardly that our soul, which is created, dwells in God in substance, of which substance, through God, we are what we are. And I saw no difference between God and our substance, but, as it were, all God; and still my understanding accepted that our substance is in God, that is to say that God is God, and our substance is a creature in God. (285)
The divine part of our being -- our soul -- realizes the nature of God through a metaphysical correspondence or a kind of cosmic resonance that is set in motion when we encounter this Presence. But not only does our soul share divinity in being created by God; we also create God out of the divine nature of our souls. Because of the congruity between divinity and humanity, we "shape" the creation of God in the course of realizing our humanity.
SELF KNOWLEDGE, GOD KNOWLEDGE

Throughout her meditative explorations in the Showings, Julian ponders further such theological concerns as the nature of the soul, the nature of God, and the connection between them. If God is in fact the divine ground of our being, both physical and spiritual, then by "knowing" our souls we should come closer to a knowledge of God. For Julian a reciprocity exists between the human and divine worlds so that self-knowledge both presupposes and preordains a knowledge of God. One consequence of this insight is that the path toward spiritual perfection lies not in rejecting the human condition but in embracing it, for

by the leading through grace of the Holy Spirit we shall know them [soul and God] both in one; whether we are moved to know God or our soul, either motion is good and true. (288)
Julian is suggesting here the possibility of achieving a unified consciousness, one not split between the false dichotomies of human and divine or body and soul. It i's a startling voice indeed that boldly proclaims:
our sensuality is founded in nature, in mercy, and in grace, and this foundation enables us to receive gifts which lead us to endless life. For I saw very surely that our substance is in God, and I also saw that God is in our sensuality, for in the same instant and place in which our soul is made sensual, in that same instant and place exists the city of God, ordained from him without beginning. He comes into this city and will never depart from it, for God is never out of the soul, in which he will dwell blessedly without end. (287)
But a serpent lurks in this potential paradise, for we obviously find ourselves in a world in which we perceive a split between self or soul and God. Julian comments that "though the soul may be always like God in nature and in substance restored by grace, it is often unlike him in condition, through sin on man's part" (258). Two phenomena are in operation here. One, grace, emanates from God and the other, sin, blocks the possibility of receiving God's presence or realizing the divine ground of our being. The unrealized potential of the soul is to be united to God, but our sinful human condition prevents our ability to do this. When grace is operative, however, and our souls are with humility ready to receive it, the "substance" of our souls is restored, and we perceive the true (i.e., sacred) nature of our humanity. Faith helps us recover the divine ground of our being and assures us that with self-knowledge comes knowledge of the infinite mystery of divine presence: "When we know and see, truly and clearly, what our self is, then we shall truly and clearly see and know our Lord God in the fullness of joy" (258).
SPIRITUAL THIRST

Julian uses the metaphor of spiritual thirst to examine this search for self-knowledge, for God, and, somewhat surprisingly, for God's desire to become known to us. For Julian the paradox of encountering divine presence is that while God wishes to be known, our knowledge is partial and fragmentary. How can such an elusive God be known? According to Julian:

It is God's will that we believe that we see him continually, though it seems to us that the sight be only partial; and through this belief he makes us always to gain more grace, for God wishes to be expected, and he wishes to be trusted. (194)
Although our experience suggests only a fleeting encounter with divine presence, faith leads us to desire a more unconstrained and continual experience of God. While, on the one hand, Julian posits a God who "wishes to be seen, and . . . wishes to be sought;" on the other she makes it clear that it is the nature of God to elude our sincerest attempt to achieve full awareness of divinity.
Because our experience of God, as manifested in Julian's visions, is fleeting and fragmentary, we are left with a yearning for more complete knowledge. But this quest itself, irrespective of its outcome, contains meaning. One of Julian's visions teaches her that "the soul's constant search pleases God greatly. For it cannot do more than seek, suffer, and trust" (195). Out of God's will to be known and our own desire to encounter God arises a gap, one that can only be closed by what Julian calls "grace": "It is God's will that we seek on until we see him for it is through this that he will show himself to us, of his special grace, when it is his will" (195). While our desire for divine encounter is infinite in its longing, the object of this desire only reveals itself, if at all, "when it is his will." Longing in and of itself is no guarantor that we will encounter the presence of God.

SURRENDER TO GOD

Julian ultimately suggests that the function of the soul is to "surrender" itself to God in the quest for divine presence. This surrender can take one of two forms: "seeking" or "contemplating":

It is God's will that we receive three things from him as gifts as we seek. The first is that we seek willingly and diligently without sloth, as that may be with his grace, joyfully and happily, without unreasonable depression and useless sorrow. The second is that we wait for him steadfastly, out of love for him, without rumbling and contending against him, to the end of our lives, for that will last only for a time. The third is that we have great trust in him, out of complete and true faith, for it is his will that we know that he will appear, suddenly and blessedly, to all his lovers. For he works in secret, and he will be perceived, and his appearing will be very sudden. And he wants to be trusted, for he is very accessible, familiar and courteous, blessed may he be. (196)
Julian here counsels patience, diligence, and trust. She has faith that God will be revealed, but the "accessibility" of God is dependent on our own expectancy and readiness of soul.
One of Julian's greatest strengths lies in her willingness to confront such difficult theological issues as the nature of the soul. Another one of her theological preoccupations is the question of sin and its personal and metaphysical manifestations in pain and suffering. The paradox of Christian belief -- the coexistence of a just and loving God with a world containing great suffering -- is in fact the subject of Julian's first revelation, in which she receives a vivid image of the crucified Christ. After a graphic depiction of "the red blood running down from under the crown, hot and flowing freely and copiously, a living stream;" Julian seems inexplicably filled "full of the greatest joy" (181). All of Julian's discussions of suffering and her attempts to find meaning in the pain of the human condition must be viewed in this context of the archetype of the suffering Christ. Julian even defines "sin" in terms that link humanity with the Passion of Christ:

In this naked word "sin," our Lord brought generally to my mind all which is not good, and the shameful contempt and the direst tribulation which he endured for us in this life, and his death and all his pains, and the passions, spiritual and bodily, of all his creatures. (225)
HUMAN SUFFERING
For Julian, Christ is both the symbol of human suffering and the sign of divine triumph over suffering. The meaning Julian derives from her first visitation is not that humans are destined to suffer (though we are), but more important that we have been given a sign through the Passion of Christ that we will ultimately triumph over the frailties of the flesh:

For [God] does not despise what he has made, nor does he disdain to serve us in the simplest natural functions of our body, for love of the soul which he created in his own likeness. For as the body is clad in the cloth, and the flesh in the skin, and the bones in the flesh, and the heart in the trunk, so are we, soul and body, clad and enclosed in the goodness of God. Yes, and more closely, for all these vanish and waste away; the goodness of God is always complete, and closer to us, beyond any comparison. (186)
But the philosophical problem still remains. If, as Julian insists, God resides in us and is "present in all things" (197), how can this goodness share divine space with the presence of evil? Julian states the difficulty of the case with characteristic directness:
Our Lord God . . . is at the center of everything, and he does everything. And I was certain that he does no sin; and here I was certain that sin is no deed, for in all this sin was not shown to me . . . . For a man regards some deeds as well done and some as evil, and our Lord does not regard them so, for everything which exists in nature is of God's creation, so that everything which is done has the property of being God's doing. (197-198).
Julian seems to imply here the heterodox view that sin has no reality whatsoever, the acts we label "evil" being merely products of our faulty perception. But a still, small voice within Julian is troubled by this explanation, this act of abolishing sin by linguistic fiat. Inspired both by humility and by curiosity, she presents an argument for the reality of sin from the human perspective:
It seemed to me that if there had been no sin, we should all have been pure and as like our Lord as he created us. And so in my folly before this time I often wondered why, through the great prescient wisdom of God, the beginning of sin was not prevented. For then it seemed to me that all would have been well. (224)
The answer she receives to this childlike query is enigmatic but reassuring: "Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well" (225).
Julian, however, is not quite ready to let go her persistent questioning. After contemplating this reassurance, she again asks "with very great fear: Ah, good Lord, how could all things be well, because of the great harm which has come through sin to your creatures?" (227) Again she receives a measure of condolence: "You will see yourself that every kind of thing will be well . . . . Accept it now in faith and trust, and in the very end you will see truly, in fullness of joy" (232).

But Julian will not relent. Despite these supernatural comforts (the latter reassurance being consolation in the form of resignation to Divine Mystery), Julian is still troubled by certain aspects of the faith:

Our faith is founded on God's word, and it belongs to our faith that we believe that God's word will be preserved in all things. And one article of our faith is that many creatures will be damned, such as the angels who fell out of heaven because of pride, who now are devils, and many men upon earth who die out of the faith of Holy Church, that is to say those who are pagans and many who have received baptism and who live unchristian lives and so die out of God's love. All these will be eternally condemned to hell, as Holy Church teaches me to believe. And all this being so, it seemed to me that it was impossible that every kind of thing should be well, as our Lord revealed at this time. And to this I had no other answer as a revelation for our Lord except this: What is impossible to you is not impossible to me. I shall preserve my word in everything, and I shall make everything well. (233)
GOD'S LOVE TRANSCENDS OUR SIN
Besides the untroubled voice of divine reassurance, what reality could possibly lift the weight of sin? According to Julian it is the supreme sign of the reality of God: the unfathomable mystery of love. It must be remembered that Julian herself calls the showings a "revelation of love," and the glory of reading her work is that we come away not with a sense of the affliction of sin but with the possibilities of transcending sin through the power of love. Julian establishes an intimate connection between the two when she states:

God showed that sin will be no shame, but honour to man, for just as there is indeed a corresponding pain for every sin, just so love gives to the same soul a bliss for every sin. (242)
To answer Julian's earlier troubling question, then, sin is necessary so that we can become, in the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, "instruments of love in the hands of God." Because God is "endless supreme truth, endless supreme wisdom, [and] endless supreme love uncreated" (256), Julian suggests we have a divinely ordained imperative to actualize on a human level the 'divine potentialities we attribute to God. Love connects the inherent affinities between the human and divine worlds. The theme of love in fact provides a leitmotif throughout the Showings. Julian asserts that we are "bound to [God] in love" (309) and that "our life is all founded in love, and without love we cannot live" (263). Moreover, she implies that even our salvation is in part "this-worldly," for "we cannot be blessedly saved until we are truly in peace and in love, for that is our salvation" (264).
One final question remains, however, and it is one Julian returns to with wonder at the end of her work. In an extraordinarily moving passage Julian presents to us the fruit of her years of pondering and reflection:

And from the time that it was revealed, I desired many times to know in what was our Lord's meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said: What, do you wish to know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same. But you will never, know different, without end. (342)
"In my end;" says T.S. Eliot, "is my beginning." As Eliot echoes the spirit of Julian of Norwich, so does Julian reciprocate by "arriving where we started, and [knowing] the place for the first time."(3) Thus Julian ends where she began, with a "revelation of love." The mystery of the showings is finally revealed to be no less than the mystery of love itself, a reality vouchsafed to Julian as both human and divine.

Endnotes

Julian of Norwich, Showings, trans. Edmund Colledge, O.S.A. and James Walsh, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1978). This edition is the most authoritative and scholarly modern translation, reprinting with extensive critical apparatus both the short and long texts. All citations in this essay are to the Paulist Press edition of Julian's work.

Julian's experience perfectly exemplifies the category of "numinous dread" analyzed by the German scholar Rudolf Otto, who sees "awe" as one component of the mysterium tremendum. See Otto's Idea of the Holy (Das Heilige).

Both Eliot quotations are from the Four Quartets, the first from "East Coker" and the second from "Little Gidding." But compare Eliot's "All shall be well, and/All manner of thing shall be well," also from "Little Gidding."

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The Church at the End of the Millenium

The pope's chief doctrinal officer has always been in dialogue with the Reformation traditions. Now he reveals his vision for Christianity in the new millennium.

Salt of the Earth: The Church at the End of the Millenium, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Ignatius, 283 pp.; $12.95, paper). Reviewed by Richard John Neuhaus, president of Religion and Public Life and editor-in-chief of First Things.

In 1988, Religion and Public Life, a research and education institute in New York, invited Cardinal Ratzinger to give the annual Erasmus Lecture, followed by two days of conversation with theologians, including Protestants of the old-line and evangelical communities. The subject then was the authority and interpretation of Scripture, and everybody came away from those days profoundly impressed by the learning, candor, and gentle civility of this man who is the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Readers of the present book are in for a similarly scintillating engagement with one of the great Christian minds and spirits of our time.

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Salt of the Earth is an interview extending over several days with the noted German journalist Peter Seewald, a self-described skeptic. Comparison is inevitably made with another book-length Ratzinger interview that was published in 1985 as The Ratzinger Report, which caused an enormous stir in Catholic circles. At that time the cardinal had not been long in the post of chief doctrinal officer, next to the pope, of the Catholic church, and his relentless critique of the "crisis of faith" at the root of the church's problems startled many readers. More than a decade later, the tone of Salt of the Earth is more tranquil, even autumnal at points, but the critique is no less incisive, and there is no doubt about Ratzinger's continuing belief that all crises are rooted in a crisis of faith, of whether we say yes or no to the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Almost everything a reader might want to discuss with the cardinal is engaged in these pages: his theological formation, how doctrinal development happens in Catholic teaching, the great moral controversies over abortion and euthanasia, whether women can be ordained, the meaning of celibacy, the changing role of the papacy, where and why the church made mistakes, the prospects for Christian unity, and what the church and the world should expect in the next millennium.

Seewald's questions are aggressive and usually incisive; Ratzinger's answers are invariably patient, pastoral, and reflective of his immense learning. Many have observed that, had he not been chosen as prefect by John Paul II, Ratzinger would have made a theological mark comparable to that made by Karl Rahner or, in Protestant circles, Karl Barth. To which others respond that he has achieved greater theological fulfillment and influence as prefect. Salt of the Earth may be submitted as evidence for the second position.

Ratzinger has also written numerous scholarly works, and it is a credit to his scholarship that he is able to turn his thought into prose completely accessible to the nonspecialist. He is not above addressing the issues that preoccupy the popular press. He refers, for instance, to "the canon of criticism"—women's ordination, contraception, celibacy, and the remarriage of divorced persons. On these issues, liberal reformers insist, the Catholic church must change if it is to reach the people of our time effectively. Here the cardinal becomes the skeptic. He notes an obvious factor that is often overlooked: "On these points Protestantism has taken the other path, and it is quite plain that it hasn't thereby solved the problem of being a Christian in today's world and that the problem of Christianity, the effort of being a Christian, remains just as dramatic as before." He sympathetically cites another theologian, Johannes Metz, who says that it was actually a good thing the Protestant experiment was made. Ratzinger observes, "It shows that being a Christian today does not stand or fall on these questions."

In conversations with evangelical thinkers, I am impressed by how many have been influenced by Ratzinger's much earlier book, Introduction to Christianity, published in English in 1970. For some, that encounter was the first dawning of an awareness that Catholics and evangelicals can affirm core beliefs about "the gift of salvation," to employ the title of the recent statement issuing from the project of Evangelicals and Catholics Together. As off-putting as it is to Protestants, for many Catholic theologians the Reformation is not a formative event. In the worlds of Catholic faith and life, they believe, other things of equal or greater importance were happening in the sixteenth century. That is not the case with Cardinal Ratzinger. In part, no doubt, because he was born and reared in Germany, his theology has always been in intense conversation with the Reformation traditions.

He is not, of course, a "minimalist" theologian who is inclined to tailor Catholic teaching to fit Protestant tastes. But he has intimate understanding and appreciation of the religious and theological genius of figures such as Luther. He believes that what is true in the Protestant critique can and should be embraced by what he calls "the structure of faith." At the same time, he does not seem to expect too much in the healing of the breach between Rome and the Reformation. Speaking of the prospects for Christian unity, he says at one point that perhaps the most we should hope for is that there will be no new schisms. At another point, however, he speaks of Catholic "responsibility for the unity of the Church, her faith, and her morals," and he envisions the ways in which the exercise of the office of the papacy will change "when hitherto separated communities enter into unity with the Pope."

As might be expected, Salt of the Earth pays extensive attention to the office of the papacy. It is assumed that the New Testament intends a continuing "Petrine Ministry" in the church. The question is the relationship, if any, between that ministry and the ministry of the bishop of Rome, who, it is claimed, is the successor of Peter. Some Protestants, Ratzinger notes, "are ready to acknowledge providential guidance in tying the tradition of primacy to Rome, without wanting to refer the promise to Peter directly to the Pope." Many others, he says, recognize that Christianity ought to have a spokesman who can personally and authoritatively articulate the faith both to the world and to the Christian community.

In 1995, John Paul II issued the encyclical letter Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One). In an unprecedented way that astonished many (including many Catholics), he invited non-Catholics to join in rethinking the exercise of the papal office so that it might become an instrument of, rather than an obstacle to, Christian unity. As Ratzinger notes, the invitation is addressed first of all to the Orthodox East, but it also has large ramifications for the separated communities of the West. It is a source of considerable disappointment in Rome, a disappointment reflected in this book, that other Christians have not taken up that invitation. But, as it is said, Rome thinks in terms of centuries—and, as is evident in this book, in terms of millennia.

When the cardinal turns his attention to the next millennium, now only months away, the tone is sober, even somber. He envisions a largely post-Christian world in which the church will be on the defensive, smaller in numbers, but, he hopes, more coherent and committed in its faith. This is in contrast with John Paul II's frequently expressed vision of the third millennium as a "springtime"—a springtime of world evangelization, a springtime of Christian unity, a springtime of the renewal of human dignity.

The difference in expectations is undoubtedly related in part to personal disposition and experience. Ratzinger's world is chiefly that of a dismally secularized Western Europe. The pope's experience is that of Central and Eastern Europe, where a vibrant, if often contentious, Christianity has risen from beneath the rubble of Nazism and communism's evil empire. In addition, the pope's unceasing travels have established close ties with Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where anticipation of Christianity's future is frequently exuberant.

Not too much should be made of these differences, since it is obvious that God alone knows what the third millennium holds. What comes through in Salt of the Earth is the unshakable confidence that, no matter what happens, Christ is Lord. In his first sermon as pope, John Paul chose the theme "Be not afraid!" That theme has been repeated like a triphammer throughout this pontificate, and it is powerfully sounded in the present book. Salt of the Earth is an invitation to engage the mind and soul of a Christian made wise by life and learning, one who has had an inestimable influence in directing the church that embraces more than half the Christians in the world today and reaches out to all. Some readers, whether Protestant or Catholic, may not be persuaded by all that Cardinal Ratzinger has to say, but the book is an invitation that should not be declined.

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Survivors tell of life after near-death experiences

Survivors tell of life after near-death experiences

By Liz Chretien newsletter@seacoastonline .com

EXETER - White lights, hovering over your own body, faces of deceased relatives, disembodied voices ... While it may sound like an X-Files episode, near-death experiences cannot be dismissed so easily, according to Dr. Tom Wharton, a cardiologist at Exeter Hospital who has encountered patients who shared stories of amazing recoveries and life-altering experiences while in a comatose state.

"I have trouble believing that the hallucinations of a dying brain can create an experience as life-changing as some that I’ve heard," Wharton said, referring to the skeptic’s view that neurophysiological processes are responsible for the phenomena.

"What impresses me is that the people who have experienced these things seem to have validity, a meaning to their lives, a better outlook," he said. "They are calmer, more positive, more convinced of their purpose. They are comforted and can comfort others."

Wharton gathers the stories for the purpose of knowledge, educating others and giving comfort to those who have lost loved ones.

"These things change your approach to life," Wharton said.

One such story is that of his patient John Rodgers, a 60-year-old Raymond resident with "nine lives," according to Wharton, and two separate near-death experiences.

Rodgers survived an altercation between his Corvette and a train, a lightning strike and three major heart attacks, one of which was so severe that a hole was ripped in the center of the heart between the right and left ventricles.

"Two out of three of those situations are fatal events," Wharton said.

The heart condition, known as a ventricular septal defect, is usually fatal because the blood is mixing inside the heart and not being distributed throughout the body.

The heart attack that caused this condition occurred 10 years ago and was caused by a blocked artery.

"My heart literally burst," Rodgers said. "The priest was waiting for me when I got to the hospital to give me last rites. I remember looking at him and at the doctors, and everything went black."

From there, Rodgers said he heard the doctors crack his chest, heard medical terms being used, and also visited the hospital chapel - while the medical team was operating on him. Jack Rodgers recounts his hear death experiences in 1996, 1977, and 1995. Photo by Andrew Moore

"There were people in the chapel crying, a man who lost his daughter that day, another woman. There was no priest there, just those people," Rodgers said. "It was very odd."

Rodgers said when he visited the chapel after his recovery it looked exactly as he’d seen it earlier, though he’d never actually been inside.

According to the Web site for the International Association for Near-Death Studies Inc., near-death experiences include, but are not limited to, feelings that "the self" has left the body and is hovering over it, moving through a dark space, encountering a light, or receiving some variation of the message that it isn’t "your time."

Rodgers’ chapel incident wasn’t the first time he’d had such an experience. Another, more life-altering near-death experience came after a train accident that should have left him paralyzed, he said.

On Friday the 13th of May, 1966, Rodgers and a friend were stopped at a railroad crossing in North Carolina when they had to get out of the car to fix a problem. Rodgers was too close to the tracks when the train came by and could not move in time.

"It hit me going 97 mph," Rodgers said. "It took the door of the car off."

The next thing he remembered was the ambulance. "When I got to the hospital, I had the out-of-body experience," he said. "There were a bunch of doctors standing around me in white coats, and I could see them working on me."

"I guess Friday the 13th was a lucky day for me, because I lived," he said.

Later, after a back operation, Rodgers saw his dead father standing at the foot of his hospital bed. "He said, ‘Live, Jack. You’ve got everything to live for,’" Rodgers said. "People think I’m crazy, but I know it happened. It was real. It was all real - the chapel, my father, all of it."

Exeter resident Anthony Stanchis’ story has eerie parallels to Rodgers’ - he, too, was hit by a train and watched his own body transported away.

"When you die, you think you’re still alive," he said. "It’s a strange feeling to be separated from your body."

The year was 1949. Stanchis, who lived in Newmarket at the time, slid in his car down his driveway during a storm and was stuck on a wall near train tracks. When the train came, Stanchis was too close. "It hit me, threw me up in the air," he said. "They thought I was dead and called for the hearse."

A member of the Reserves, Stanchis was brought by hearse to the Navy hospital in Portsmouth, where doctors tried one last time to revive him with adrenaline to the heart.

"It worked," he said. "I saw everything they did. I was standing next to the table watching."

According to Stanchis, he was legally dead for 20 minutes. "I can’t understand it to this day. I had no brain damage, my spine wasn’t severed. They said I wouldn’t walk again, but I did."

Stanchis, who participated in World War II and in the ministry, believes he was spared for a purpose. "I had a purpose in life," he said. "I had to stay long enough to fulfill it."

Stanchis said he is grateful for the second chance. "I’ve done a lot of work for the church in my life, and it’s helped me with my own life," he said. "That’s why I survived."

Rodgers said he’s just glad to be alive.

"People look at you like you’re nuts when you tell them about an out-of-body experience," he said. "But there’s no doubt in my mind how real it was."

What he learned from the experiences seems simple, but is really vastly important. "Don’t waste time on ‘I should’ve’," Rodgers said. "Just do things."

"I have had pretty close to nine lives," he said in reflection. "I don’t want to use them all up."

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Questions and Answers about the NDE

Questions and Answers about the NDE

An interview with Kevin Williams

The following questions were emailed to me by Suprina Walvekar, a college student who is interested in the near-death experience and who wrote a term paper on the subject. Her questions were very good so I spent a considerable amount of time answering them. What started out to be a simple reply to an email message, turned out to be a good interview of my own opinions concerning NDEs. So I decided to post them for anyone wanting to know my personal opinions about the NDE. Feel free to use this information in any way you wish.

My responses will be updated from time to time as my opinion on this subject evolves. These answers are only my own 2 cents worth. Although I live, eat, breathe, and sleep NDEs, I don't claim to be a NDE expert on the subject. There are many experts in this field who are far more qualified than I am. I have never had a NDE - at least not in this lifetime. We have all died and been reborn numerous times throughout history. This is perhaps one reason why NDE research is so popular - it reminds us of the afterlife knowledge we already know at a deeper and higher conscious level.

And although I am no NDE expert, I am a NDE fanatic whose computer skills and manic depressive permanent disability allows me to express my NDE mania twenty four hours a day and seven days a week if I desire. This obsession I have for NDE research has helped me keep my sanity while incorporating this higher knowledge into my life. A person doesn't need to have a NDE to have the life-changing effects that comes by actually having one. NDE research has certainly brought together my scientific, religious, and metaphysical knowledge and made them compatible. It is my desire that others can find the satisfaction I have had from studying NDEs and NDE research. With this in mind, here is the interview questions and answers I shared with Suprina Walvekar.

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Suprina Walvekar:  What are you hoping to learn from researching NDEs?

Kevin Williams:  Foremost, I would like to find hard scientific proof of life after death. Specifically, I hope to learn for certain that consciousness survives well after bodily death. There is a mountain of circumstantial evidence that this is the case, but very little scientific evidence. But, it may be asking too much to obtain scientific evidence of life after death. Existence of the consciousness after death may not be scientifically quantifiable. I also would like to go beyond proof of life after death and discover exactly what life after death like? Is there some kind of divine plan for us? What does it mean to experience God? These are some of the questions I want to learn from near-death research.

Suprina Walvekar:  What kinds of NDE reports intrigue you the most?

Kevin Williams:  The experiences that interest me the most are those where people witness events while out of their bodies and are later verified to have occurred. I already have a few such experiences documented on my website. While experiences have been documented, they still only provide circumstantial evidence and not hard scientific evidence. The experiences of people born blind interest me tremendously. Studies suggest that people born blind do have vision while out of their bodies. For them, it is the first time in their lives they have vision. Experiences revealing the reality of reincarnation fascinate me. Experiences that bring back information about the future are extremely interesting to me. Finally, I am also interested in experiences that do not fit the typical profile. Such experiences suggest that the spirit realms are dynamic and not static.

Suprina Walvekar:  What do you think is the most important information you learned from researching NDEs?

Kevin Williams:  By far, the most important fact I have found from these experiences is how critically important love is. The NDE appears to be an encounter with the Source of all the love in the universe. It is as Dannion Brinkley was told, "Love is the difference that God makes." Many experiencers have learned that love, the spirit of unlimited and unconditional compassion, is God. They suggest that this love is the highest form of religion there is. They also suggest that the way to these higher spiritual conditions of afterlife bliss is through practicing unconditional love here on earth. Those who do not practice love in the physical will have difficulty experiencing it in the spiritual. This is because the spiritual realms are experienced within us.

Another important fact I have learned from NDEs the idea that we are currently dwelling in the afterlife right now. The physical universe is only one of many realms in the afterlife. Some experiences, such as that of Edgar Cayce, suggest that our physical universe is a realm that is roughly half-way between the lowest afterlife realm and the highest. In a real sense, we may actually be half-way to heaven. We are working our way upward like a grade school student working toward high school and graduation. This is what I have learned from these types of experiences.

Suprina Walvekar:  How would you describe a typical NDE?

Kevin Williams:  A typical NDE would have some of the common aspects found in many other NDEs. It begins when people leave their physical body. Sometimes they see their bodies trying to be resuscitated or hear someone declare them dead. They may hear the thoughts and experiencing the feelings of the living people around their physical body. They may be sucked into a vortex or tunnel that appears to connect the physical realm to another realm. They may come into contact with a being made out of extraordinary light emanating tremendous love. This being knows everything about them yet holds no judgment at all. They may be reunited with loved ones and friends who have already died. They may then have their entire life instantaneously replayed - every thought, feeling, and act. Then, they may find themselves before some kind of barrier that is a point of no return. They may then be told their mission is not complete or their time to die has not yet come or some variation of this. Eventually, they will find themselves back in their body. After having a NDE, the person may discover that he/she is not the same anymore. There are some reported common after-effects that many people have after having a NDE. They may also be in need of information or even support. The internet also provides a wealth of information on this subject.

Suprina Walvekar:  What aspect of a NDE catches your attention the most?

Kevin Williams:  The life review is said to be one of the most amazing and enlightening aspect of the NDE. This is because your life is revealed in a reality that leaves no question about yourself.

During a life review, every question you may possibly have is ultimately answered. You don't merely witness your life flash before your eyes, you actually relive your entire life on earth instantaneously - every thought, emotion and deed. And it is not only your thoughts, emotions, and deeds you experience. You experience every thought, feeling and deed of everyone you have ever come in contact with - even brief encounters with strangers. Some have described it as instantaneously becoming everyone in your life. You see your life from every possible perspective and angle: your own perspective, other people's perspective and God’s perspective. Every possible thing you want to know about your life is there for you to review and study from a dimension where time doesn't exist. The life review is for educational purposes - not for judgmental purposes. Some people, namely very strict religious people, may feel the life review is some form of judgment; but these people usually realize at the end of it that it is only self-judgment. Sometimes the life review is not limited to just one life, but many lifetimes. One experiencer, Dr. George Rodonaia, reported instantaneously living in the minds of everyone throughout history who ever lived. He was able to living in the mind of Jesus and his disciples.

I enjoy the tremendous emotions of love and happiness that people feel during these experiences. Although these experiences have similarities to each other, each one is unique because each person has a unique perspective and perception. But, love is the universal factor.

These experiences can be highly emotional. These emotions can run the full range of expression throughout these experiences. It can begin with the initial fear of dying. Then it can transform into curiosity when the person leaves their body. Then they might experience a profound peace they cannot express. When the light appears, the emotions change to that of experiencing a homecoming of love that one believes they have never before known. Then complete satisfaction, understanding and awe can come as a result of the life review. The ecstasy of being one with all things and God can be incredible. But then disappointment comes from discovering you must leave and return to your body. Then the pain returns once you are in your body again. The frustration about the inability to tell others about it can arise. Also, a tremendous depression can come - along with a profound homesickness for heaven. It appears that every possible human emotion - in its rawest and magnified form - can be found in these experiences. These are very powerful emotional experiences that forever changes people. No other experience even comes close.

Suprina Walvekar:  Did the NDE reports you have read and researched take away your fear of death?

Kevin Williams:  Very much so. It is very difficult to read these kinds of experiences and not have them take away your fear of death. These experiences show that death is actually an illusion and that we are already living in the afterlife right now. Death is just a brief transition from one dimension to another. In fact, reading these accounts has only made me eager to return home.

These experiences are contagious. The deeply profound, enormous unconditional love described by them, can overwhelm those who read about them. They speak to my heart in ways that I feel I have already known, but just forgotten.

The complete lack of the fear of death which experiencers have as a result of their NDE is a strong testimony that there is nothing to fear about death. Madame Marie Curie once said, "Nothing in life is to be feared, only understood." Once we understand the nature of death by reading about these experiences, there is nothing to fear about them. Of course, everyone fears the pain that can occur during the dying process. But once this door has been crossed, and if you are generally a good person, there is nothing to fear about death. As one little girl stated after her NDE: "Life is the hard part. The light is for later." For those who practice hatred, murder, and harm to others, however, it is the afterlife that may be the hard part and may be feared.

Suprina Walvekar:  Did you look at life differently after you first read some of these NDE reports?

Kevin Williams:  Very much so. Before I knew about NDEs, I was a fundamentalist Christian who was absolutely certain that when I die, I would be carried to the highest heaven to be forever before the very throne of God. But, after reading several NDEs, such as that of Dr. George Ritchie, I realized that merely believing in Jesus is not enough to attain heaven. I learned that one must become as Christ himself practicing unconditional love for others to reach this level of bliss. It means we get to heaven by emulating the love of Jesus rather than by worshipping him. Reading NDEs cracked my rigid religious mindset and made my religious beliefs to be completely ridiculous at best.

From reading NDEs, I discovered a spirituality and understanding I could never get through religion alone. The great thing about these experiences is that you don't need to have one to benefit from them. All that is necessary is to read what others have experienced and put what they have learned into practice. Reading what they have learned will give you a larger understanding, the big picture, of reality. This includes the nature of God, life, love, and the afterlife. No other way, short of having an experience yourself, can give you this understanding.

Suprina Walvekar:  If you could tell us one important lesson in life, according to your NDE research, what would it be?

Kevin Williams:  Without a doubt, the most important lesson NDEs teach us is the supreme importance of unconditional love. Love is where we all came from and love is where we will all eventually return. Love is what life is really all about. Learning and growing in unconditional love is why we are all here on this blue marble called Earth. Life itself is God. Love itself is God. Everyone and everything is a part of God. All things are held together by the power of love. Love is the way to eternal bliss and the way to overcome the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. There is no greater force in the universe than unconditional love because it is universal and divine. The more love we cultivate within ourselves and the more love we give to others and the more we evolve towards embodying unconditional love, then the closer we come to our goal - liberation from death. True love can never die. Love and knowledge are the only things we can really take with us when we die. Death doesn't change much of anything. I like how one particular experiencer, Chuck Griswold, put it. He said death is merely a body problem. This is so true. We are also continually born into this world and subjected to death until we have evolved and embodied unconditional love as Buddha and Jesus did. We don't go to heaven. We grow to heaven to become permanent citizens of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is within us. When it becomes fully manifested within ourselves and the world through unconditional love, then we are no longer the prodigal children away from God. To manifest our higher spirit of love within us into conscious reality is the way we return to our origins - to the Source of All Things. Then wherever we find ourselves, heaven will always be manifested within us and we will always be in heaven - never to die again. This is the evolutionary goal of humanity.

Suprina Walvekar:  What do you believe is the ultimate meaning behind NDEs if you could tell us in one or two sentences?

Kevin Williams:  Everything is a part of God because God is life, light, and love. Practicing unconditional love is the evolutionary key for humanity to obtain eternal life (no more death) and death is just a threshold that we briefly cross over to another way of life.

"Love is the answer. Any questions?" - Kevin Williams

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The NDE and life

  In studying the NDE it is not necessary to agree with everything written about it since each person will speak from his or her own belief system; or perhaps from a new developing one.  So the below is very good but I don't agree with all of it.  No need to, a lot to think about and the reading will perhaps open up new doorways for some to consider about life etc.

peace
mitch

 The NDE and Life
 
Kevin Williams' research conclusions
 
 

The hard reality we face is that the ultimate goal in life is death. Death seems like a cruel absurdity that happens to us after enjoying the time of our lives. As it is with death, life is also a great mystery. The mystery of life offers many questions. Who are we? Where did we come from? Have we lived before? Why are we here? Where are we going? Does life continue after death? Is there a God? These are profound questions that demand an answer. Fortunately, there are answers to these questions and they come from near-death experiencers. Here is a brief summary of some of them:

  Life is what people worship as God. All life is a manifestation of God. For us to benefit from life, we must rediscover our oneness with God here in the physical realm. There are many realms to life and this physical realm is only one of them. Life is a mission from God we chose to fulfill. Life is a great World-School where we come to learn the many lessons of love. Everything in life runs according to a perfect and divine plan. Life is an enormous cycle of improvements where we progress at our own rate to reach the light.

Life is a school

  The reason we are here in this physical world is for soul growth. This physical world is the ideal place for this. Spiritual growth in the spirit realms is more difficult. The reason is that the influence of our physical bodies gives us the opportunity for a full range of love (a child’s love, marital love, and parental love) which is ideally available here. Love that is misused or misdirected is best corrected in the here. In this physical world, there is the full range of physical and spiritual senses with which to act and communicate. (Nora Spurgin)

  Our behavior on earth provides a teaching ground for those in the spirit world. (Betty Bethards)

  Life in this world exists for us to test our ideals and learn from them. Learning our lessons here in the physical world is the fastest way to learn. (David Oakford)

  As long as we have life here, we are learning, our spirits are growing, and we are coming closer to the divine, even by the things we suffer. We may not always know what to do in our lives, we may be troubled and in pain, but be assured, as long as we are here, we are growing. (Betty Eadie)

  Life in this world is the ultimate experience for our souls. It is ultimate because our souls evolve faster here than anywhere else. The lessons we need to learn are difficult to learn without having a physical form. (David Oakford)

  Trouble is nature's way of teaching lessons that won't be learned otherwise. If we learn from the troubles of others, we can avoid most of our own. (Arthur Yensen)

  Life in this world is a place for us to overcome certain weaknesses by applying ourselves to see that those weaknesses are truly overcome. Here we can learn for certain whether we have really changed. (Edgar Cayce)

  Life is a boot camp and school for our soul's spiritual education, and as such, it's tough. (Karen Brannon)

  This world is only a temporary place for our schooling. Our true permanent home is the spiritual universe. (Betty Eadie)

  This world is only one realm of learning; there are many. (Sandra Rogers)

Life is a test

  When we die, we will realize that we have been living behind a veil our whole lives. The veil will be lifted and the floodlights will shine on us. Everything in life is really veiled spirit. We are literally on display our whole lives. Every thought, word, and deed has been recorded since birth and will be fully exposed. Everything we have ever done in secret will be brought out into the light for review in front of God and all the heavenly hosts. Our entire life is one huge test and we will be graded on everything. (Daniel Rosenblit)

  Life is a test. If you pass the test you'll look back upon them as good experiences. (Peace Pilgrim)

  None of us will fully fathom the great truths of life until we finally unite with eternity at death. But occasionally we get glimpses of the answer here in the world and that alone can be enough. (Dr. George Rodonaia)

  The highest spiritual values of life can come from the study of death. (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross)

Life is a river

  Visit the NDE and Pre-Birth research conclusions about how we planned our lives on earth before we were born.

Life is planned

  The universe runs according to a perfect plan. All the so-called injustices we see in life really has no meaning. The perfect plan is working itself out in its perfection. (Jayne Smith)

  Life in this world is like a rigged roulette wheel in a casino. As much as we try, we can never be able to fully satisfy our selfish desires. It's virtually impossible. (Daniel Rosenblit)

  Nothing in life or death is an accident. (Lynnclaire Dennis)

  There are no accidents in the universe. Everything that happens in life has a purpose. (George Anderson)

  From the vantage point of the spirit world, there is no problem or disharmony on earth that will not be corrected. (Margaret Tweddell)

Life is about giving

  Life is about people, not pursuits. (Laurelynn Martin)

  The most important thing in life is love. (Dr. Raymond Moody)

  Anyone who has had such an experience of God, who has felt such a profound sense of connection with reality, knows that there is only one truly significant work to do in life, and that is love; to love nature, to love people, to love animals, to love creation itself, just because it is. (Dr. George Rodonaia)

  A life of piety without a life of love (which occurs only in this world) is not a spiritual life. Rather, it is a life of love, a life of behaving honestly and fairly in every task, from a more inward source that leads to a heavenly life. Such a life is not hard. (Emanuel Swedenborg)

  We are to leave the world a little better than we found it. (David Oakford)

  If we learn to give what we have, we will receive more. This is a spiritual law. We will be given all that we are prepared to receive. (Betty Eadie)

  The gift of life God gives us comes with a catch: We are to give the gift back. (Dr. PMH Atwater)

Life is about receiving

  Half the gain in coming into earth life is merely showing up. (Edgar Cayce)

  One little girl summed up what she learned from her NDE as: "Life is for living and the light is for later." (Dr. Melvin Morse's research)

  The point is to live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, someday we will live into the answers. Live the questions and the universe will open up its eyes to you. (Dr. George Rodonaia)

  All the suffering in our lives is actually for our good. Out of the most tragic of circumstances springs human growth. (Angie Fenimore)

  God never gives us more challenges in life than we can handle. Rather than jeopardize our spiritual progression or cause more suffering than can be endured, God will bring us home where we can continue progressing. (RaNelle Wallace)

  Life's supposed to be hard. We can't skip over the hard parts. We must earn what we receive. (Angie Fenimore)

  Our ability to accept truth, to live by it, governs our progress in the spirit, and it determines the degree of light we possess. (RaNelle Wallace)

Life is for living

  Our missions mainly have to do with love, but the purpose of life is also to experience joy, gain spiritual understanding and self-awareness, play with the joyful abandon of a child, absorb ourselves in the delight of each moment, let go of obligation and duty, and live for the pure joy of being. (Jan Price)

  Life is for living and the light is for later. (Dr. Melvin Morse)

  We are sent here to live life fully, to live it abundantly, to find joy in our own creations ... to use our free will to expand and magnify our lives. (Betty Eadie)

  Life is a joyful game to be played and everything works out perfectly. Sooner, if played joyfully with love. Later, if not. (Dee Rohe)

  We mustn't wait to find our heaven in the clouds. We must find it here because it exists here and will be whatever we make it and whatever we are willing to accept of it. (Tina)

Life is death

  How we lived our lives in this world determines which afterlife realm we have earned and travel to after death. (Betty Bethards)

  If we develop along the lines of unselfish love while in this world, we make it better for us when we die. It's what we are that counts! (Arthur Yensen)

  Our lives in this world is a preparation for a fuller, freer and richer spirit world. It can be compared to life in the womb being a preparation for a fuller, freer and richer existence in the physical world. (Nora Spurgin)

  Day by day we are building for eternity. Every gentle word, every generous thought, every unselfish deed will become a pillar of eternal beauty in the life to come. (Rebecca Springer)

  Our lives matter and is significant in determining how far we can go into the light. (Grace Bubulka)

  The general rule of thumb is this: hellish life, hellish afterlife - heavenly life, heavenly afterlife. Death will not change a hellish life into a heavenly afterlife, nor does it change a heavenly life into a hellish afterlife. (Dr. Melvin Morse)

  If we educate ourselves as much as possible about the spirit world, it makes our transition there even better. Even if we gain the smallest impression that there is life after death, we are able to obtain enlightenment and understanding. (Nora Spurgin)

  We are preparing for death throughout our whole lives. (Edgar Cayce)

  Life in this world corresponds to our external nature handling external resources. Life in the spirit world corresponds to our internal nature handling spiritual resources. (Nora Spurgin)

  It is best to kick our bad habits while in the world. It is easier while in physical form to break those shackles than it is to undo them on the other side, where no temptations are put in our way. There is no reward for behaving correctly while in spirit, because there is nothing to tempt us otherwise. The hard school is in the physical one, and it is here that we must meet and overcome the temptations. (Ruth Montgomery)

  Our quality of life in the spirit world is directly affected our heart and activities in the physical world. (Nora Spurgin)

Life is a cycle

  Life is an endless cycle of improvements and humans are not perfect yet. (Dr. Frank Oski)

  Any habit-forming pleasure, and they are endless, traps us into the cycle of rebirth over and over, until our appetites are finally put aside while we are in the flesh. (Ruth Montgomery)

  Everyone who passes through this world must learn their final lessons in this world, where our free will is called into play in a fashion different from existence in other realms of reality. (Edgar Cayce)

  We progress at our own rate to reach the light. If we do things that take us away from the light, then we are perpetuating our time here. (Amber Wells)

Life is God

  Life is love is God. If you add anymore to this definition then you are not making it any better. (Chuck Griswold)

  The earth is only an atom in the universe of worlds. In each atom, in each corpuscle, is life. Life is what people worship as "God." (Edgar Cayce)

  To know that life is God, is to know how very special life is. We must be very careful how we treat things in life because how we treat things in life is how we treat God. Do we destroy life or do we respect it? Do we nurture life or do we abuse it? Do we value life or do we take it for granted? (Elsie Seachrist)

  Life tries out different shapes and then returns to where it came. (John Star)

  Creation is about absolutely Pure Consciousness coming into the experience of life. (Mellen-Thomas Benedict)

  Life is light itself. (Dr. John Jay Harper)

  God is life. (1 John 5:20)

Life is us

  The solar system we live in is our larger, local body. We are much bigger than we imagine. The world is this great created being and we are the part of it that knows that it is. (Mellen-Thomas Benedict)

  The earth, the sun, the moon, the darkness, the light, the planets, and all forms of life – plants, rocks, animals, people – are interconnected. (Josiane Antonette)

  The universe is God's dream. Humans are already legendary throughout the cosmos of consciousness. One of the things that we are legendary for is dreaming. We are legendary dreamers. In fact, the whole cosmos has been looking for the meaning of life, the meaning of it all. And it was the little dreamer who came up with the best answer ever. We dreamed it up. (Mellen-Thomas Benedict)

  Our physical bodies have been alive forever. They come from an unending stream of life, going back to the Big Bang and beyond. (Mellen-Thomas Benedict)

  In conclusion, life (existence) is many things: a river, a test, a challenge, a pilgrimage, a journey, a mission, a world of fun, a school, a transition, a preparation, a shelter, and a lesson, just to name a few. But life, in all its entirety, really is all of it. Life is God. (Kevin Williams)

"In each atom, in each corpuscle, is life. Life is that you worship as God." - Edgar Cayce
 
 
 
  

 The NDE and Life
 
Kevin Williams' research conclusions
 
 

The hard reality we face is that the ultimate goal in life is death. Death seems like a cruel absurdity that happens to us after enjoying the time of our lives. As it is with death, life is also a great mystery. The mystery of life offers many questions. Who are we? Where did we come from? Have we lived before? Why are we here? Where are we going? Does life continue after death? Is there a God? These are profound questions that demand an answer. Fortunately, there are answers to these questions and they come from near-death experiencers. Here is a brief summary of some of them:

  Life is what people worship as God. All life is a manifestation of God. For us to benefit from life, we must rediscover our oneness with God here in the physical realm. There are many realms to life and this physical realm is only one of them. Life is a mission from God we chose to fulfill. Life is a great World-School where we come to learn the many lessons of love. Everything in life runs according to a perfect and divine plan. Life is an enormous cycle of improvements where we progress at our own rate to reach the light.

Life is a school

  The reason we are here in this physical world is for soul growth. This physical world is the ideal place for this. Spiritual growth in the spirit realms is more difficult. The reason is that the influence of our physical bodies gives us the opportunity for a full range of love (a child’s love, marital love, and parental love) which is ideally available here. Love that is misused or misdirected is best corrected in the here. In this physical world, there is the full range of physical and spiritual senses with which to act and communicate. (Nora Spurgin)

  Our behavior on earth provides a teaching ground for those in the spirit world. (Betty Bethards)

  Life in this world exists for us to test our ideals and learn from them. Learning our lessons here in the physical world is the fastest way to learn. (David Oakford)

  As long as we have life here, we are learning, our spirits are growing, and we are coming closer to the divine, even by the things we suffer. We may not always know what to do in our lives, we may be troubled and in pain, but be assured, as long as we are here, we are growing. (Betty Eadie)

  Life in this world is the ultimate experience for our souls. It is ultimate because our souls evolve faster here than anywhere else. The lessons we need to learn are difficult to learn without having a physical form. (David Oakford)

  Trouble is nature's way of teaching lessons that won't be learned otherwise. If we learn from the troubles of others, we can avoid most of our own. (Arthur Yensen)

  Life in this world is a place for us to overcome certain weaknesses by applying ourselves to see that those weaknesses are truly overcome. Here we can learn for certain whether we have really changed. (Edgar Cayce)

  Life is a boot camp and school for our soul's spiritual education, and as such, it's tough. (Karen Brannon)

  This world is only a temporary place for our schooling. Our true permanent home is the spiritual universe. (Betty Eadie)

  This world is only one realm of learning; there are many. (Sandra Rogers)

Life is a test

  When we die, we will realize that we have been living behind a veil our whole lives. The veil will be lifted and the floodlights will shine on us. Everything in life is really veiled spirit. We are literally on display our whole lives. Every thought, word, and deed has been recorded since birth and will be fully exposed. Everything we have ever done in secret will be brought out into the light for review in front of God and all the heavenly hosts. Our entire life is one huge test and we will be graded on everything. (Daniel Rosenblit)

  Life is a test. If you pass the test you'll look back upon them as good experiences. (Peace Pilgrim)

  None of us will fully fathom the great truths of life until we finally unite with eternity at death. But occasionally we get glimpses of the answer here in the world and that alone can be enough. (Dr. George Rodonaia)

  The highest spiritual values of life can come from the study of death. (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross)

Life is a river

  Visit the NDE and Pre-Birth research conclusions about how we planned our lives on earth before we were born.

Life is planned

  The universe runs according to a perfect plan. All the so-called injustices we see in life really has no meaning. The perfect plan is working itself out in its perfection. (Jayne Smith)

  Life in this world is like a rigged roulette wheel in a casino. As much as we try, we can never be able to fully satisfy our selfish desires. It's virtually impossible. (Daniel Rosenblit)

  Nothing in life or death is an accident. (Lynnclaire Dennis)

  There are no accidents in the universe. Everything that happens in life has a purpose. (George Anderson)

  From the vantage point of the spirit world, there is no problem or disharmony on earth that will not be corrected. (Margaret Tweddell)

Life is about giving

  Life is about people, not pursuits. (Laurelynn Martin)

  The most important thing in life is love. (Dr. Raymond Moody)

  Anyone who has had such an experience of God, who has felt such a profound sense of connection with reality, knows that there is only one truly significant work to do in life, and that is love; to love nature, to love people, to love animals, to love creation itself, just because it is. (Dr. George Rodonaia)

  A life of piety without a life of love (which occurs only in this world) is not a spiritual life. Rather, it is a life of love, a life of behaving honestly and fairly in every task, from a more inward source that leads to a heavenly life. Such a life is not hard. (Emanuel Swedenborg)

  We are to leave the world a little better than we found it. (David Oakford)

  If we learn to give what we have, we will receive more. This is a spiritual law. We will be given all that we are prepared to receive. (Betty Eadie)

  The gift of life God gives us comes with a catch: We are to give the gift back. (Dr. PMH Atwater)

Life is about receiving

  Half the gain in coming into earth life is merely showing up. (Edgar Cayce)

  One little girl summed up what she learned from her NDE as: "Life is for living and the light is for later." (Dr. Melvin Morse's research)

  The point is to live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, someday we will live into the answers. Live the questions and the universe will open up its eyes to you. (Dr. George Rodonaia)

  All the suffering in our lives is actually for our good. Out of the most tragic of circumstances springs human