Life after death encounter with God

(The following story and video are not an endorsement of any particular religion or television station on which it was broadcast but rather is being offered as an authentic experience with God. I just happened to come across this interview - while checking the news for a weather report about the storm on the east coast. So, I share it with you.)

Patient Raised From the Dead

Jeff and his wife, Madeline, are successful lawyers. Jeff had been with a large, successful law firm for seven years where he represented some very wealthy companies. He had been a Christian since he was 17. Although Jeff loved the Lord, he let his lucrative and successful career consume him and as a result, God was second and sometimes a distant third in Jeff's priorities. He wasn't doing “bad things” but doing “other things” that diverted his attention away from God and slowly other things took priority. The pace and the stress of his job eventually took a toll on his body. He began having severe stomach pains. Eventually, he discovered he had diverticulitis. He tried months of natural treatments but they didn't work.

Jeff's condition became so serious in late 2006, that it required surgery in December 2007, removing 18 inches of his colon. The surgery appeared to be successful, however Jeff bled internally for more than 24 hours before it was noticed. By the time doctors found it, his stomach was so full of blood that he looked pregnant. He awoke to a surgeon pulling a sheet off of his stomach. Jeff knew something was wrong and he looked up and saw the concern in the surgeon's face. Without warning, his arms and legs went numb and he knew that he was dying. He was going into hypovolemic shock causing cardiac arrest. Jeff realized he only had a few seconds of consciousness left. He grabbed Madeline's hand wanting to tell her how much he loved her and that he was getting ready to leave her. Right after he took her hand, Jeff was gone.

Suddenly, Jeff says, he felt like his life had come to his center torso. He left his body and rose towards the ceiling. He saw the urgency that was going on down below him. As he looked down at his body, a beautiful light slowly filled the room. The light spread as his thinking and senses became clearer than they'd ever been before.

Suddenly, Jeff could see everything in that room as if it was crystal clear, there was no more peripheral vision; he had 360° vision. Jeff says Madeline was wearing a blue-gray sweater and it almost glowed. The whites were incredibly white. The colors were so vibrant and everything was crystal clear. Jeff started hearing sounds in and around that floor that he had not been able to hear before. He could hear people talking and walking. There was air coming out of an air vent that he could suddenly hear. He was observing all of this while the incredible light slowly continued filling the room. As the light filled the room, God revealed Himself to Jeff, poured Himself into Jeff’s soul and penetrated it. 

Jeff says it was absolutely overwhelming. He had an overpowering sense of God’s presence, love, peace, joy, and acceptance...like nothing he had ever experienced on this earth. While God filled Jeff’s soul, several thoughts came to him. One of them was that God truly knew the number of hairs on his head. Another was that God knew him more than he knew himself. Jeff was excited to see God, but what was more incredible to Jeff was that God was excited to see him! Jeff remembers thinking about the parable of the prodigal son who had gone out and strayed and when the son came back his father was coming out to love him and welcome him back. 

Also, Jeff recalls all of his burdens flashed before him and God lifted them off of him. Jeff breathed a deep sigh of relief and was thinking he had nothing to worry about. No more fear, worry, sorrow, nothing to be concerned about. In the air looking down on his body, the surgeon, his wife and seeing everything going on, Jeff thought he should be concerned about this. However, Jeff says he did not have the ability to worry. He felt no pain or fear, just an overwhelming sense of God's love and presence. Below in the room, he watched the activity become frantic and the doctor yelled, “We’re losing him!” They were working on him, trying to revive him and stop the hemorrhaging. 

But, as he watched, the presence of God penetrated his soul and consumed Jeff. He could feel Him. It was the sweetest, most peaceful, and blissful moment he ever experienced. The light of God’s presence grew brighter and more intense and Jeff basked in it. God was excited to see Jeff and Jeff was excited to see God. It was incredibly personal. He told God that he was ready to go with Him, but also thought about what was going to happen to his wife and son. After a moment's silence, God told Jeff that he was going back. Jeff immediately jolted back into his body. He remembers opening his eyes and the surgeon telling the surgical team to get Jeff back into surgery. Everything became dark. Jeff regained consciousness in ICU with a new understanding of God's love and presence in his life.  

He looked over and saw his wife, he said, “You won’t believe what happened to me!” It completely changed his relationship with the Lord. Instead of waking up every day with a knot in his stomach from the worry and stress of his job, and life in general, now he wakes up “joyful . . . I realize what is truly important today. I have more confidence than ever before. I think of enjoying the day that God made rather than worrying about tomorrow.”

After the incident, it was a long recovery process but Jeff had God’s love, peace, and joy that he discovered when he had died. Jeff completely rethought his life. He realized he let his career over take and control him. When he was released from the hospital, he thought he’d be a street preacher. For months he struggled over whether or not to go into ministry full-time. He finally saw that he had a unique opportunity to share God’s love in the business world with people who may not have a chance to hear about it otherwise.

Today, five years after his surgery, Jeff’s approach to life has changed. Jeff still feels God’s presence every day. Nothing can describe or compare to being in the presence of God. Before he died he knew God loved him, now he knows. The first thing he does in the morning now is thank God and ask Him to help him do what He wants him to that day. 

Jeff asks constantly throughout his day, “What is God showing me today?” He says he is a weak vessel who makes mistakes and doesn’t get it right every day. Despite this, his focus is different. Jeff sees how God loves him and those around him. Jeff and Madeline had a strong marriage before his death and the event has drawn them even closer to God. He is closer to his family. Jeff teaches his son, Will, God’s love. One of the hardest things Jeff says has been controlling his emotions after what he went through…he is not the same.

Jeff is still practicing law with the same firm. As a part of his legal practice, he does weekly public speaking. He has the special opportunity to weave God's love in his talks. Jeff also prays with his clients. Outside of the law firm he speaks at churches and anywhere else he is asked to share. He has spoken in churches and inspires people about the reality of God’s love and shares what happens when He comes for us and our time on earth is done. Jeff says the day you die is the sweetest day and God’s love is readily there. He is also asked to share in hospitals and homes with those that are sick or near death and encourage them. Jeff says he has to guard against his own humanity and he is humbled that God would use him.


From: CBN.com

Gentle landing

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, 

“Let us go over to the other side.”Leaving the crowd 

behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. 

There were also other boats with him. A furious squall 

came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it 

was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping 

on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, 

“Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”He got up,

rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” 

Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 

He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? 

Do you still have no faith?”

(Mark 4:35-41, New International Version)

In the days preceding the big storm that is spiraling its way toward New York harbor, my heart has been on edge for my son and sister who live in Washington, DC and Virginia.  I've been that hysterical mother who begs her son to just get out of the way and come to Portland or drive to my other sister's home in Detroit. 

Stubbornly, as has always been my precocious, inquisitive and bright young boy's style, he insisted on staying in his apartment in downtown DC for the duration of the storm.  I even suspected he thought it would be fun.  He grew up in Buffalo where winter blizzards and being snowed in for days at a time were just a normal part of the season - even in October once!  But, I feared this would be different.  My sister in Detroit said the winds were already picking up at her house because of an approaching northeaster that was sweeping down from Canada, the very one that weathercasters were saying would turn a typical tropical hurricane into a monster storm.

Our entire family is holding its breath as we watch and wait helplessly, praying that this thing simply blows over and doesn't do the damage that we are being warned it may. Part of our faith is to simply pray for the best, visualize a calm passing over - a kind of pass over - if you can imagine.

We are not the stock of people who interpret storms as divine messages, but we are also aware that the Earth herself is going through a new stage of self healing (to put it mildly) and as I was worrying about my son in DC, a 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of British Columbia north of us, leaving nothing more than a reminder that we are all at the mercy of our restless planet these days.

There is no reason for this - other than that the earth is restless due to climactic changes due partially to our over production of greenhouses gases. The other factor, which is completely out of our control, is the other planets are reported by scientists to be warming up also in our solar system.  

We who so ardently think we can control our lives, can do nothing to change this.  We cannot calm this storm.  We cannot stop an earthquake and that's just a couple of the things we cannot do. We can only stay glued together with our faith and our love.

We can send soothing, loving thoughts to each other.  And, most of all we can be reminded how fragile life is, and maybe in this awareness of our global impotence, we might surrender it all to God - however we understand God.  We are powerless and we have only one choice - well, two, maybe.  One is to realize we are powerless, as an addict is powerless over his/her addiction, and we can only surrender the entire situation over to God.  The other is to thank God for his power and love and in that gratefulness, we can slip into a state of peace and remember how much we love each other.

So, tonight, as I hold out hope that this monster storm will turn away into the Atlantic, away from the eastern coast and settle down to a mere purr rather than the roaring lion it's forecast to be, I am sending love to my precious son and my sweet sister.  May they be safe.  May everyone be safe.  And, may we all remember to wrap each other (and every thought and word and child and friend and family member) in a blanket of  love and light, enveloped as well with the hope of a gentle outcome.

Be safe, my precious ones. 

Art:  Placid Sunset by Mario Perez

I am still with you

Psalm 139* 

O lord, you have searched me, and known me.

You know my sitting down and my rising up, 

you understand my thought afar off.

You compass my path and my lying down, 

and are acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word in my tongue, 

but, see, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You have beset me behind and before, 

and laid your hand on me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is high, I cannot attain to it.

Where shall I go from your spirit? 

or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, 

you are there: 

if I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning, 

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

Even there shall your hand lead me, 

and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; 

even the night shall be light about me

Yes, the darkness hides not from you; 

but the night shines as the day: 

the darkness and the light are both alike to you.

For you have possessed my reins: 

you have covered me in my mother's womb.

I will praise you; 

for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: 

marvelous are your works; 

and that my soul knows right well.

My substance was not hid from you, 

when I was made in secret, 

and curiously worked in the lowest parts of the earth.

Your eyes did see my substance, 

yet being imperfect; 

and in your book all my members were written, 

which in continuance were fashioned, 

when as yet there was none of them.

How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! 

how great is the sum of them!

If I should count them, 

they are more in number than the sand: 

when I awake, 

I am still with you.

*American King James Version

Prayer for Protection

Imagine our Earth silently, gently, turning in orbit around the sun. Our vast majestic Pacific and Atlantic oceans held against earth's global body by an invisible field of gravity. From a great distance, she looks radiant, glistening in the solar twilight like a sparkling blue sapphire, eternally alive, strong and yet so fragile.  

Our beloved earth, beautiful, delicate, vulnerable rests gently out there in the vast expanse of space, as a great ship in a galactic harbor - oceans and mountains, vast ecosystems of life, streams, fields of sun and shade, forests and animals - from bugs to hippopatami.  From a distance, far and away from here, Earth is an awesome jewel in the solar system and galaxy, so unlike any other. Our lives, her life, are exquisite.  Ancient and new, everyday, life itself here is more precious than any of us can perceive or understand.  

This morning, like almost any given morning, her life - our lives - is threatened by the ignorance of those who still fight in their own selfish egoic vain pursuits.  Can violence resolve anything?  Is war - after these many long millenia - any kind of a creative solution as we attempt to grow, evolve into the great beings of light and power our Creator envisioned at our birth about 200,000 years ago. The greatest threat is in our ignorance, our inability to see who we are, what we are, and our invaluable presence here on this precious earth amidst a vast and mysterious universe.

As many of you, I worry about our world, our future and wonder who else hopes for peace, really hopes for peace and is willing to share our unique individual interests as olive branches extended as gifts of love to those who might bring theirs also to this great gathering under the sun. 

My prayer has always been for peace, for believing anew that we can do this - that we can hold the thought - unlike any other time in Earth history - that we will find a way to love, to reach deep within our hearts, to face our fears, our own inner demons, and have the courage to embrace our enemy, those who are different, who are weaker, who are poorer, who are less evolved, less likeable, even those who are ignorant and selfish, rude and mean, belittling because they themselves are little and too afraid to admit it to themselves.  We must love the unloveable if we are going to heal our precious Earth.

So, this morning, I pray that we are all - the entire Earth - wrapped in love and protection.  May we be protected from ourselves and be held gently in the arms of our creator, our beloved God, safe, forever.

*Earth picture from: http://www.facebook.com/BlueRayBeings

Religion of Peace

If the Muslims, Jews, Christians,

and the people of any other religion

knew their religion well,

there would only be one religion,

the religion of love, and peace and mercy.

Shaykh Muhammad Sa'id al-Jamal

See also:  http://yourworldreligions.blogspot.com/2009/10/images-of-divine-feminine-western.html

Ears to Hear, Eyes to See

Glastonbury Tor Archway,

View of

Avalon, England

Divine wisdom, illusive to the worldly wise, is often best understood by those outside the mainstream. It is understood by those who have "ears to hear and eyes to see," those who can hear with an open heart, sing through a free soul and see with a clear spiritual vision.

The world runs on ego-power which is a more structured, mechanistic software system than the intuitive heart.  It may also be that the marginalized are often less capable and less successful in life in the "left brain."  So, while they are often the poor and the hungry, sick and aged, they are also free from the world's system for many reasons. As worldly castaways, they are often open channels for the Divine essence that is there for all of us.  

This eternal and ancient message has been offered to humankind from the beginning of recorded history.  It is also repeated throughout Judeo-Christian- Muslim scriptures.  That wisdom - ineffable, spiritual and often wordless - is received by those who have "ears to hear and eyes to see."  It is a unique "knowing" or gnosis. It is the knowledge given to humankind through the Holy Spirit. It has always been there and will always be there.  it transcends everything - religion, ethnic, racial or gender differences.

It is timely and wonderfully good news for inter-faith peace agendas and especially for Christians, Jews and Muslims - all of whom are too quick to the draw to fight for their own unique brand of God - that this phrase resonates through all their scriptures, even pre-dating Isaiah (circa 700 BC).

In Isaiah 64:4:

"Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him."

In Mary Magdalene's Gospel,* in which she writes about the mystical teachings of Jesus, after each teaching she quotes Him as saying: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

The ancient call to understand divine mysteries is a call to the divine encounter itself.  Hearing and seeing are other words for an experiential encounter. It is not simply learned through books - seen and heard of - rather it is actually seen and heard.  To those who don't see and understand, they need to learn through parables so they can understand what it is they are seeking.

This ancient refrain is also heard in the Prayer of the Apostle Paul in the Nag Hammadi:

"Grant what no angel eye has seen and no archon ear has heard and what has not entered into the human heart."

It is in the Gospel of Mani (found in the Turfan fragment)

"I will give you what you have not seen with your eyes, nor heard with your ears nor grasped with your hand."

It is in I Corinthians 2:9

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."

It is in the Qu'ran and Hadith Qudsi (37-40):
"I have prepared for My righteous servants what no eye has seen and no ear has heard, nor has it occurred to the human heart. 
How and where and when all these great and wonderful prophets, apostles and disciples have come by this unique divine phrase, remains a mystery.  But, it seems clear that it points to something ineffable and powerful and worth repeating,

Having an authentic encounter, drawing away from the great illusions of our current world and drawing near to the divine within, that inner realm of peace and power and love and creativity, that is eternal and opens into dimensions of time and space rambling on forever, is what I would describe as "feminine spirituality."  While this is not womankind's exclusive realm, it seems the inner path of salvation is more often experienced by women, whereas the external tangible realm of the outer world is the domain of men.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of understanding then, the masculine principle has subdued and silenced that feminine spirituality for centuries, laying down the law rather than unleashing the power in the heart. I truly believe that Jesus' teachings were directed toward balancing the two by restoring the feminine spirituality of inwardly directed mystical and experiential relationship for all people, equally, with the power of the Spirit.  He also redefined what masculine power would look like when that mystical love within flowed outwardly to enable a man to love his enemy, feel compassion for the sick, poor, aged and lonely and find a non-violent means to solve differences.  

Today, to empower women is to empower everyone and unleash a global compassion that would instantly put an end to unbridled selfish greed and the hatred, violence and prejudice born out of spiritual ignorance - spiritual blindness and deafness - that has riddled the earth with fear, war and cowardice. 

Realizing the extreme marginalization of women - in His time and still in ours - it seems logical that Jesus would have left His ministry in the hands of a woman, especially a woman who so clearly understood the mystical path espoused in the Gnostic scriptures (as seen and heard in the Nag Hammadi.)

Evidence of this is simply in the fact that the Gnostic monks had to hide the Nag Hammadi in the desert for 1600 years and that the beautiful, yet heretic, Gospel of Mani was found in shattered fragments as far away as China.  One wonders what else may be found buried in the desert or hidden in a wall having remained silent for centuries?

For now, though, while the earth still silently harbors those ancient secrets, we can throw away our religious differences, put down our weapons, our hatred, our fear and our prejudice and open our minds, our understanding and hear and see with our inner eye into a realm beyond this one, a realm of eternal life. When we find God, the divine encounter, nothing here would ever interest us enough to kill a brother or a sister, ever again.  Anyone who feels they must fight for God, for their religion, does not know God.

*http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Inside-Story-of-the-Controversial-New-Text-About-Jesus-170177076.html

*Photo: Erna Gilbertson 

Who was she?

She was our queen, our spiritual guide, our wise woman who knew our pain, our shame, our self betrayal, our abandonment.  She would be the perfect choice to carry his message to the world.

To restore her powerful, alchemical, world-changing message, we need to rediscover who she really was? Today, as an obviously masculine religion is explosively reacting in terrorism around the world, one can't help wondering why we are so silent about the other half of who we are as a human race?  All human beings contain within our individual psyche a masculine and feminine principle and yet the masculine has been endorsed, empowered and activated in almost every religion and world government, society and culture on the planet.  We all have both and now we all need to release the power of the authentic feminine - in men and women - to balance the insanity that threatens life on our planet. 

If she carries his message, to receive his message, we need to understand who she was and is.  This is just the beginning of that discussion.  We need to understand what it is in man's ancient hunt of the female that taunts, tempts, teases him still. How powerful is the magic of the fully integrated female? 

The male-dominated world of Rome, followed by the male-dominated world of the Roman Catholic Church, defined and dominated the western world by oppressing along the way the instinctual nature of women. Unchallenged and unbalanced, the masculine principle, in its effort to control, raged across western Europe. It became the beast of Revelation as it set out to homogenize humanity, molding it into an image of itself by killing the spirit of creativity and autonomy in all people, but especially in the female.

The campaign to eliminate the female power in Christ's message began by dismissing her, as mean men often dismiss women, by condemning her sexuality.  Instead, they set as the standard of the divine feminine, a soft, maleable, vulnerable, self sacrificing, submissive woman - a kind of pretty girl standard, a prepubescent female. To be very blunt, the out of control masculine principle has a thing for female pedophelia.  So, again, what kin dof power is there in the authentic feminine principle that frightens the male heirarchy so much.  Clearly, Jesus valued her full womanhood and by leaving her as his messenger, there is something about her he wanted us to realize.

So, who was she?

Ancient legends say she had been given in marriage to a wealthy man to satisfy her worldly father's personal status goals and her mother was equally blind to the beauty of the spirit in her young daughter. On the road to her betrothal, she and her female servant were robbed, beaten and raped and taken away into slavery.  Later, she was sold and was forced to work as a prostitute.  Her heart grew cold and closed.  She felt only loathing and found a way to kill the man who sold her.  She also grew strong and defiant and eventually became a wealthy woman.  Still in her 20's, something stirred in her.  Distant memories of her own deep spiritual self seemed to whisper to her, to call her away.

She packed up her belongings and traveled to a Galilean mountainside where she saw him speaking to a crowd gathered around him.  He was radiant and brilliant.  His voice and his words resonated deeply within her heart.  He looked at her and in that single glance, she knew somehow her life would never be the same.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," he seemed almost to chant.

She felt every word he spoke.

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted."

"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peacemakers ... (Matthew 5)

His love of the humble, the poor, the disenfranshied, the marginalized, all those who have been oppressed, depressed, used and abused by a greedy political culture of power and control, that enslaved and used almost everyone, awakened her mind to a new freedom, a new hope for her life and for everyone else who sat there in the sun, listening to him.

"Are we not all whores to this world?" she thought, considering the falseness of those oppressive Roman leaders and her own parents and the others in the higher eschelons of social power.

And so it was remarkable that this itinerant preacher, filled to overflowing with the light of heaven and the holy spirit, would or could love her, a broken hearted, poor in spirit, oppressed, shame-filled woman.

But, he did. She was like those whom he wanted to elevate out of the prejudice and oppression.  She became an ambassador because she was poor and hungered for righteousness and love.  She understood every word he spoke.  She knew more clearly than most what it felt like to be hungry, poor, victimized and then to be restored and healed and filled with the same holy spirit that radiated from him.  It soon radiated from her also. Her selection alone would be his final and lasting message to the world.  He left his ministry in the hands of a woman.

When he knew that his time would be ended by those power brokers of this world, he knew only this woman would be the one he would select to carry forward his message to the world, to the broken, pitifully devalued, precious people of God.  He knew the meaning of this choice, that he would leave the mission to her.  The male disciples couldn't quite understand his message about an inner kingdom.  Some did and most didn't.  But, she did.  She would have to be the one.  

What irony that the Christ would invite such a woman to carry on his ministry and yet how appropriate.  She would typify everything he taught, he believed in.  She, a marginalized woman in every way, would be the conduit of the Christ spirit.  And, so it was that she was chosen.

Her path was challenged by the disciples and then Paul and by the entire male dominated infrastructure of the world in which she lived.  She had to avoid Rome and carried her newborn child into the desert where she was cared for by the angels as her dearly beloved had been.

She knew the Christ spirit would be hunted by the control freaks who felt threatened by the free abandon, uncontrollable life-giving creative power and love of the Christ who filled her.  She longed to share this spirit with others.

Mercifully, she was supported by friends who took her to a safe place, a place where the ancient Goddess had been worshiped, a place that understood, albeit in a primitive way, her value.  She lived out the rest of her days passionately in love with her lord with whom she communed in the spirit.  She taught many the ways of the spirit, guided them into the deeper knowledge of the spirit, guided them into the kingdom within where they, as she, encountered the beloved, the realms of light and love.  She was faithful to her mission and lived to be very old.

Through her the ministry was fulfilled.  Despite her persecution throughout the centuries, now, her spirit has awakened among us, again, like a divine Sleeping Beauty. The time is now when the world needs her spirit.  And, soon, perhaps, her lord will return.  Perhaps.

Above: "Mary Magdalene" from St. Simon Catholic Church in Los Altos, California