THE EVOLUTION OF A SHATTERED SOUL

© SPEAKING UP, October 15, 2009

My son’s death as a result of a tragic car accident in 2003 left me with a thirst for information about the afterlife.  And so I really appreciated reading George G. Richie's, "Return from Tomorrow," a book about his near death experience (commonly abbreviated to NDE). 

Richie’s NDE is listed as one of the best accounts ever recorded by the scientific medical community.   What I read was as close to being there (crossed over) as you can get - short of dying, I suppose.

But what I got out of this book was far more than a sneak-peek into the after-life: I learned some fundamental spiritual lessons that helped my own shattered soul find some healing.  What I’ve learned in my quest for answers about life after death has been so significant I feel as if my own soul has evolved here on earth, and likely into eternity.

I was trained to be a Christian.  Knowing my son did not die a Christian nor did he complete rituals the church teaches to us to do in order to get salvation, I've been afraid that if I read about hell, and began to believe in a hell, then...what if I came to believe my Trevor was in hell?  Richie helps me understand this conflict with a clarity I’ll appreciate forever.

In all the books (likely 200 or more) I have read about the afterlife and about the life Jesus Christ, I found this one book compacted with Truths all rolled up into one very small easy to read paperback.   If I can believe the accounts of psychic visions and angelic healing as depicted in the bible, I have to be able to believe the contemporary example of George Richie’s spiritual experience. 

In Richie's account of the afterlife he at first witnessed ghosts bound on earth with issues they had not resolved during their lifetimes.  He saw these spiritual beings trying desperately to get the attention of living people, unsuccessfully chasing after and urging living people (who could not hear them) to forgive them.  One spirit who had scrimped and saved all of his life was bound at a bank, worried about his money!   Richie saw other 'beings' begging for cigarettes, or some food, or drugs, or sex (earthly compulsions continued to the afterlife!). 

We have a purpose for living; and learning just what that purpose is can mean the difference between evolving to a higher level of heaven our next time out, or not.  And that is our purpose:  To evolve beyond our earthly needs toward improving the relationships of our souls, which do not die.

One lesson that I believe is going to help me to evolve to a higher level of being concerns judging others.  I know I am guilty of judging other peoples’ actions, and I use to tell my son when he misbehaved as a child, "We are not judged by our intentions, Trevor, we are judged by our ACTIONS."   I recently learned I was wrong.

God judges us ONLY by our intentions, not our actions.  

If you are like me you need to think about that for a minute to get a realization that this statement is Truth. 

So now when I’ve done something ‘unforgivable’ (in my own mind), or angry and unable to forgive someone else’s actions, the question has to be asked, “What was the motive and intent behind the incident?”  If it was to harm or hurt, well, that's a problem.   But it is also rare for me to go out and intentionally hurt anyone.   Yes in varying degrees we lash out at ourselves or other people, and we can find ourselves doing stupid things; but in most cases this is because we are hurting inside - not because we are evil or bad people.   Our souls know better than our actions often show and it is our souls that are eternal and whom God lives with on the other side. 

Accordingly, I cannot possibly see or know the soul or intentions of anyone but myself.  So it is impossible for me to say whether or not another person did an unforgivable thing. Only God can see beyond the surface of an action of another person.  So, the phrase (and commandment by Jesus Christ), “Don’t Judge Others” has new meaning for me.

This lesson frees me from self-inflicted pain and punishment, and it also releases the people I have judged.   It is the most uplifting and joyful feeling to be able to let go of personal judgments.  I can now feel LOVE and let people (and myself) “Go in peace,” as Jesus told us to do in his Sermon on the Mount.

I had a vivid dream a few months after my son passed away: In a brilliant, beautiful, setting I saw Trevor (who appeared to be about nine years old) standing by a misty blue-green lake; I tried to reach out to him and I was asking him to come home to me.   But he wasn’t listening and I saw him board a yellow school bus with many other children.    The bus left me standing there and I could not go with him. 

As I reflect on this dream the symbolism of the yellow school bus and the age of my son is clear:  Trevor’s spiritual growth on earth ended but he is continuing in his afterlife.  We evolve eternally, was the message to me.

Richie moved on to a better place in his near death experience.  He witnessed the beauty and wonders of God and heaven and gives a convincing vision of what really does happen to us when we die.  I'll leave it to you to buy the book, but if George Richie's account of life after death doesn't take away the fear of death from the reader, it will certainly make us try just a little harder to evolve the needs of our broken souls.  I think I’ll take that to the bank.