photo credit to L. Moffitt
By Larry Moffitt
The Bible says that, after the big flood, God promised he wouldn’t do that kind of thing again. Does God’s pencil have an eraser on it?
It’s my nature to want predictability because uncertainty is exhausting. Constantly scanning for lurking boogeypersons makes my motor run hot. True for many of us, so we build rules and routines based on averages. We create theologies and announce them with religious certitude. And we definitely don't like people coming up with amendments to our carefully constructed truths.
But what if doubt is one of the bedrock tenets of my faith? Is that normal? And seriously, when was the last time anyone here saw normal?
Unless they're vacuous, most people occasionally think about their earthly life in comparison to their life after the earthly life. Even if a person thinks life after this one is nothing but dark, silent oblivion – to each their own.
For others, questions naturally arise regarding differences between the two existences. Most of the living can't clearly see what goes on over there, but for some reason, we tend to think they can see us all the time. That can be disconcerting if you have secret activities, so most try not to think about this.
I am not a spiritualist medium, not what you would call "spiritually open." However, I have had a few significant spiritual experiences and some prophetic dreams that have been formative in my education, and that taught me things.
But first, a slight digression. I do think the physical world and the spiritual world operate on two different sets of physics.
Pat Piorkowski, a former nun, lived with us for a couple of years near the end of her life. She had some ability to contact the spirit world. I felt she was legit and I trusted her spirituality, mostly because of her innate purity. Her husband Zach had gone on ahead of her a couple years earlier, and sometimes she contacted him.
One time when she was chatting up Zach, I asked her to ask him, "What was the most difficult thing you had to learn when you went to the spirit world?"
Zach answered, through her: “The hardest thing to learn was how to be in more than one place at the same time.”
Did not expect that. But it makes sense when you consider people like Jesus and Mary. Both are frequently sought in prayer, and occasionally someone will report having had a visit from one of them, including visions and dreams. If you consider billions of Christians worldwide, it is not unreasonable to think that appearing to more than one person at the same time, is well within the laws of spiritual physics. Zach’s statement, coming to me from out of left field, helps confirm this.
Here's one more. Earthly physics has a speed limit of 286,000 miles per second, a.k.a. the speed of light. But the speed of thought, being spiritual in nature, is instantaneous. When my mind recalls the image of Neil Armstrong's footprint on the surface of the moon, it doesn't take 1.28 seconds, the time light takes to go here from there. I am there by the time the image forms in my mind. So thought, including prayer, is faster than the speed of light.
This makes it possible for God to be sitting at home in the center of the universe, working on his hobby (small engine repair) and hear and respond to every uttered prayer.
Okay, digression over. I have finally settled on two questions I would like to ask anyone in the spirit world that I have a conversation with, if and when that ever happens. This applies to God, Satan, Jesus, Sun Myung Moon, John the Baptist, Teresa of Ávila, Rumi or the famous German chancellor who tried to take over the world in the early 1940s.
My questions:
1. Knowing everything you know now, what would you have done differently during your life on Earth?
2. What do you do day-to-day most of the time where you are now? Not counting small engine repair.
My reason for getting into this area is simple. Someday you're going to croak. At least that's how it's been with most people so far. Your body will die and, big leap of faith here, you have a spirit that will continue on. Being human, you will still have thoughts and stuff you want to get done. That's ingrained in our nature.
I humbly recommend you begin thinking now about your next phase of life, and start preparing for it. If you’re in the age group this Golden Age Newsletter is aimed at, I know you’re already doing that. A 20-year-old never says, "Thank God I have my health." Immortality is assumed by the young, just as you and I assumed it for ourselves in those days. When the final curtain comes, it's quite often very sudden. Just about everyone who dies has plans for later that day. You may not have much warning.
These are a few of the things my few experiences with the spiritual world have taught me. There's a lot more to learn, but this is some of what I got so far.
Here's where I stand personally: I know God is real and actual, and is not some fig-newton of my imagination. God thinks about things, has strong opinions, is rather narrow in some ways and wide in others. I’m fine with that. I'm okay with religion in moderation, as long as it doesn't interfere in my relationship with God.
Many days I wake up grateful. Other days I just wake up. Today was the whole enchilada. I wish I could suspend in amber such a feeling as today, like brontosaurus DNA sealed in tree sap for 65 million years. Scientists would find it, cut it open, and say, "Hey, look, 65 million-year-old gratitude. I wonder if it's still good?"