WHAT IF…..?

What if…..? What if I died tomorrow?

That may not be a typical ‘what if’ question, but this 2020 spring, it’s a more common consideration. The Covid-19 numbers have most of us realizing its potential. However, this question is not a new or distressing one for me.

In 2001, I got my first flu shot and spent most of the next two years near paralysis – looking death in the face. Incredible burning pain in all four limbs. Helpless. Watching my body get weaker and weaker. Trouble swallowing, trouble drawing breath. Suppressed neuro-muscular communication, misdiagnosed time after time.

Natural herbs and minerals, good water, my sister’s Ondamed healing therapy, and time got me back to my new normal. That’s another story for another time.

But during that season of torment, I really thought I was dying. And I couldn’t do anything but accept the possibility.

Today, almost twenty healthy years later, the possibility looms again. I’ve been staying home for over two months; I have no reason to worry. But I know from experience, once I get sick, I’m unable to advocate for myself. Unable to reach out to loved ones far off and say farewell. Unable to purge the storeroom. Unable to tell the world I did exist.

If I’m gone from this dimension tomorrow, I’ll be glad I experienced what I did in this one.

• Explored eleven European countries by rail and backpack – twice – just before and after the age of fifty.
• Rode the Via Rail across western Canada last year
• Served nearly five years in the aviation tribe of the U. S. Navy, the best part as antisubmarine air crew.
• Visited Japan, Alaska, and Hawaii by air before travel got crazy expensive
• Cuddled some sweet grandchildren close, loved others from a distance
• Enjoyed the gentle loyalty of two good dogs

And, a few weeks ago, I published a book, a memoir of strange events. Turn & Walk: an unexpected quest is a compilation of unbelievable encounters that transformed my reality. I came to accept life and know God in a totally different way.

I feel your skepticism. But, for example, God woke me up in the middle of the night to rescue a deer. I didn’t hear a sound but walked outside and up the hill to find a big doe who’d gotten her back leg tangled in a wire fence. I stepped into each moment responding only to Spirit. Stroked the deer’s neck to let her smell-identify me, ran back home to get a wire cutter, laid my hands on it in the dark shop and ran back to her. Cut her loose, helped her hobble to the open gate. That whole encounter was supernatural.

Those kind of encounters happened frequently, especially those few years. These experiences revealed a pretty clear impression of God’s character. Experiential knowing changed my whole perspective of reality, overhauled my previous idea of truth.

This may be considered a time of uncertainty, but I’m no longer uncertain about the character of Lovingkindness or my own identity as I was born to be.

What if I died tomorrow? I’ll be alright. I’ll just be on the other side of a quantum faith portal.

But I had to tell that story; had to write that book. What if I never wrote it down? The point of the journey I documented is for someone to find a little hope. I lived way too long striving to comply with gatekeepers, atheists, and religious zealots when I now know I could have spent my days better by tuning in to Spirit, learning truth from the source.

I hope, dear reader, you’ll feel like you’re walking with me.