Saturday Nine: Dying to Know

1. What do you believe hap­pens when we die?

Life never ends, although its form changes. I believe that death is the moment when we cross over to the next plane of exis­tence.  That place might be heaven, but I don’t know where or exactly what it is. I’ve had some really intrigu­ing con­ver­sa­tions with friends about what heaven might be like and how we will rec­og­nize each other there. One friend sug­gested that we will all be 33 years old there because that’s how old Jesus was when he was cru­ci­fied.  Another thinks we will be the age that we were the hap­pi­est while on earth. Of course, we all agreed that the con­cept of age is prob­a­bly not going to have mean­ing there, at least not in the sense we think of it in rela­tion­ship to our earthly existence.

2. Do you con­sider your­self religious?

No, I am not “reli­gious” in the sense that I do not belong to a par­tic­u­lar con­gre­ga­tion or par­tic­i­pate in reli­gious rites or cer­e­monies on a reg­u­lar basis. On some level, I will always iden­tify with and con­sider myself part of the denom­i­na­tion in which I was raised and remained active until a few years ago.  I’m sure that my reli­gious train­ing and expe­ri­ences will always, to some extent, inform and sup­ply the stan­dard against which I mea­sure my beliefs.

I pre­fer to focus upon being a spir­i­tual per­son. I do not just accept infor­ma­tion or con­clu­sions at face value. I ques­tion, pon­der, con­tem­plate, and test infor­ma­tion before I adopt it as part of my belief sys­tem. I no longer believe much of what it taught in tra­di­tional churches because the mes­sage is too lim­it­ing, the answers too pat.

3. Do you believe in ghosts?

I believe in angels, as I wrote about here, archangels, demons, and spir­its, includ­ing spirit guides. I do not believe in ghosts as tor­mented enti­ties that some­how became trapped between earth and the next plane so wreak havoc in a spe­cific build­ing or locale.

4. Do you believe that peo­ple live on other planets?

Peo­ple like us? No. Other types of beings? Why not? If we are here, I believe that sci­en­tists could some­day dis­cover other types of life forms on other planets.

5. Have you ever seen some­thing abnormal?

I’m a lawyer, so I see “abnor­mal” things on a daily basis.

I have had expe­ri­ences with angels and demons, as well as the spir­its of per­sons who have already crossed over.

For instance, I believe that when we dream about some­one who has crossed over, we have been vis­ited by that indi­vid­ual. On numer­ous occa­sions, I have had very real­is­tic dreams about per­sons who are dead, includ­ing some peo­ple that I barely knew. For instance, I had a very vivid, detailed dream about the father of an old friend in which we had a long con­ver­sa­tion and he imparted infor­ma­tion to me about my friend’s life now, his state of hap­pi­ness, etc. My friend and I lost touch a num­ber of years ago, but for some rea­son, I had been think­ing about him quite a bit in the days lead­ing up to that dream. Skep­tics will say, “Oh, it’s just a coin­ci­dence. You dreamed about his father because you were think­ing about him. Since you wish the best for him and want to hear that he’s happy and doing well, you dreamed that he is. There’s no mys­tery here!” But I believe that his father vis­ited me for the pur­pose of con­vey­ing a mes­sage. Although I con­tinue to think about that friend from time to time, I have never again dreamed about him or any mem­ber of his fam­ily and I don’t believe that is a coincidence.

I have also expe­ri­enced pre­cog­ni­tion and had pre­mo­ni­tions. For instance, I had a pre­mo­ni­tion the day before my mother-in-law died.

The last car my father owned or drove was his 1989 Buick Regal. In 2000, we pur­chased it from my mother when she was no longer able to drive. As a gen­eral rule, Big­Bob drove that vehi­cle, but on the day before Thanks­giv­ing 2001, I swapped cars with Big­Bob because he was going to have some work done on my car. As I was dri­ving to the office, I looked over at a gas sta­tion and had a mem­ory flash. At least 25 or 30 years ear­lier, my father went to the gas sta­tion and while there, his car caught fire. For­tu­nately, it was a minor fire caused by two engine wires touch­ing and spark­ing. The gas sta­tion had a fire extin­guisher, and there was only minor dam­age which he eas­ily repaired since he was an auto mechanic. On that Novem­ber morn­ing, I found myself remem­ber­ing that inci­dent, amazed that I recalled that event after so many years. I chalked it up to the fact that I was dri­ving the car that had been my father’s past a gas sta­tion, thereby trig­ger­ing a long-buried memory.

That after­noon, I was sit­ting in my office when Big­Bob called. He said, “You’re not going to believe what just hap­pened.” After hav­ing the work on my car com­pleted, he decided to fill the gas tank for me. The car was parked at the gas pump and he went inside the store to pay for the gas. When he came out of the door and began walk­ing toward the car, he saw smoke com­ing from under the hood. For­tu­nately, he quickly ran back inside and got a fire extin­guisher. Two engine wires had touched together and sparked, caus­ing a fire. The dam­age was exten­sive enough that the car could not be dri­ven. For­tu­nately, it was an acci­den­tal event cov­ered by our insur­ance pol­icy. By the time he called me, the car had been towed to the repair shop and he had picked up a rental vehi­cle for me.

My sud­den rec­ol­lec­tion of my father’s expe­ri­ence so many years before was not a coin­ci­dence.  On the con­trary, I believe it was either a pre­mo­ni­tion or a mes­sage from my father let­ting me know that an angel arranged for us to trade cars on that day.  After all, if I had been at that gas sta­tion alone, I prob­a­bly would have pan­icked and called 911.  I doubt I would have had the good sense to reach for a fire extin­guisher and cer­tainly would not have known how to use one.  My car would prob­a­bly have been totally engulfed and a com­plete loss by the time the fire depart­ment arrived.  Instead, it was fully repaired and is sit­ting in front of the house right now.

6. Do you believe in reincarnation?

No, because I have never found any Bib­li­cal sup­port for the theory.

7. Have you ever wit­nessed a miracle?

I have seen mirac­u­lous things hap­pen for which there was no log­i­cal or plau­si­ble expla­na­tion. Those things have taken place over the course of a period of time, not within a few sec­onds or even min­utes. Mir­a­cles are hap­pen­ing around us all the time, but most of the time we are too busy, pre­oc­cu­pied, and obliv­i­ous to notice them.

8. Is there a per­son liv­ing or dead that influ­ences your philosophies?

There are a num­ber of peo­ple who have influ­enced my beliefs and philoso­phies, includ­ing the var­i­ous pro­fes­sors, teach­ers, spir­i­tual lead­ers, pas­tors, fel­low parish­ioners, and good friends with whom I have stud­ied and dis­cussed these top­ics over the years. Cer­tainly, my par­ents influ­enced my beliefs through their quiet exam­ples of faithfulness.

I am also a big fan of John Edward, as I wrote about here. I have seen him in per­son five times and plan to attend another sem­i­nar when he is in the area.

9. Is there a work of fic­tion that closely matches your spir­i­tual beliefs?

I am not aware of any fic­tional work that aligns with my beliefs.

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Tech­no­rati Tags: Sat­ur­day Nine

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