Loving What Is
Focusing once again on the radiating waves of warmth as they played around her, she lifted her arms,
waved her hands in front of her, felt this substance move with her as she moved. She played this way for a few minutes, keeping her eyes closed, and imagined herself a young child chasing a butterfly in a warm, open, grassy field. Squealing with delight, she could draw a burst of this energy in toward her body when she made a hugging motion, and throwing her arms outward the substance sprayed out from her.
This is bizarre, she thought; fun, but bizarre. She let the play come to an
end and sat quietly again in a more meditative state. The power of the silence here in her cocoon was quite unlike the silence she had come to know on the other side. On the other side? What had she meant by that? Not wanting to get trapped into an analytical puzzle that might detract from this ethereal experience, she hushed the thoughts and returned to the powerful silence. The knowing of our connectedness to God and everyone in the universe emerged, and she let herself, Be Here Now and Be Still and Know.
Suddenly, a heat permeated around the area of her heart, chest and back, and fearing acknowledgment of her body would push her out of the silence, she listened to her breathing and reminded herself that resistance brings persistence. Relax. Mentally entering the heat in her chest, she let the consuming fire surround her and didn't know if the energy from outside of her had penetrated her physical body, or if the heat from inside of her was reaching out to the energy around the bed.
Without warning, events that had never happened to her came like flashes of light in a phantasmagorical display. Fleeting, single image pictures and lights played out before her like a hallucination. A woman, black hair. Pecans. Nuts? A man carrying a young girl up on his shoulders. A couple lifting off in a hot air balloon, waving excitedly to an invisible crowd below as they ascended. A ship on the ocean courageously hammering itself against enormous swells. Jesse had but a
microsecond to process each image before the next flash arrived. A cool stream of water near trees. A horse, a brown horse. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches overflowing on a plate. The woman again, only now with a boy. Two young men working on an old combine in a hay field. A pair of red rubber boots with black triangles sitting in a puddle on a porch, still wet from a rain. Magnolias -- she could even smell their sweet, fragrant aroma. A movie theater with couches instead of seats. A rock staircase leading up to a cloud, with an elephant lumbering and a dolphin diving as if in water, side by side going up the stairs. A car driving down the road without wheels or tires. Jesse had no time to think and stopped trying. No words accompanied these images, and after a few more flashed by, the display concluded, leaving Jesse drained from trying to process and take it all in.
She opened her eyes and blinked several times, not attempting to focus, but to prove to herself she had, in fact, opened her eyes, for what she saw belied this. All she saw was brilliant, shimmering light. The room and its objects must still be here, she hoped, so she looked down at the bed, but saw instead the most exquisite light with no beginning and no end. The human faculties required to examine this new plane disappeared, and perhaps from exhaustion, but still feeling safe and loved, Jesse relinquished her body's senses and surrendered to what is. There was an absence of space here. An absence of space? Like an abyss. A depth beyond measure, she later looked up in the dictionary, and this described it about as well as any three dimensional explanation. It was peaceful, silent and loving; what else is there to know? She
laid down on the bed and let this loving, space-less substance envelope her, and fell into a deep, long, dreamless sleep.
"I'm not ready, Annie. Just forget it."
"Good evening, darling. Come. I want to show you something."
The pair dipped gracefully off the cloud, Annie more than Jesse, and Jesse followed Annie's movements, and her body complied. They flew in silence, and Jesse noticed that the longer they flew the more of the earth plane came into view, but not because they were physically closer.
"Do you see those people down there, Jesse?"
"It looks like a tribal village of some sort."
"Yes. And do you see that older woman tending to that child?"
"Yes, she looks like a nun. My goodness, they all look so poor and sick. What's wrong with them?"
"There is nothing wrong, Jesse; this is their life."
"My God. It definitely puts things in perspective, doesn't it?"
"That nun is Rita."
"What??!! How can that be? What are you talking about?"
"Come along." They flew a while longer. "There, in that shabby little office with the leaky ceiling, do you see that gentleman?"
"Yes."
"William. He's counseling a young man who tried to commit suicide. Spends everyday doing that."
"What is this, Annie?"
"Come, come." Onward they flew until reaching a dark alley in the middle of a city. "Look, just there, near the fire in the can, that woman sleeping."
"The bag lady in the cardboard box?"
"That's me."
"Annie, what are you talking about? How can that be you?"
"No one is who you think they are, Jesse. As angels, we host other identities, usually to wrap up specific ego issues, but sometimes during recess from lessons we do it for fun, like Rita. She always fancied being a high class courtesan, but considered her vow as a nun sacred, so she simply plays the role here. William is a suicide prevention counselor and has lived in a one room flat for twenty three years, the last six with his ailing father. Tim is a street crook and spends his day robbing little old ladies and kids on their way home from school. As for myself, I felt so much
judgment about how others lived, I decided to embody a bag woman to detach from this line of thinking. You see, Jesse, nothing is as it appears. You may continue with your unrelenting unforgiveness, and not even I will stop you. But it will stop you."
Jesse sat quietly for a while and said, "I don't deserve to be without this, Annie, and no, I wouldn't say that to a friend, but I can't make this okay for me. What am I supposed to do, and please don't tell me I already know?"
Annie waited a long time to respond. "Jessica, everyone is perfectly, perfectly safe and perfectly, perfectly loved. There are no exceptions to the laws of this gracious universe."
"Except the ones we self impose."
"Is that a better answer?" Annie asked. Jesse recalled her lesson from Rita about minding her own business.
But I am my business, she argued with herself.
"Is that true, Jesse?" Annie asked, literally reading her mind. "Is this your business? Or is it God's? Forgiveness completes your part in any transaction. Not to sound trite, but it seals the deal. Do you honestly believe the universe, or that precious soul, or God, holds your decision against you?"
Jesse's whole body shook as she listened to Annie's words, weeping. "I'm afraid to be without this, Annie, I don't know who I would be."
"My darling, you are not shattered glass cutting those who touch you; those were the words of a dark poet that you identified with as a young girl. It is not who you are. Jesse, remember who you are and why you are here."
Jesse remembered being stranded on top of a mountain too advanced for her to ski down several years before, and how she struggled with the reality of the situation versus her willingness to take one tiny step forward, and trust the forces of the God she loved to pick her up and carry her to safety. All she remembered saying that day was, "I don't know how to do this." And the response each time was, "Then let Me," from the force that loved her back. She sat with her friend for a long time.
"I'm ready, Annie."
"Right over there. Go, now."
Jesse slipped off the cloud and let herself be drawn to the energy field of a young woman about nineteen. Her light was dim, and as Jesse reached out her arms to hold the light, Tim appeared behind her with his arms out.
"Let me try it by myself, please, Tim."
"I'll be right here." He said quietly as he stepped back and watched Jesse struggle to hold the light. She focused deeply on the young woman's light, and as her dark thoughts came out, Jesse lovingly let them. Jesse's entire body was shaking with tears streaming down her face, and she thought for sure Tim would have to step in and take over, but he didn't. She surrendered her entire being to this woman as she held her light, and witnessed the crucifixion of her own ideas. She felt the vibration of the light intensify and glanced back over her shoulder at Tim, to make sure he was still close by, then whispered in between sobs, "Forgive me, Max," then added quickly, "I forgive me, too." A beacon of light burst from her heart, and Jesse felt a rapturous sensation of being completely and utterly one with God and every soul in the universe. She saw the faces of every person on the planet and loved them all. All their thoughts, deeds, acts, desires and sins, and on the other side, her own. She loved it all. The woman's light grew dim, and Tim reached over Jesse's shoulder and kissed her on the cheek saying, "Wonderful, love." Then Jesse looked up at Annie and asked, "May I stay with her?"
"Yes, darling." Jesse continued to hover over the young woman as she opened the door of a building and took some forms from a woman behind a counter. She sat down, took a pen out of her purse and began to fill out the form. Jesse continued embracing the woman's energy field and watched as she put a check in the box marked: Elective abortion.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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