From an early age I harbored a feeling that I couldn't share with others--family or friends. I knew that they wouldn't understand, and would merely seek to disabuse me of the thoughts I was having and the feelings I was experiencing.
The thought, the feeling:
I never felt like earth was my home. As a child, I would stand out under the stars and know that I came from up there. Another thought that haunted me then:
I wasn't born into this world.
The world was born into me.
Like most of you, I have always felt close to God, and this from an early age. My first experience with the voice within (which, according to some, makes me certifiably insane) was as a child. One Christmas my father consented to give my brother and me BB guns. What do you do with a gun? You hunt with it. Which is what I did.
That winter red-breasted robins invaded the school yard trees which grew across the street from my home. The trees were loaded with seed-like food for them. They would fill up on the seeds and, because it was very cold, just sit in the trees, seemingly too cold to fly away, even when I approached with my gun.
I found that It wasn't even necessary for me to aim. All I had to do was shoot in their direction and a robin would fall to the ground. I must have killed dozens this way. Of course with the intention of making a fire and eating them.
I picked up one, and was amazed how fragile it was in my hand--it was mostly bone and a little flesh. In flight or sitting on limbs, their feathers gave them the appearance of being fat. But in my hand they were delicate and fragile.
And then it happened. I heard it. A man's voice. Loud. Booming. Unmistakable. "Why are you doing that?" The voice asked. "Don't you know that that is wrong?" I looked around wondering who was showing disapproval. I saw that I was the only one standing in this very large school yard, on this very cold day. It would have been unusual for someone to be there anyway, since it was Christmas break, and school wasn't in session.
Shortly after that, I began to have out-of-body experiences. I still experience them occasionally. A story for another time. What's significant about them is that I realized, after emerging from some of them, that I was having conversations with someone that sat behind a white veil of a sort.
The conversations would last for hours it seemed. And most of the time, I couldn't remember what was said to me, or what was discussed.
Even now, when I least expect it, I will get a response to a thought I'm thinking, or the answer to a dilemma I'm facing. Much more could be said about this, but not now. Suffice it to say, this phenomena continues to this day.
From all these experiences, I've had an unquenchable thirst to understand God and my relationship to Him. I knew that the church of my childhood didn't have the answers I sought, but I didn't condemn it for that. I merely sought out the churches that came closest to what I did feel. Early on, I realized that the church would meet my pursuit with disfavor and perhaps downright hostility.
I wasn't angry, just cautious.
Some of the books I've read:
Emanuel Swedenborg before he had a presence on the web--well, long before the Web.
Robert A. Monroe, and his out-of-body classics. His works are preserved by the efforts of The Monroe Institute.
Jane Robert's Seth Materials. Jane Roberts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . A listing of her books may be found here: A Seth/Jane Roberts Annotated Book Listing
Some of these I read in my early years. I read anything that would offer explanations of what I was experiencing, and allow me to understand my world and my place in it. Did I accept everything wholesale? Certainly not. I still don't, regardless of the source. Concepts either fitted into my world view or they didn't. But I didn't dismiss everything I read because I didn't agree with the whole.
In recent years, I have read A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman. More may be found at: Foundation for "A Course in Miracles" Home Page.
Which brings me back, in a circuitous way, to another book I've read, Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch. I approached it in the same way I approached the other books in my quest--another book to add to my knowledge of God. This is how the book has served me--its primary value. I find it to be a summary of the many things that I already hold as "my truth."
The thought, the feeling:
I never felt like earth was my home. As a child, I would stand out under the stars and know that I came from up there. Another thought that haunted me then:
I wasn't born into this world.
The world was born into me.
Like most of you, I have always felt close to God, and this from an early age. My first experience with the voice within (which, according to some, makes me certifiably insane) was as a child. One Christmas my father consented to give my brother and me BB guns. What do you do with a gun? You hunt with it. Which is what I did.
That winter red-breasted robins invaded the school yard trees which grew across the street from my home. The trees were loaded with seed-like food for them. They would fill up on the seeds and, because it was very cold, just sit in the trees, seemingly too cold to fly away, even when I approached with my gun.
I found that It wasn't even necessary for me to aim. All I had to do was shoot in their direction and a robin would fall to the ground. I must have killed dozens this way. Of course with the intention of making a fire and eating them.
I picked up one, and was amazed how fragile it was in my hand--it was mostly bone and a little flesh. In flight or sitting on limbs, their feathers gave them the appearance of being fat. But in my hand they were delicate and fragile.
And then it happened. I heard it. A man's voice. Loud. Booming. Unmistakable. "Why are you doing that?" The voice asked. "Don't you know that that is wrong?" I looked around wondering who was showing disapproval. I saw that I was the only one standing in this very large school yard, on this very cold day. It would have been unusual for someone to be there anyway, since it was Christmas break, and school wasn't in session.
Shortly after that, I began to have out-of-body experiences. I still experience them occasionally. A story for another time. What's significant about them is that I realized, after emerging from some of them, that I was having conversations with someone that sat behind a white veil of a sort.
The conversations would last for hours it seemed. And most of the time, I couldn't remember what was said to me, or what was discussed.
Even now, when I least expect it, I will get a response to a thought I'm thinking, or the answer to a dilemma I'm facing. Much more could be said about this, but not now. Suffice it to say, this phenomena continues to this day.
From all these experiences, I've had an unquenchable thirst to understand God and my relationship to Him. I knew that the church of my childhood didn't have the answers I sought, but I didn't condemn it for that. I merely sought out the churches that came closest to what I did feel. Early on, I realized that the church would meet my pursuit with disfavor and perhaps downright hostility.
I wasn't angry, just cautious.
Some of the books I've read:
Emanuel Swedenborg before he had a presence on the web--well, long before the Web.
Robert A. Monroe, and his out-of-body classics. His works are preserved by the efforts of The Monroe Institute.
Jane Robert's Seth Materials. Jane Roberts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . A listing of her books may be found here: A Seth/Jane Roberts Annotated Book Listing
Some of these I read in my early years. I read anything that would offer explanations of what I was experiencing, and allow me to understand my world and my place in it. Did I accept everything wholesale? Certainly not. I still don't, regardless of the source. Concepts either fitted into my world view or they didn't. But I didn't dismiss everything I read because I didn't agree with the whole.
In recent years, I have read A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman. More may be found at: Foundation for "A Course in Miracles" Home Page.
Which brings me back, in a circuitous way, to another book I've read, Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch. I approached it in the same way I approached the other books in my quest--another book to add to my knowledge of God. This is how the book has served me--its primary value. I find it to be a summary of the many things that I already hold as "my truth."
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