14 spokes

Greg's 12 Paragraphs

 

 

Central Hub:  From the time I woke up from the dream to the time I woke up from the deep sleep of paradise

 

Spokes:

 

1.  The Henry Noewen aspect of the dream - the whole dream can be interpreted as a symbol of the presence of Henry Noewen in my subconscious mind (the interior book of Noewen) - the exterior book is what he was publically doing in his actual life simultaneous to my dream and the interior and exterior go together. 

 

2.  The aspect of writing the future - I was in a writing class at the time, one of our assignments was to write our own obituary and mine had me being cremated, then my ashes scattered on Saturday morning.  That's the morning I had the experience of being taken up in flame, a temporal connection between my written obituary and the experience of something-like-death.

 

3.  The two waking up experiences reminded me of accounts I had heard of near-death experiences.  Within a few weeks of my experience, I wrote about a near death experience I had heard about years ago from a black man named Dave McCall.  While I was writing about that experience, I was writing the future again, because a black man came to my door who, like McCall, had alcohol on his breath and he had also had a near death experience. 

 

4.  Learning to meditate doing centering prayer and yoga - within the next year, I became involved in centering and yoga, something I did as an expression of what I had learned from the experience, thus the experience became an inner teacher that matched my outer teachers, in moving toward a more inner, enlightened, centered way of being day to day. 

 

5.  Discovering the depth of the mystical Christian tradition, finding Franseco De Osuna, Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, Claire, Teresa of Avila.   I became convinced that my experience was classically associated with ascent of the soul experiences and long history of tradition about how to live out of that experience in day to day life.  Helped me see how the experience connnected to the New Testament.

 

6.  This is what the neo-Platonists were talking about.  The experience was privileged in terms of neo-Platonic philosophy that existed alongside early Christianity, particularly opened me up to the writings of Platinus.  The relationship between neo-Platonists and Christianity was a love-hate relationship, today, it's mostly Christianity wanting to get rid of neo-Platonic influences.  But my experience helped me to understand why there historically was a love relationship and to rediscover the love that has been lost.

 

7.  Telepathy - it was after my experience that I had a telepathic connection with my dying grandfather.  This helps me to begin to realize that my inner experiences are not mine alone.  I began to reexamine my assumptions, my skepticism, because the connection wtih my grandfather was so physical, it made me want to find an explanation.

 

8.  Whole different way of experiencing my sexuality.  In the moments between the two waking-ups, I realized there was something more pleasurable than sex as I had known it.  This helped me to have more self-control in relation to my wife.  I became less demanding, less moping around.  It helped me see that there could be fruitfulness in my life other than having chlidren, I redefined my life from one of being a future biological father, to one of being a spiritual father in the sense that monks and priests are. 

 

9.  Answering the question of why Jonas Stutzman would wear all white and build a chair for Jesus:  Rapture can do that to ya!

 

10.  Taking another look at the spirituality of St. Paul.  I had studied him formally in the masters' program and learned methods of biblical interpretation, and slowly began to use those same methods to unlock a fresh interpreation of Paul's experience and intentions in writing about his journey to heaven and his understanding of resuurection as a future possibility just as Christ was raised from the dead.   This was influenced by Eli's admonition to his children, my connection to Marilyn McCord, Henri Noewen's wanting to think like Paul in the resuurection.    My experienced helped me understand how Paul could boast of consulting Christ in the spirit, through revelation.  Helped me understand Paul's views on sex,

 

11.  The experience gave me different insight into the motivating force of the gospels, why would anyone go out with nothing but the clothes on their backs to announce the kingdom of Christ is at hand?  I began intrigued and obsessed with the tendency, not only in  Christianity, but in Buddhism and Hinduism as well, among the celebate saints, I found the spiritual source that compels a person to want to do that.

 

12.  Thief in the night:  When Paul was "caught up" in the third heaven, the Greek in the septuitian, refers to what theives do, snatching up against the will of the owner.  That's what it means to say that the kingdom comes like a thief in the night, relates directly to the way the revelation began. 

 

13.  This spoke is connected to the family spoke, but also a different issue - the early formative experience of my grandfather's death in Mississippi in 1965 and from Henri Noewen I see the civil rights struggle, from Al Young I see an African American man from Miss. who is a mystic in 1965 trying to appeal to all people to get them to see their mystical core, because of the black  men with alcohol on their breath, it's a way of dealing with the grief of the loss of grandfather, by connecting to the grief of a black man in the segregated south, that links with my near death experience, links with St. Paul, and how I became a catcher.

 

14.  Sleep paralysis, brain science:  What I experienced, almost everything, fits the profile of a phenomenon that cognitive psychologists call sleep paralaysis - aspects of the dream, the out of body experience, the spiritiual benefit, the sense of the holy:  it's all there, with concepts like disafforentiation of associative capacity, knowing where your brain is in space.  There's been a lot written on that lately.