A believe drummed into me as a boy about life after death had little appeal. It was that at death Soul "sleeps" until a final day of judgement, a time of unconsciousness.
How My Search Began
I grew up on a farm. Family life revolved around raising and caring for cattle as a livelihood, planting the crops to feed them and us, and just as important, going to our community church for services. Church was a social center. Of course we all came to worship God, but most of us found the visit with neighbors later outside just as fulfilling. Nearly everyone in the church was related. It's natural, then, that everyone knew everyone else very well. A church service was a weekly reunion service with relatives.
During those years, Grandpa and Grandma often lived with one of their children on the family farm. The grandparents were wise and beloved elders, for the most part. They helped care for the grandchildren, did light chores, and gave instructions to their grown children.
In time, of course, one by one, the old ones would pass on.
The day of the funeral was generally like a Sunday in that farmers only did the regular morning and evening chores. It was a sad day of worship. But children were on hand during the time before a grandparent's passing. The process of dying had not yet become sanitized as it often is today, when the sick and elderly go to age and die way from home. It all happened before our eyes. We came to grips with death on many occasions. Death meant the loss of someone near and dear, not the mysterious departure of someone seen only a few times on a festive vacation.
Even more than that, a farm child watched his parents and neighbors get ready for the funeral. He heard them on the phone. They'd call each other to express sorrow, offer consolation, and perhaps, give a gentle commentary about the good deeds in the departed one's life. The final good-byes were said in church. Whole family, from baby to the most feeble elder, would come to the funeral service if health and weather allowed.
Our congregation first listen to the pastor give the funeral blessings. Then, the entire assembly filed out to the cemetery alongside the church where the coffin disappeared into a dark hole, whose piles of dirt were spruced up with green ground cloths. We boys stayed to watch the assigned farmers close the grave. Last, into the church basement for a meal of fellowship.
The Beginning of Doubt
Funerals were more or less like the dawn of a new day, but It was at the funeral of my beloved Aunt that doubt began to grow in my mind about the "sleep" state of Soul. Everyone just assumed that the deceased's body and Soul were pretty much one and the same. True the physical body would soon decay and be eaten by worms, but on the last day a more glorious body would rise from the grave.
What kid wouldn't give his eyeteeth to be at the cemetery on that great day to watch the spectacle of a lifetime - the opening of graves and all these people helping each other out of the ground? Wouldn't that be a splendid show? (Better than a masquerade fair!) yet for all the promise of excitement, a dark cloud hovered over this one-of-a-kind picture.
Over time, funerals became a cynosure in my life. You could say I was looking for something better. Unknowingly, I'd become a seeker.
What were the odds this spectacular event would come in my lifetime? A million to one. That left at least this farm boy with a most unhappy prospect. Would I be another of the millions - billions - of unlucky Soul trapped in a dark hole for maybe a thousand years? And what if I fail to awaken from the sleep of death?
Too many questions and thoughts left me bemused!
A Seeker Is Born
The seeker!
Indeed there was an awakening from sleep as I passed from boyhood to a young adult. It came slowly, at the most unexpected times. What was that mysterious humming sound at night when I was six? My brother two years older, and I still slept in our parents' bedroom, so my tiny voice pierced the darkness.
"What is that humming sound?"
But neither Mother nor Dad could hear it. "It's the electric wires outside," they said. "Now go to sleep."
Dad's alarm rang at 4 o'clock to wake him for morning chores. He had no time for such nonsense. Yet as the years passed, my thoughts at night often alighted softly upon those early childhood memories of the mysterious humming sound. Where had it gone? The electric wires still ran outside my open windows, but the soothing, almost musical, sound had disappeared over the years.
Some Answers
Later, Dad found a path and everyone in the family started threading this path. I later found this humming to be one of the many sounds of God. It was the movement of God's voice - the Holy Spirit, vibrating the ethers of time and space. To hear one of these sacred sounds is a great joy and blessing.
Anyway a lot of water passed under the bridge of my life before the revelation came to me. There were other awakenings too. Little once, in looking back. Yet they were all I could accept at each level of my unfoldment. These awakenings include dreams of the future occurrences, blurred visions, Soul Travel (out-of-body-experiences), and other wonders that left me in awe of the once-hidden mysteries of the eternal one, God.
"They were all directed at one goal: my spiritual freedom in this life time. Here and now. There was no need to enter into a "death sleep" that could last for centuries. Maybe forever. What if my childhood religion had it wrong? Then the risk was all mine."
You are at that point in life, too, where some Voice of God has gently shaken your shoulder to awaken you from a deep spiritual slumber. We all need to discover more about the most direct road to spiritual freedom - here and now, and not until death comes through.
Thank you!
