With so much verbial and emotional abuse rampant I would not omit what comes from our mouths in favor of our actions. However, one look at the greater universe and where I do believe in decency based in social mores, one look through a major space telescope and our lives seem a speck of dust in comparison. It makes you wonder if our lives upon death affect a macro or micro placement/journey of our soul. At times I wonder if we promote a certain moral behavior in order to bring order here on earth.

I’m with Sheila….wish I could believe and not be afraid. Maybe Joni could try harder to convince us?

Once, I had the privelege to talk to a simple woman who knew she was dying. I asked her if she was scared and she responded saying not so much scared as wondering what forever is like. I had to clarify my own thoughts on dying before I could answer. I shared with her what I thought would happen. I told her I believed that she would hear someone calling her name and that person would be Jesus. She would see Jesus coming towards her and he put his arm around her and asked if she wanted to go with him. I told her that in the time it would take to say yes, I want to go with you, all she had ever done would be purified/forgiven. And then Jesus would say, then I am taking you to my Father. She felt much calmer after she thought about my belief of what will happen after death. She died three months later. It was a signal moment for me, as I had clarified my belief of death in just that moment. Last year, when my Mother was dying, I was able to bring her peace of mind as I shared with her my belief. I believe, what comes after being in the Father’s House, heaven, will be like the scriptures promise, we will receive the ‘desires of our heart’.

Here’s a verse from the bible, that I doubt that you will hear your pastor quote from his pulpit: Psalm 146:4: “His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” Here, “his” refers to “mortal man” or “son of man” in the previous verse; “Spirit” is the Hebrew word “ruwach’ which translation is ‘breath.’ In other words, your breath goes back to God, your fleshly body returns to dust; and YOUR THOUGHTS PERISH. You aren’t up in heaven, ‘thinking’ about anything. Why must we perpetuate traditional religion, rather than open and study our bibles? Ecclesiastes 9:5 say that the ‘dead know nothing.’ How does this even come close to “going to heaven when you die” preaching? Psalm 113:7 says, “He raises the poor from the dust…to make them sit with princes.” We’re talking about the resurrection of the dead. THAT is the hope of all Christians. THAT is the point when we will receive our immortality and have victory over death! It is at the return of Jesus, the Lord Messiah to the earth, to set up His Father’s Kingdom. If we are dead and asleep, we will awaken (arise, o sleeper from the dead) and instantly be alive again, but with a new immortal, imperishable body! It’s time to dispel the myth of the heaven thing and look to the very word that God has spoken and will fulfill, whether you believe it or not. Looking for more resources besides the bible, may I suggest a book written by Sir Anthony Buzzard, from England, entitled, “Amazing Aims and Claims of Jesus.” Very straightforward information about what happens to you when you die.

Well I didn’t read all the posts, but I am a Presbyterian Elder here in Virginia. I do believe in afterlife of the spirit and think it is something we mortals just don’t understand and it will only be clear to us when we die. Now for a confession that has nothing to do with the teachings of the Presbyterian Church. I feel that infants and very young children are in tune with this spiritual world and as we age most of us lose that contact.

I think Joni and I may have similar ideas or experiences. For me, after spending a winter five years ago TRYING to read the “Tibetean Book of the Dead” i decided that there’s something out there, but nobody knows what it is and we probably will never ‘know’. I do, however, earnestly believe in “God” and ‘know’ that ‘God’ is there. I’ve decided that ‘God” is an essence that we all swim in everyday. While this ‘essence’ has many attributes, components, whatever — like intelligence and awareness — it’s primary function is to connect or be our ‘connection. I do not think we can know exactly what it is or really understand it, but not to worry. We can and do ‘know’! We simply have to reach out for it. I sort of see this essence as something like ‘pink cotton candy’ but that is mostly a playful idea, maybe to amuse myself and u’all. I’ve discovered that you have to drop down into yourself and reach up to connect to this ‘essence’ that is ‘God’ but mostly all you have to do is reach. I think Barbara Cooper is right — babies and children are connected to that ‘spiritual’ realm naturally, but we loose that ‘connection’ somewhere in our world of money, work, demands, responsibilties. Most Western cultures, certainly our American culture, does not foster this belief or connection for all kinds of reasons, none of them very useful. If we allowed ourselves to ‘know’ this, we would live in this ‘connection’. I’m not in a receptive mood all the time; sometimes myself has to live in the practical world of matter that we know and have built, but this place of refuge, acknowledgement, acceptance, greeting is always there. We somply have to allow ourself that reality. Unhappily, we don’t very often. The Tibeteans think that when a spirit wants to assume a human experience it flits around looking for a copulating couple. I assume there may be some choice in the selection, at least I hope so. But who knows. I do ‘Know” we are capable of that ‘connection’, probably at all times. we simply have to allow ourselves to go there. It could be we may have to teach ourselves to go there. Ultimately, I think the ‘energy’ that we are all returns to ‘God’. Afterall, it has to go someplace. So, Happy Pink Cotton Candy day — drop down and drop in. :):):):) P.S. Sometimes I will go for days or weeks out there all by myself, forgetting or too busy to connect, but I am much more happier and comfortable when I remind myself, allow myself, to drop down and attach. All this has simply been my experience. An example of what I mean is poetry. I’m a poet and almost every poem, without exception, comes from outside myself, I am merely the responsible delivering agent. Think this is the experience of most artists from all kinds of artistic persuasions. We are simply the agents thru which the words, thought, ideas, whatever comes. A poem has wakened me at 3:00 a.m. many times or when I want to do something else during the waking hours — it demands attention. Believe me, that can get pretty aggravating when ‘your’ essence has other things in mind than you do.

While I must agree that in the Beginning, Man created God in His Image, I do believe in Eternity. And it is weirder than we can ever say. Or in other words, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao”.

My father always told me that the two greatest adventures in life are being born and dying - ‘cause you don’t know what’s going to happen in either case. I just know that dying is natural and natural is o.k. with me. I don’t know who said this but I like it - “Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.” I hope that there is something more - I’m 61 and not near done yet.

Joni, I hope you do open this in the near future to a discussion about Reincarnation. I had an experience with Rosemary Altea. She appeared on the Leeza Gibons show in May of 1999. She gave a reading about my grandson Justin who died 2 years after having a heart transplant. She was right on…… I also have many experiences dealing with those who have passed over to the Other Side…….Looking forward to this discussion.

Hi all, hey has anybody heard of or read “The Urantia Book”? It calls itself a new revelation to our world and has quite a detailed summation of what happens to us when we die. One interesting comment from the book—“humans gain nothing from the experience of death except the fact of survival”. Also, talks about the mansion or morontia spheres, recalling that Jesus said ‘in my Father’s house, there are many mansions’. The Urantia Book, a more or less channeled work was indited from 1913 to 1934 and published in 1955, studied in private homes all over the world and spread from friend to friend without any publicity whatsoever. Its 2097 pages are chock full of marvelous symmetry and synthesis of thought on all sorts of topics including virtually a day by day recital of Jesus’ life, our place in the universe, cosmology, the planet’s history both spiritually and physically. It is available at most libraries and bookstores. Check it out, you may love it.

These issues have been at the forefront of my thoughts since my 18 year old daughter died two years ago. I now realize that I do not believe that our spirits die with our bodies. She came as a unique individual and she is still a unique individual—I do not think that death is strong enough to alter that. Further, I do not believe we started with this mortal life. I have come to feel that we have existed as individuals forever, and that we played a major role in choosing to come to this mortal realm and also in choosing the types of experiences we would have while here. The questions of what this life is, what there is after this life, and what God means are all intertwined, I think. I am not sure you can have some ideas about one without having ideas about the others. What if we are really the children of God? What if God means a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother, who have bodies, are married, have children … because that is what it means to be God? What if coming to this mortality was part of our growing up to be like our Parents? That we would have bodies and be able to form families would be joyous to us because it is the way our Parents live—and we wanted to be like Them. And it is our destiny to be like them, for we are Their children. Yes, I think there is a sifting here in this mortal life. It is clear that holding certain priorities leads to unhappiness; it is clear that certain social systems produce unhappiness. I think we are participant-observers in a grand university in which all of us get to be agents. And when our lives are over, we will see the whole panoply of human experience, and we will observe which paths lead to happiness and which do not. And either here in mortality or in the existence after this life, we will be able to choose how much happiness we wish to have according to how willing we are to follow the paths that lead there. And that choice, in large part, transcends the religion and customs we lived on earth. The only thing that matters about your religion here on earth is how much insight it has into the truths that underlie happiness, and in the next life your choice for or against happiness will not be fettered by what you knew or didn’t know here on earth. But that choice, I believe, is truly fateful—for those who refuse happiness will not be together with those who embrace it. To freely refuse happiness must be hell. And after this life, if we have chosen to follow the paths of happiness, we will live in the family of God, and we will take our places as Beings capable of creating and nurturing younger spirits along this path. We ourselves will be Heavenly Parents, and the light will displace the dark in the limitless expanses of this and other universes … And the Great Eternal Round—the great Plan of Happiness—will continue. These are the things I think about when I lay flowers on my baby’s tombstone, and I feel hope.

I’m Southern and given my predilection for gossip and general bitchiness - I’m pretty sure that I’ve already leased a pretty nice condo and convertible in Hell. But… I hope there is a Heaven with great shoes and size 6 jeans.

Join me at my website.. I write and interact in volumes on this subject. Linda www.myspiritualwindows.info

I admit that I have not read any of the responses to this interview/discussion/taped dinner conversation. I read it kinda for awhile…lalaala. I just “listened”(to the link)….hellooooo…. so much better than reading it. I love your accent Julia. You actually remind me of my mother who grew up in McMinnville Tn. I remember her saying some “thing” was the best “this side of the Mason-Dixon Line”. I always knew that when she gave it that rating it was going to be GOOD! It often had to do with food. Hence your casseroles at your below the line funeral. Thank you ladies for letting me listen in on a thoughtful, fun, silly reverent conversation. hmmmmm. Next time…. I am listening to the link. LOVE IT.