Transitions from darkness to light are not easy. Some take longer than others. But as in the birthing process, if one can lean in and ride the waves of the change, one is better served than to try and fight against what becomes inevitable.

Change.

A sadder story comes from the year that our camp was kiddycorner with a camp called comfort and joy.

A guy visiting that camp climbed a ladder in their center. Everyone thought he was doing art up there. It wasn’t for a while that they realized he had hung himself. The rangers came. I think we all felt the sadness. The brush with an irretrievable decision.

Then, in the spirit, I felt him. The young man. He kept trying to bump himself back into his body. But his body had closed to him. In its ceasing, the hole he once fit through in life was closed to him now in death. He did not understand. He was not READY! He needed to get back in. He kept trying. I was distressed. I felt the nudge of God. He needed light. I entered his gray space enough to shout, ‘look for the light! Head for the light!’ He was confused. He turned dully towards me. My words did not make sense to him. What the f… for? To him light was unimportant. He wanted his body back. I tried more. As loudly and as long as I could, to impress upon him the importance of light. He had not cared for light in life. So it was also for him in death. In the end, I obeyed the prompt to take my drum to the dome and to play a funeral song for him there.

Looking back, I wonder. Was I the last contact he had with humanity? I hope not. It is entirely possible for someone to become tuned for eternity in those last moments. Witness a different transition from a similar life response to light.

She was in her eighties. Her life had lots of emptiness that had been filled with religion. Every day she went to mass. Until she couldn’t. Her marriage had left her childless but wealthy. She learned she could get away with being mean when you were rich. But you can’t stop disease no matter how many dollars you have. Parkinson’s worked its way into and through her. At the end she lived a miserable existence. Retreated. Pained. Unable to influence with gaze or speech her existence. Penance? Perhaps.

The last day, on my way to see her, I heard- what you agree with in life you will agree with in death. Oh no! The jeopardy of her soul was at hand. I entered her interior world. I saw Jesus there but he was super small compared to all else. Relying on the history I had built with previous visits and stories of heaven, I explained she needed to go closer to Jesus. Yes, he was small now, but as she got nearer he would get bigger. He was the way. She heard. I think she listened. And I think, I will see her in eternity.

To God belongs the sovereignty of all these things.

Which brings me, somehow, to the accident on roller coaster road.

My experience came before that knowledge. I was in my living room, on my couch when a young Middle Eastern man appeared before me and I clearly heard the Lord say, he needs to be saved. I explained to this young man the gospel. I explained how Jesus was the messiah. I explained how he took our place with his death, to reconcile us back to God. I explained how he was the Son of God, how he died and was resurrected, and how he can live in our hearts. They young man repented for his unbelief. He received Christ and became a believer.

Within two hours, I heard about the accident, which had happened the night before and claimed three lives- three young Middle Eastern men had died on roller coaster road. I knew the young man I had witnessed to in the spirit was one of these.

Was our experience before or after the crash that took his life? God alone knows such things. I can only report the small part I see and interpret through my flawed humanity.