On December 8th, 2007, I died.
I grew up in the 1970s in a household that held antipathy towards Christianity. My Dad was an atheist. He said he couldn't believe in God because his father died when my Dad was 5 years old. So he was against suffering; hence, he became a hedonist. My Mom said she really wanted to believe when she was growing up, and desired the "religious experiences" that other teenagers in her church expressed. She never felt such an experience, so she dismissed it, but always claimed she was still open to the experience. Being liberal intellectual teachers, they didn't agree with much of the social strictures of Christianity, so I was basically raised as a liberal atheist intellectual.
And yet in my teens, like my Mom, I yearned for spiritual experience. But given my preconceived prejudices, I looked elsewhere -- at things like nature worship, Buddhism, Hinduism, ancient Greek mythology, "the Goddess"... pretty much anything that wasn't Abrahamic. Like my father, I pretty much settled on marijuana, science fiction, and a poorly executed intellectual pursuit: the study of ritual.
Living in Saint Louis in the fall of 2007, I was trying to solve the mystery of "The Island" in a television show called Lost. For those unfamiliar, it was a show about people who were lost in their lives, who'd crashed on a mysterious island in the south Pacific, and who encountered strange phenomena and coincidences there. One thing that really intrigued me was the plethora of literary and philosophical references in the show. Rewatching the show during a nine-month hiatus that year, I decided to read some of the books that were referenced in the show, to see if they were actually relevant. I started with Watership Down, and it paid off -- its appearance seemed to foreshadow later episodes.
So I started following other references. I read the philosophies of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Nietzsche. I read fiction like A Wrinkle in Time, Our Mutual Friend, and Lancelot. I watched the movies of Sergio Leone. I read books on the sciences of electromagnetism, neurology, and consciousness. My head was swimming. My mind was running in circles. Not only was I seeing all kinds of parallels and dualities in the show (mirror-twinning), I started seeing them in real life. My life. Around the beginning of December, I started hearing voices. I had come up with a theory of the Island that postulated its unique electromagnetic properties allowed it to copy consciousness itself into its matrix -- and that on the island consciousness could "go back" in time after death. (Such occurrences in the narrative would be marked by deliberate "continuity errors," which meant the show was "technically perfect" by redefining "mistakes.")
I had also started reading passages in the Bible. The show had many biblical references, and I thought they'd be relevant. This led me to actually considering what Jesus did on the cross -- and I realized that even in the absence of the Holy Spirit, if he actually had the faith that his sacrifice could redeem the sins of all others, he would have to go through with it -- for in fact, there could be no greater boon that could be given to humanity. On December 5th, 2007, I broke down weeping at the beauty of Christ on the cross.
By December 7th, things had gotten really weird. I would ask a question in my head, and it would be answered by the world around me -- be it a suddenly noticed detail in my surroundings, or my boyfriend suddenly bringing up a new conversational topic, or even the next commercial on television. That evening I was beset with a vision of talking to a young man with black hair, who offered me what I wanted most in the world: to have a baby, which was no longer medically possible because of my stupid awful decisions earlier in life. Earlier that week, two different women had asked if I were pregnant, when really I had just gotten pudgy. Anyways, I thought long and hard about it, and eventually had to say no. I didn't want to be the locus of a supernatural event. I didn't want to provide "proof" of a "miracle" -- it wouldn't be fair. It might actually break Faith itself, for Faith in the absence of a freely made choice would mean nothing.
On the morning of the December 8th, I reached out to a family member I'd been estranged from, who I'd estranged myself from for selfish reasons. I was forgiven and warmly welcomed back into the fold.
That evening, I had the premonition that I would die. I decided to just have a normal evening. Had dinner, walked the dogs, watched TV, took a bath.
I went to bed. But I didn't fall asleep. I was thinking about Lost. I recalled a character (Charlie Pace) who sacrificed himself for others, and the Christian iconography surrounding him during those acts. I was thinking about mirror-twinning, and how people on the Island were constantly "trading places." And I was thinking about Jacob. There was a cabin on the Island, and in that cabin was a chair that belonged to an as yet unseen character named Jacob. There was someone trapped in that chair, going back in time I thought, who had cried out "Help me." In my mind, I saw the chair floating by, and I sat in it.
And then I died.
I felt myself lifted out of my body. I was surrounded by angels. And before too long, I entered the Light. And it was there that I heard God. A "life review" commenced -- and I was Judged. Because of my abortions, I was condemned. I would be separated from God for eternity. We were both sad about that. I agreed with the Judgment. I asked if I could at least go back to Earth, to live my life the best that I could, and God seemed pleased about that. I was returned to my body in the bed. I held vigil for the rest of the night, completely bewildered and terrified by the experience.
When the sun rose, everything changed. Suddenly I felt the incredible love of God, love emanating from the whole world around me. Everything pulsed with light, vivid and fluorescent. I went for a walk with my boyfriend and our dogs and didn't need to wear a coat even though it was cold out. I felt "born again."
This incredible feeling persisted for weeks. I eventually baptized myself in the bathtub, pledging myself to Jesus Christ.
As the feeling waned, so did I. I went to therapy, wondering if I'd just had some kind of schizophrenic break.
I still leafed through the Bible, but not devotedly. I adopted the passage John 20:29, thinking that because I had "seen" I could not be "blessed." (Weirdly, that Biblical scene was referenced in Lost in 2009, in an episode titled "316".)
But I started trying, slowly, to right the ship of my life. I left that non-marital bed in 2010. I stopped drinking in 2016. I realized I still believed, but I couldn't accept that I could be saved from the damnation I deserved. I had a couple of encounters with street evangelists around 2020, where I shared my experience of being Judged -- "the Judgment is real," I told them, to start those conversations -- and they prayed over me.
About two years ago, at the strong suggestion of a friend, I started praying. Mostly I would just express gratitude towards God, and repentance for my sinfulness. It eventually dawned on me that while I believed and prayed to God, I had not yet formed a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So I started reading the Gospels, not as someone trying to figure out a TV show, but as someone who really wanted to learn. I read Mark and John and couple of times and let them sink in. Tried reading Matthew, but found it incomprehensible, kept running into a wall at the Sermon on the Mount. Never got to Luke.
This year, I stopped smoking marijuana. I've been clean for three months.
My best friend asked me to start watching The Chosen with her recently. I had questions about the show, mainly to what extent it was actually representing the Gospels, so I went back to reading the Bible. For the first time, I was able to read Matthew, and it was like a veil was lifted from my eyes. I could understand it now. (I could also see where The Chosen was taking liberties.) I've since read Luke for the first time, and many of Paul's letters. It no longer mystifies me. Perhaps it was just waiting for me to approach it with the right heart -- a heart that's open and penitent.
Maybe it's just that I've realized that that Jesus really is my only hope, and that I still have work to do.
Yours in Christ,
Jane
I grew up in the 1970s in a household that held antipathy towards Christianity. My Dad was an atheist. He said he couldn't believe in God because his father died when my Dad was 5 years old. So he was against suffering; hence, he became a hedonist. My Mom said she really wanted to believe when she was growing up, and desired the "religious experiences" that other teenagers in her church expressed. She never felt such an experience, so she dismissed it, but always claimed she was still open to the experience. Being liberal intellectual teachers, they didn't agree with much of the social strictures of Christianity, so I was basically raised as a liberal atheist intellectual.
And yet in my teens, like my Mom, I yearned for spiritual experience. But given my preconceived prejudices, I looked elsewhere -- at things like nature worship, Buddhism, Hinduism, ancient Greek mythology, "the Goddess"... pretty much anything that wasn't Abrahamic. Like my father, I pretty much settled on marijuana, science fiction, and a poorly executed intellectual pursuit: the study of ritual.
Living in Saint Louis in the fall of 2007, I was trying to solve the mystery of "The Island" in a television show called Lost. For those unfamiliar, it was a show about people who were lost in their lives, who'd crashed on a mysterious island in the south Pacific, and who encountered strange phenomena and coincidences there. One thing that really intrigued me was the plethora of literary and philosophical references in the show. Rewatching the show during a nine-month hiatus that year, I decided to read some of the books that were referenced in the show, to see if they were actually relevant. I started with Watership Down, and it paid off -- its appearance seemed to foreshadow later episodes.
So I started following other references. I read the philosophies of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Nietzsche. I read fiction like A Wrinkle in Time, Our Mutual Friend, and Lancelot. I watched the movies of Sergio Leone. I read books on the sciences of electromagnetism, neurology, and consciousness. My head was swimming. My mind was running in circles. Not only was I seeing all kinds of parallels and dualities in the show (mirror-twinning), I started seeing them in real life. My life. Around the beginning of December, I started hearing voices. I had come up with a theory of the Island that postulated its unique electromagnetic properties allowed it to copy consciousness itself into its matrix -- and that on the island consciousness could "go back" in time after death. (Such occurrences in the narrative would be marked by deliberate "continuity errors," which meant the show was "technically perfect" by redefining "mistakes.")
I had also started reading passages in the Bible. The show had many biblical references, and I thought they'd be relevant. This led me to actually considering what Jesus did on the cross -- and I realized that even in the absence of the Holy Spirit, if he actually had the faith that his sacrifice could redeem the sins of all others, he would have to go through with it -- for in fact, there could be no greater boon that could be given to humanity. On December 5th, 2007, I broke down weeping at the beauty of Christ on the cross.
By December 7th, things had gotten really weird. I would ask a question in my head, and it would be answered by the world around me -- be it a suddenly noticed detail in my surroundings, or my boyfriend suddenly bringing up a new conversational topic, or even the next commercial on television. That evening I was beset with a vision of talking to a young man with black hair, who offered me what I wanted most in the world: to have a baby, which was no longer medically possible because of my stupid awful decisions earlier in life. Earlier that week, two different women had asked if I were pregnant, when really I had just gotten pudgy. Anyways, I thought long and hard about it, and eventually had to say no. I didn't want to be the locus of a supernatural event. I didn't want to provide "proof" of a "miracle" -- it wouldn't be fair. It might actually break Faith itself, for Faith in the absence of a freely made choice would mean nothing.
On the morning of the December 8th, I reached out to a family member I'd been estranged from, who I'd estranged myself from for selfish reasons. I was forgiven and warmly welcomed back into the fold.
That evening, I had the premonition that I would die. I decided to just have a normal evening. Had dinner, walked the dogs, watched TV, took a bath.
I went to bed. But I didn't fall asleep. I was thinking about Lost. I recalled a character (Charlie Pace) who sacrificed himself for others, and the Christian iconography surrounding him during those acts. I was thinking about mirror-twinning, and how people on the Island were constantly "trading places." And I was thinking about Jacob. There was a cabin on the Island, and in that cabin was a chair that belonged to an as yet unseen character named Jacob. There was someone trapped in that chair, going back in time I thought, who had cried out "Help me." In my mind, I saw the chair floating by, and I sat in it.
And then I died.
I felt myself lifted out of my body. I was surrounded by angels. And before too long, I entered the Light. And it was there that I heard God. A "life review" commenced -- and I was Judged. Because of my abortions, I was condemned. I would be separated from God for eternity. We were both sad about that. I agreed with the Judgment. I asked if I could at least go back to Earth, to live my life the best that I could, and God seemed pleased about that. I was returned to my body in the bed. I held vigil for the rest of the night, completely bewildered and terrified by the experience.
When the sun rose, everything changed. Suddenly I felt the incredible love of God, love emanating from the whole world around me. Everything pulsed with light, vivid and fluorescent. I went for a walk with my boyfriend and our dogs and didn't need to wear a coat even though it was cold out. I felt "born again."
This incredible feeling persisted for weeks. I eventually baptized myself in the bathtub, pledging myself to Jesus Christ.
As the feeling waned, so did I. I went to therapy, wondering if I'd just had some kind of schizophrenic break.
I still leafed through the Bible, but not devotedly. I adopted the passage John 20:29, thinking that because I had "seen" I could not be "blessed." (Weirdly, that Biblical scene was referenced in Lost in 2009, in an episode titled "316".)
But I started trying, slowly, to right the ship of my life. I left that non-marital bed in 2010. I stopped drinking in 2016. I realized I still believed, but I couldn't accept that I could be saved from the damnation I deserved. I had a couple of encounters with street evangelists around 2020, where I shared my experience of being Judged -- "the Judgment is real," I told them, to start those conversations -- and they prayed over me.
About two years ago, at the strong suggestion of a friend, I started praying. Mostly I would just express gratitude towards God, and repentance for my sinfulness. It eventually dawned on me that while I believed and prayed to God, I had not yet formed a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So I started reading the Gospels, not as someone trying to figure out a TV show, but as someone who really wanted to learn. I read Mark and John and couple of times and let them sink in. Tried reading Matthew, but found it incomprehensible, kept running into a wall at the Sermon on the Mount. Never got to Luke.
This year, I stopped smoking marijuana. I've been clean for three months.
My best friend asked me to start watching The Chosen with her recently. I had questions about the show, mainly to what extent it was actually representing the Gospels, so I went back to reading the Bible. For the first time, I was able to read Matthew, and it was like a veil was lifted from my eyes. I could understand it now. (I could also see where The Chosen was taking liberties.) I've since read Luke for the first time, and many of Paul's letters. It no longer mystifies me. Perhaps it was just waiting for me to approach it with the right heart -- a heart that's open and penitent.
Maybe it's just that I've realized that that Jesus really is my only hope, and that I still have work to do.
Yours in Christ,
Jane
