The last week has been a particularly tough week for our country. Death is on everyone’s minds as the deaths of two black men were recorded on video and spread like wildfire on social media. That led a mad man in Texas to move up his plans for mass murder and he killed five police officers. Everyone is mourning “the fallen”. I’ve come to realize we look at this world and death exactly backwards. They’re not “the fallen”, they are “the risen”.
This morning I take my walk and I’m listening to an interview with the author of the book “The Risen”. The main thrust of the book is there is no death. When we transition, we shed these bodies and we move to a higher vibratory level. We literally rise up. I listened to Howard Storm speak on Sunday. Howard’s Near Death Experience over 30 years completely flipped his view of death. This is not our home, according to Howard, he’s seen Home, the one most of us have forgotten. He knows where he’s going and he’s looking forward to being back where he belongs.
As I was taking a walk with a friend yesterday we talked about this. The only thing that sustains me in this crazy place now is knowing it’s temporary. There is beauty and joy here, but it’s fleeting. This is tough, gritty place, not for the faint of heart. My friend Robert calls it “the gym” and likens a lifetime to an afternoon at the gym. It seems like much more than an afternoon though. Now I think of it as bootcamp. The things we deal with here, the disappoints, the pain, the absolute heartbreak, they’re all obstacles on the obstacle course. We planned them out knowing that they’ll make us stronger and then we graduate out of here.
When I think of the two young men killed by the cops and the five officers killed by the crazy man in Dallas, I don’t mourn for them. I cry for their mothers, fathers, sisters, children. They’re the ones who have been hurt. They are the ones who have to carry the pain. They are the ones whose course just got unimaginably harder. As for those “killed”, I don’t think of them as fallen. They’re risen. They didn’t die. They’ve gone home. Their boot camp is over. They have graduated.
