My mother’s recent passing has me thinking a lot about the afterlife.  The Bible tells us a little but really not a lot of detail with respect to what to expect.

Years ago, we had a big storm, and I was thinking it was the Inaugural Day storm of ’93, but now I don’t think so because I remember it being cold and snowy not just windy.  Also, I remember just two kids then and ’93 would have had three.

At any rate; we had a storm, it knocked power out, and I was sick with the flu.  A water bed really sucks when the power is out because without the heater, it sucks the heat right out of your body.

So I’m sick, have a high fever and shivering on an unheated waterbed with no heat in the house because the furnace doesn’t run without electricity.

I went into a dream, only it seemed more real than waking reality.  I was in heaven with God, and it was home.  I knew it was, I had awakened from the dream of my life on Earth and I was more awake and alive and aware than I’d ever experienced.

And I had a choice, I could stay or I could go back, and I thought of the kids and I had to go back.  As soon as I thought that, I woke up, and the fever had broken, I had 98.6° F temperature and got up and felt fine.

But there were some things I brought back with me from that experience, a sense of connectivity there that I’ve never been able to totally get with any human being here. The most intense sexual experience doesn’t come close.

I also got a sense of that being home, I had been there before, it was familiar, relaxing, comforting, secure.  A feeling I’ve never really fully had on Earth.  Here, on this planet I’ve always had a feeling of not belonging.

Now that my mother has passed, there is a part of me that really wants to return to that place.  The only thing that prevents me is that I know God didn’t bring me all this way for no reason, I’ve got work to do before it is my time, and even though I don’t know what that is, I know cutting my life short would in effect be refusing God’s assignments and gifts.

So I’m in kind of a deep mental funk, really feeling tired of this life, a life in which I know two of my kids hate me because of what I’ve done, I’m not really sure if how my father feels about me but I know I’ll never earn his respect and I’m not sure about his love.

I love my wife but I don’t feel like she really shares the intensity of my emotions, so I feel very alone in them.  My situation doesn’t really provide me any method of blowing off steam and unwinding and that’s difficult to deal with at times.

I’m sure God has a reason for the path I’m on but I keep asking what I should be doing and so far the answer doesn’t seem to be forthcoming and that is difficult and frustrating.

I want to be home in a way that is secure, in a way I can really relate to people at the deepest level, and right now in my life that’s just not happening.

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This happened early in the morning when people were on their way to work.  I think this would be more effective than ten cups of coffee.

The current NASA estimates are that this was a stony meteorite of about 55 feet in diameter, weighing approximately 10 tonnes or 10,000 tonnes (depending on the source, anyone with a pointer to a definitive value please let me know), and traveling about 46,000 miles per hour. The energy of the resulting blast is estimated now at 500 kilotons.  There is no explosive involved, this is the kinetic energy of it’s motion being dissipated as it is slowed by atmospheric friction.

It’s interesting that the Russians checked for radiation and continued to check throughout the day.  Given the size of the shock wave being roughly equivalent to the largest submarine carried nukes we possess, I can see where they might be concerned that perhaps this wasn’t natural.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, sometimes when I really want to feel God’s presence, like the night I was watching my mother struggle for every breath just before she died, I don’t and yet I know God is there just as he was all the time I was in prison, even the first month where I didn’t feel his presence.

Today’s Daily Bread, a devotional I read and read the verses it points to each day, the radio version ended with the assurance that even when we don’t feel God’s presence, he is there.  I know that, but still emotionally it helps to have that reinforced from time to time.

And this devotional, because I’ve found it helpful in my life, I’ve added a new section entitled Christian Resources to the right and I invite you to explore it as well.

I attended my mothers’ funeral on Saturday, Feb 2nd.  The person my sister had arranged to do the service did a wonderful job.  Missed of my mom’s early occupations like usherette and cord board telephone operator but overall did a good job.

Tried to sing The Old Rugged Cross, but was too choked up even though I sang it probably a hundred times in prison.  I wasn’t the only one, by the end of the song most people had lost it and the only person still singing was the one up front leading it.

I know I’m entering a new phase of life now. I will see mom again some day but depending on what all God’s got for me to do here on Earth, it might be a long while.

I awoke about 2:48AM out of a dream that involved a visit from a long dead cat which I had, Fred.  Fred was a long haired black beast that was very intelligent and seemed to connect to people, or at least me, very well.  He’s been gone for many years, more than a decade I think.

So here I am awake from a dream of relative comfort and into the reality of at the moment being alone, my wife is at work, one son that is still here jacked into his computer talking to some friend who knows where.  And my heads all stuffed up making it difficult to breath through my nose.

I tried to fall back to sleep but I could hear Raymond talking to his friend.  So I turned on the radio, only the talk show I usually listen to falling asleep is gone.  So I put on some music but the lyrics remind me of my mother and all the other people I’ve lost.

I prayed to God to make his presence known and felt to me, but I’m not feeling his presence just now.  That’s something about God I don’t understand, why sometimes you can feel his presence and sometimes not.

I wanted to talk to someone but at now well after 3AM not an option, wife won’t be home for another three hours.  So I took an Alka-Selzer Cold hoping it will unclog my sinuses and allow me to breath normally and get back to sleep and came in and wrote here, to whoever will read.

I guess I’m going to go back and try to sleep again, have to be functional in the day, lots of things to take care of right now.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Before going to prison, from the time I made up my mind that I wanted to change my life, God has given this verse special meaning to me.  Throughout the period leading up to my incarceration, during it, and after, God has used this verse as a way of getting my attention, letting me know there was a message he was about to deliver.  It came across in sermons, radio shows, even fragments in advertisements, and each time something important would follow.

It came into my mind the evening before my mother passed away, while I was watching her struggle for every breath.  And this time it’s still hard for me to understand how that can possibly be used to good.  But I know he will, somehow, and I will make myself available to whatever he has planned for me.

I can see how, as hard as this is, God really prepared me, the time in prison in solitary where he let me know he was there, loved me, forgave me, but required that I take responsibility for what I do.  That moment made death a whole lot less frightening and also let me know I was never alone no matter where I was, he was there.

The day my mother passed, an old friend who was once my boss at the telephone company, but left to pursue his own business as did I, and we remained friends, contacted me, and I told him what I had done and he said we are friends for life, and then another friend from high school times contacted me again today and even knowing what I had done let me know we were still friends.

God has put so many good people in my life, that has made this time, which is hard and painful, a lot easier to bear, because so many people are providing emotional support and helping me bear that burden.

There are things I am praying for, primarily healing within my family, a closing of the chasm between my children who haven’t decided to reject me and those who have, that the relationship between my sister and I could be better, and that God continues to direct my life and mold me into the person he wants me to be who sees opportunities to help others and acts upon them instead of freezing up in fear, who trusts God to provide rather than being nervous about every impending deadline.

All of those people who have allowed God to use you and help me get back on a better path, I appreciate you and I offer my apologies to those I’ve hurt.

My mother passed away early this morning.  She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s and COPD for several years.  It was the COPD that ultimately took her life.

She had not recognized me since I returned from prison, did not know who I was, but I had visited Monday and on that visit she had a moment of lucidity and did recognize me and told me she loved me and I told her I loved her.

I feel a great loss, but at the same time blessed that God gave her that moment of lucidity and us a chance to say Goodbye and express our love before God took her home.

John B Wells used this as bumper music on Coast to Coast last night, got it stuck in my head and now I’m really fixated on it.  What a ride it is.

Now the Bing! Search Engine makes complete sense!

Woke up from a nightmare where I had symptoms of cancer and they were about to perform all sorts of tests on me.  I hope I don’t die that way, slow and painful.