19.

Forgiveness

Tuesday, March 19 - 2:00a.m.

Jennifer couldn’t sleep. She wanted to believe she was free of her father–he was dead for God’s sake–but like so many times before, something had triggered her memories. The memories had come rushing back in, tackling her defenses like a Green Bay Packers lineman, knocking the breath out of her and filling her with pain. Her dinner conversation with Mike had done just that: dredged up unwanted pain from the depths of her memory. Now she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about her father and what he had done to her so many years ago.

She thought about Mike’s words, “When we find ourselves worthy, that’s the first step toward forgiveness,” but she didn’t want to forgive her father. She hated him for who he was and for what he had done. She hated him because he had robbed her of her childhood innocence and turned a girl’s playground giggle into the burning hate she needed to survive. Some things are just unforgivable, she thought, and child rape is one of them. I will never forgive him, she thought. In her pain she believed that forgiving him would somehow make it all right, and it’s not all right. She had a right to feel abused. She had a right to be angry. She had a thousand reasons to hold onto her hate. She needed it to survive, to endure, and most important, to prevent the pain from returning. But it didn’t work. The pain still returned and every time it did, it seemed like more than she could bear.

Finally, after hours of tossing and turning, she fell asleep and started dreaming a normal dream like any other night. Normal for her, anyway, considering her profession. In the dream, she was in a laboratory, interviewing a genetic scientist for a newspaper article, when the dream took an unexpected turn. Her dreams normally followed a script concocted by her subconscious, but now it seemed like the script was thrown out and replaced by something weird, something otherworldly and she looked around, surprised.

It seemed like somehow she was interacting rather than watching herself as in a normal dream. The laboratory had dissolved into nothingness and she found herself floating in a sea of blackness. Dreams always have some kind of scenery, but now she saw nothing. The most unsettling thing was that it felt so real. Then a man slowly materialized in front of her. He had curly red hair and his eyes struck her as a beautiful cross between Asian and American.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m a friend of Mike. My name is Joe and this isn’t a dream, it’s an out-of-body experience.”

She remembered floating on the ceiling of her bedroom during her repeated childhood rapes. She thought they were caused by not being able to handle the unbearable situation. This one was different and she wondered if this time it had been triggered by her anger. “Where am I?”

If he was talking to a normal Earth graduate who had been on “the other side” a while, he could give an exact answer, Earth-Echo plane, sub-level C-13, coordinates 202-49-2-6857, but he knew Jennifer wouldn’t understand the accurate answer. He settled for a short but incomplete answer. “This is the afterlife.”

She gulped. Afterlife implies death. With a concerned voice, she asked, “Am I dead?”

Joe laughed. Incarnates were so amusing. This one was worried about her mortality even in the face of proof of life beyond death. But no matter. “No, you’re just visiting.”

“Why am I here?”

Sometimes Joe loved his job as a spirit guide because he could help so many people. Other times it was hard and he counted the days until he could move on to his next assignment. Only twenty-eight more days, he told himself. I’ve been doing this for years; I can handle another twenty-eight days. He had dissolved Jennifer’s dream and brought her to consciousness, so now it was too late to back down: he had to go through with it. He knew she would not understand. She didn’t want to face the lessons she needed to. He knew her anger would be directed at him, too, but if he could make her understand, she would grow spiritually. He swallowed his hesitation and spoke. “There is some business you need to take care of. A small matter of forgiveness.”

At first, she thought that her feelings about her father had invaded her subconscious and landed squarely in her dreams. But this was no ordinary dream. For one thing, she knew she was dreaming. She was lucid. She had read about “lucid dreams” once, where you’re completely conscious and aware, but still in a dream. The problem was, her dream had dissolved and the script had been thrown out. He was right: it had to be an out-of-body experience.

Joe’s last word, forgiveness, felt like a slap in her face. He was talking about her father, wasn’t he? The asshole responsible for all of her pain and mistrust, the only person in the world who made her believe in evil, who had made her feel dirty and ashamed, worthless. Like it was wrong to hold onto her hate or something. But she liked her hate. It felt good. It was a warm companion who kept her company at night, reminding her she was the victim. It kept her alive, sharpened her defenses, protected her from other men who might hurt her. She wanted to say, “Who do you think you are, anyway, preaching to me?” Forgiveness is not something to be dictated. “Why should I forgive him? I have every right in the world to hate him.”

“You’re right. You do have a right to hate him, but can’t you see your hate is tearing you up inside? The pain you feel when you stare at the ceiling is the hatred burning inside. It’s stir-frying your internal organs, turning your blood into black sludge. You need to let go of it.”

Let go of her hatred? Her companion? Her protection? Absurd; it is what kept her alive, what helped her endure. “Why? That piece of shit did nothing but hurt me his whole life. My only regret in life is that I never got a chance to knee him in the balls before he died.”

“The hate served its purpose, but you can let go of it now. Call it a life-lesson and it’s time to move on to the next one.”

She felt like he was trivializing the whole thing, and how dare he. “Life-lesson?”

“Earthly life is a grade school where we come to learn. But sometimes you can’t move up to the next grade level until you’ve passed the exam. You can’t advance to the next level in life until you’ve learned the lessons you’re supposed to. And if you don’t learn your lessons this life, after you die, you have to retake the course.”

“Your point?”

“Your father was a G-1. That’s one of the low grades. At that level, most of what you learn is by making mistakes. You screw up your entire life and can only learn what you did wrong when you can look back on your miserable life and see how much you hurt other people.”

“When your father died, he experienced a life-review. Like all souls, he relived every moment of his entire lifetime in ten-minutes’ time and saw every experience from the perspective of the people he affected. In that ten minutes, he saw the pain and horror he had caused you, and it all came crashing down on him at once. He was plunged into a perpetual state of remorse, self-punishment and suffering, or what you incarnates call the pits of Hell.”

Burning in hell. That’s right where she wanted him. “That still doesn’t excuse him for what he did.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t excuse him. But here’s the kicker.” He knew she wasn’t going to like this next part. He took a deep breath. “Before anyone enters a physical body to be born, they choose their parents and their life-plan. It’s called a sacred contract. They design the life-lessons they need to learn, and how to get through them. Take you for example. You’re at level D-15.”

She felt like he was judging her. Like when you walk into a bar and all the men mentally undress you and hold up invisible Olympic score cards. Ignore her; she’s a “1,” well, maybe a “2.” She pursed her lips and put her hands on her hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The levels don’t define our value; we all have equal value. It just designates what life-lessons you’re learning. At level D-15, one of your life-lessons is forgiveness. To facilitate that lesson, you needed both someone to forgive and something serious to forgive, an act of soul betrayal.” He took another deep breath and braced himself for another whammy. “You chose him as your father because your higher self knew that he would help you learn that lesson. You also chose him because you knew he would teach you to be strong and independent.”

Already resisting where she knew Joe was going, she stammered, “Are you saying it was my choice? I didn’t choose to be raped. Nobody chooses to be raped.” The voice inside her kept screaming, I was raped, he raped me. She spat at him, “I’m the victim here, and he’s the perp. Besides, if I forgive him, isn’t that like admitting it’s all right? Isn’t that just saying that it’s okay to abuse little children who can’t defend themselves? Are you saying it was my fault?” Her hands were still on her hips.

“I’m not saying his actions weren’t wrong. I am saying that you both needed to learn from the experience. If you don’t learn, the cycle of violence is repeated, sometimes even escalated. That’s called karma. Maybe another helpless little girl will be raped, but it will be you again, reincarnated in another lifetime. Or maybe next time you’ll be the rapist and he’ll be the little girl.”

A vision of escalating violence between Arabs and Jews momentarily filled Joe’s mind. That was a much larger scale version of the same lessons, with the souls periodically changing sides to learn the other point of view. No one ever quite learned the important lessons and the violence had no end in sight. Now that would be a hard assignment, he thought. “But you can stop the cycle of violence between you and your father. Once you learn the essential lesson from the experience, you will have made a little step forward in your spiritual evolution. You don’t need to repeat this kind of pain. By accepting your life-lesson, you can help your father through his. Your experience was just as important because you are both children of God, and by learning your life-lessons you’re helping God achieve Her ultimate goal.”

She ignored the gender thing. “So the ends justify the means? Is that what you’re saying?”

He softened his voice and drew closer to her. “I’m saying that the world you live in, where you take everything so seriously, is only a playground. Think of it this way: Let’s say that a doctor is testing some new cancer drug. As part of the test, she takes out a Petri dish, adds a bunch of cancer cells to the dish. Then she adds normal blood, tissue and antibodies. Then she adds her new wonder-drug and watches through a microscope to see if the drug helps the normal tissue fight the cancer or if it doesn’t. If the drug works, the cancer cells are defeated by the normal cells. If not, the cancer cells keep growing. In either case, when the test is over, the Petri dish is thrown away. It served its purpose. But while the test is going on, those normal cells and cancer cells only see their immediate environment, the Petri dish. They think it’s the ultimate reality, and they’re fighting good against evil. The cells can’t understand the doctor or her ultimate purpose because the doctor is at levels completely beyond their comprehension. So what I’m telling you is: The Earth is nothing more than a huge Petri dish. The pain of Earthly existence only matters if you cling onto it and refuse to release it.”

She was pissed. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter. It sure as hell does matter. Are you saying that all the pain I suffered–and still suffer–is part of some grand experiment that God is playing with me and my life? Who the hell do you think you are telling me what to do anyway? A goddam man could never understand. I don’t need to forgive him. You can go straight to hell and join him.”

She woke up with a start.

She was upset and her heart was pounding. She wanted to call Mike but it was the middle of the night. She brooded for a while, then decided to call him anyway. Her arms felt stiff as she reached for the phone and dialed his number.

“Hi Mike, Jennifer. I’m sorry I’m calling you at this hour, but I had to talk.”

He sounded groggy but concerned. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Remember when I told you that when my father raped me I sometimes had out-of-body experiences?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I just had another one. It hasn’t happened since I was seventeen. I’m upset.”

“Just calm down and tell me what happened.”

“There was this guy named Joe who said he was your friend.”

Mike yawned. “Six-feet tall, curly red hair and half-Asian eyes?”

“That’s him. He told me I needed to forgive my father. I told him to go to hell.” She paused. “Mike, am I a bad person because I won’t forgive my father?”

“No, Jennifer, you’re not a bad person. You have a right to your feelings. We all do. The problem is, you’re holding on to your pain. You wear it like a badge of protection. You keep the wound open as a reminder not to let anyone get close enough to hurt you. You have a right to your pain, Jennifer, but the purpose of pain is to motivate change. Only you’re not changing. You need to let go of the hate.”

“And why is that?” she replied with anger, feeling betrayed that Mike had not immediately taken her side. She had defended herself against Joe, and now she felt she was defending the same position against Mike. Maybe you were Jesus in your past life, she thought, but I’m not buying your bullshit about loving your enemies and turning the other cheek.

Mike tried to ignore the highly charged emotions he felt coming through the phone. He knew what Joe was trying to tell her. He didn’t know how, but somehow he knew what he was saying was an important truth. “Because the hate chokes out your heart. Once you let go of it, there will be room inside for love. You owe it to yourself to begin the healing process.”

She was silent while she thought about what he had said. Room inside for love. If she had learned anything at all from Mike, it was to look at things from a different perspective. She realized she had a choice: keep pushing men away, or make room for love. She knew that as long as she held onto her hate, she could never have a serious relationship with a man. And the thought of growing old and dying without having loved was depressing. Maybe I can even love Mike, she thought, and let him love me. He certainly is a sweet man. Or am I just drunk with the smell of roses?

Mike hoped that the silence he heard on the phone was understanding and acceptance. He also knew it could be a breaking point in their young relationship. He breathed a sigh of relief when she spoke.

She said, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I need to look at this whole thing again.” And maybe I can learn to love you, she thought, but she didn’t say that.

After their conversation, she felt better. She lay, staring at the ceiling, thinking. Maybe he was right. Maybe it’s time to let go of the pain. Maybe it’s time to forgive my father. Maybe it’s time to let someone love me. It was very frightening to think about letting go of the hate that had kept her safe for so long. She wondered if her father really was in some kind of hell, and if so, what Joe wanted her to do about it. It was a long time before she drifted off to sleep again.

Tuesday, March 19 - 5:30a.m.

The tingling all over her body woke her from the light sleep. Concerned, she opened her eyes, only to find Joe’s face a foot away from hers, and he was staring at her. At first she was startled and sat up. Then she realized she was out of her body again. She pursed her lips at him, annoyed at his shenanigans.

When he saw her reaction, he laughed. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” he cackled. Then he said, “Sorry,” with a mischievous smile.

She was not amused. She asked bluntly, “You said my father is suffering. How?”

“It’s not a pretty sight. Your father is engaged in an act of perpetual self-punishment for what he did. He’s in hell, but it’s a self-imposed situation.”

That thought seemed like a contradiction. “Since when is hell optional?”

“It’s always been optional. It’s another learning tool, albeit a tough one.” Joe started pacing. As he spoke, he made exaggerated gestures with his hands. “Some people are convinced they’re bad people. They’ve been led to believe in heaven and hell. When they die, they’re convinced they should be punished for their sins. Their extreme conviction creates their environment. Since your father believed he was evil and should be punished, he created his own Biblical hell, and he’s fully prepared to burn in agony until his belief system changes.”

“So my father created this hell to punish himself for what he did?”

“Sort of. It is one of the consensus hells created from the combined beliefs of the masses. But he put himself there. When we die, we review everything we did in that life and how it affected other people. It’s like an automatic instant-replay. When he saw how badly he had hurt people–you in particular–he believed very strongly that he had to go to hell for his sins. And that belief was so strong, it transported him there.”

“Can’t you help him?”

“No, for two reasons. First, because he doesn’t want help. He believes he deserves to burn in hell. Second, we can’t get to him. We’ve been trying to reach him for years, but he’s sunk down to levels we can’t reach.”

“Sunk down where?”

“The afterlife has a vast number of levels, and each of them has a unique frequency or vibration level. The higher the vibration, the more ecstatic. The lower the vibration, the more hellish. People also have vibration levels, and that determines which levels they can visit. It’s nearly impossible for people with my vibration level to reach down into those murky depths to pull him out. It’s like swimming to the bottom of the ocean to pick up a starfish. The pressure makes it impossible for us. I had to adjust my frequency several thousand gigahertz just to talk to you here.”

“Are you saying that my frequency is ‘hellish’ enough to reach him?”

“Yes, because you’re still physical, your vibration levels are low enough to reach him.”

“But the pressure won’t be too much for me?” she said with a touch of skepticism and a mounting concern.

“No, but there is a danger in all this, and that is the danger of giving in to fear. Remember the twenty-third psalm? ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.’ Remember that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you’re about to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Seeing a look on panic on her face, he continued talking. “But don’t worry. Remember the prayer: there’s a good reason why you shouldn’t fear evil. There is so much negativity in that place that it attracts the worst kind of scum. I’m not just talking about murders and rapists. I’m talking about those creatures you would call evil. Of course, you and I know they’re not really evil. They’re just misguided and fighting their spiritual evolution.”

“Just what are you trying to tell me? Don’t sugar-coat it.”

“What I’m trying to say, Jennifer, is that you might encounter demonic monsters over there.”

“Demons?” She was freaked out enough about being out of her body. It was all kind of spooky. Now he was talking about demons, giving her a reason to be afraid. It was easy to rationalize that monsters don’t exist in the physical world, but the nonphysical world was another matter. She could believe there were all kinds of terrifying monsters waiting to devour your soul on the other side. The kind of chaotic and hideous creatures H.P. Lovecraft wrote about. “And you’re telling me not to be afraid?”

“Yes. The reason is this. Your soul is immortal, so you can’t really be harmed. The only way they can harm you is by using fear. They feed on fear. They use fear to control people, and that gives them their only power. If you’re not afraid, you rob them of their power and render them powerless.”

“But what if they’re stronger than me? Weaker people are always abused by stronger ones. It’s the law of the jungle.”

“That’s the physical world, not this one. The rules are different here. It’s quite the opposite here. All souls have the same ability to use the God-force, but because you’re an incarnate, you have stronger emotions than we do. That makes you very powerful and very dangerous. These demons have a good reason to be afraid of you, and you have a good reason not to be afraid of them. Understand?”

“Easier said than done. So what am I supposed to do if I come face to face with a twisted monster ten times my size?”

“Just remember not to be afraid.”

“What if I am afraid? What am I supposed to do?”

“Remember that fear cannot exist at the same time as other strong emotions. If you get scared, replace your fear with love. If you can’t muster love, get really pissed off. You seem to be good at that.” He chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. “They can only feed on fear, not anger. Also, remember that you have unlimited power to create defenses or even weapons by using your imagination. Make an AK-47 or something and shoot the bloody thing, just don’t be afraid of it. Are you ready to go?”

“No . . . ” She hesitated. What am I crazy, volunteering to go to hell? There was another possibility. In the Bible, it said that Jesus went to hell after the crucifixion to redeem the souls of the damned. She wondered if Mike could rescue her father. He was stronger than she was and he had a past-life to fall back on if he got in trouble. “What about Mike? Can’t he help my father?”

“He could, Jennifer, but this lesson is not for him, it’s for you.”

She rubbed her chin with her hand. “Tell me something. Am I the first person to do this?”

“Oh no. Lots of people have done it, but most choose not to remember the details. That’s something only you can decide.”

“All right, I’ll go under one condition.”

He smiled at her agreement. “Name it.”

“If I have to visit hell, I’d like to visit heaven sometime. Is it a deal?” She added, “While I’m still an incarnate.”

He winked at her. “Perhaps I can arrange a tour.” He was going to add, “First, you must face your demons,” but decided against it.

She asked, “What am I supposed to do once I find him?”

“First, convince him to come with you. Grab his hand if you can. Second, hold an image of a beautiful park in your mind’s eye. Then call out for me and I’ll take it from there.”

“Okay. I’m ready. How do I get there?”

“Take my hand. I’ll get you as close to him as I can.”

She placed her hand in Joe’s. It was a very odd sensation, holding the hand of a ghost, but it helped her self-confidence.

“This isn’t going to be pleasant, but I know you’re tough. Are you ready?”

She nodded, and they dematerialized.

When she opened her eyes, a deafening roar filled her ears. She looked around, but Joe was gone. She was suspended in midair, and below her was an enormous red-orange ocean of fire. The molten seas of hell. Swimming frantically in the lava were thousands of naked people, flailing their arms, gnashing their teeth in agony, screaming in pain. Their heads sunk down under the lava then bobbed back up, covered in blisters, burns and blood. Some were crying out for help, and some were clawing over the bodies of others to reach the surface. Amidst the mass of tortured humanity, thousands of lifeless bloated corpses were floating, rotting but not consumed by the fire. Thousands of hideous creatures were crawling over the bodies, taunting, tormenting and torturing the submerged people. Demons.

Jennifer reeled from the sight of the misery below her and the stench of sulphur and rotting flesh. As a journalist, she had seen some horrible things in her life. She had seen the horrors of war: mass graves, people with limbs blown off by land mines, disease, hunger, starvation, misery and pain, but nothing could have prepared her for what she was seeing now. She felt like she was choking on her own vomit. She would have thrown up, except she was out of her body, so that was impossible.

In an attempt to gather courage, she assessed her situation. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. All right, she told herself, this isn’t real sulfur and Joe said it can’t harm me. She took another deep breath and looked down again. She gagged again, put her hand to her mouth and wondered if it was too late to back out. She wanted to scream, to run, to call for Joe, to just get the hell out of this place, but if she did, she would be leaving her father there, amidst the tortured souls below.

She tried to focus on her goal of finding her father. She looked down, her eyes darting from twisted face to twisted face until at last she spotted him. Her father.

She wasn’t prepared for the emotions that came crashing down on her when she saw his face. At first she felt abhorrence, revulsion and disgust. She was looking at the man who raped her, not just once, but countless times. How she hated him all these years. She turned her head away, unable to look into those once-cold eyes. She remembered her futile pleas from the past. Please daddy, don’t! Don’t touch me there! But she was stronger now. She was not the little girl anymore. She had endured. She looked at him again.

Then she felt a perverse satisfaction. The thought flashed through her mind: he was getting exactly what he deserved. Asshole, she thought. I was just a kid and you took pleasure from my suffering. Now it’s your time to suffer.

Then she turned to leave. But she stopped and looked at the hell all around her and felt pity for all the nameless souls . . . pity for her father. He once ignored my pleas, she thought, but should I ignore his? Doesn’t that make me as bad as he is? No one deserves this kind of torture. It had been nine years since he had died, and she wondered if he had been enduring this kind of suffering the whole time.

Gritting her teeth, she turned back to face her father. She reached down toward him and yelled, “Here. Take my hand.” She strained to reach down to the surface of the sea of lava, but bobbed back up in the air like an apple in water. She leaned over, trying to reach down as low as she could get.

Somehow, through the deafening roar of fire, he heard her voice and looked up. He reached a bare arm upward. She bobbed down, caught him by the wrist, and pulled him out of the lake. He clung to her tightly, naked and shivering. As they floated above the sea of lava and misery, she pulled him up and held him. He was still screaming in pain. She cooed quietly, “It’s all right,” and rocked him. After a while, he looked at her and said, “Who are you?” He was so absorbed in self-punishment that he had forgotten almost everything else.

“I’m Jenny. Your daughter.” She hated her childhood name, but she thought it might have made more impact than Jennifer. However, using it brought back even more painful memories.

Even though she had rescued him, she couldn’t look into his eyes. They still filled her with disgust and loathing. “I’ve come to take you away from this place.”

Then an enormous creature with oily black skin lunged out of the fire at her. Its red eyes and rows of white teeth gleamed through the smoke that rose from the murky depths. “This one is mine. Give him back or I will devour your soul, worm,” the demon bellowed. Her body shook from the force of its disgusting breath. Her father screamed and tried to pull away, so she gripped his arm tighter. This was worse than any nightmare and she felt like she was losing the battle with fear. She was intimidated by the sheer size of the demon: it was bigger than her apartment. She chanted a mantra to herself: I will fear no evil. Then she heard a sound through the deafening roar. It was distant, but she could barely make out Joe’s voice. He was yelling “Make a barrier. Make a barrier!”

As the demon reached a huge oily black hand toward them, she imagined a barrier of light between her and the demon. The light materialized slowly–maybe too slowly, she feared–but when the demon’s hand hit the barrier, it screamed in pain and retracted it. Seeing her success, Jennifer’s confidence surged and the barrier turned brilliant white. Through the noise, she yelled, “I’m not afraid of you.” Then, holding onto her father with one arm, she made upward swimming motions, as if they were held deep underwater, trying to reach the surface. She tried to visualize a park, and yelled, “Joe? Where are you? Bring me back!”

After a few minutes, they dematerialized and found themselves in a beautiful park. Her father was collapsed in a heap on her lap. As she cradled him, she noticed they were both clean and dressed in white robes. It was quiet except for the sounds of chirping birds and running water. Joe was sitting on a park bench nearby, watching from a distance.

“Jenny?” her father said.

Jennifer turned and looked him in the eyes for the first time in many years. The frightened, abused child was gone. A strong, confident young woman remained. “Yes.”

As she looked at him, he turned his head down in shame. “Jenny, I was an evil person. I did horrible things in my life. I know I deserve to be punished for what I did.” She looked over at Joe on his park bench and raised her eyebrows, wondering what to do next.

She looked down at her father, sobbing in her arms. “Daddy, listen to me. Daddy.” At first he kept sobbing, then he looked up at her face. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him to get him to focus on the park. “Daddy, listen to me. You don’t deserve to be in that place. I forgive you.”

“I don’t deserve to be forgiven. I was evil. I did evil things.”

“It doesn’t matter now. I’m okay now. You’ve served your time. Your punishment is over now. Be at peace. Look around and tell me what you see.”

He looked around. “Trees. Grass. People. Where are we?”

“This is heaven, Daddy.” She knew it was only a park. Or maybe this was one of the consensus heavens created by the beliefs of the masses. But somehow she had to get him to focus on this new environment or he might slip back into his self-created punishment.

“I served my time?”

She saw he was starting to understand. “Yes, Daddy.”

Joe had walked up quietly. “We’ve got helpers who will take it from here, Jennifer. I’ll make sure he gets the care he needs.” Two women approached her father, dressed completely in white, disguised as angels. “Come with us.” He got up and started walking with the two angels. Then he looked back at where Jennifer was still sitting on the grass. “I’m sorry, Jenny,” he said and she noticed that tears streamed down his face.

“I forgive you, daddy,” she said. The first time she had spoken these words, she did it only to help him. This time it was different. This time, true forgiveness was in her voice and in her heart. It was a release of a hatred that had smouldered in her soul all her life.

She stood up and Joe walked over to her. “That was a very brave thing you did,” he said. “Not many people would brave the fires of hell to rescue someone they’ve loathed all their life.”

“I couldn’t stand to see him suffer. What’s going to happen to him now?”

He said, “He’ll be taken through our orientation program.” Then the alarm clock went off and she was startled awake.

Tuesday, March 19 - 8:30a.m.

Jennifer called Mike from her cluttered cubicle at The Las Vegas Sun. “Hi, Mike.”

“Hi, Jennifer. What’s up?” He sounded more awake.

She felt alive–rejuvenated–and she sounded that way. “Three things. First, I wanted to apologize for calling you so late last night.”

“No problemo.”

“Second, last night when I called, I forgot to thank you for the roses. They’re wonderful.”

He smiled. “Special flowers for a special person.”

“Third, I had another out-of-body experience after I talked to you.”

“What happened?”

“I’d rather tell you about it in person. What are you doing for dinner?”

“Nothing. What did you have in mind?”

“How about Battista’s?”

“I’ve got a better idea. I’ll make you dinner, my special Beef Stroganoff.”

“You’re on. What time?”

“Seven.”

Tuesday, March 19 - 7:00p.m.

As Mike cooked dinner, Jennifer wandered through his small apartment. As a journalist, she was trained to be observant. She looked at his computer screen which displayed an open document. “What are you writing?”

“It’s just a journal. My therapist said it might help. I’m writing my thoughts and also my memories of my past-life as Christ.”

She read a few paragraphs. “Heavy stuff. Given any thought to publishing it?”

“I haven’t given it much thought.”

“I know a couple of publishers. I can help if you’re interested.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“No, really. I think people would be interested to hear what really happened.”

At dinner, she told him about her out-of-body experience and the incident with her father. “I never thought I’d be able to face him again, let alone forgive him. Thank you for showing me the way.” Then she reached up and kissed him, a light, innocent kiss of appreciation, but it still sent a small thrill through his body.

Excerpt from The Gospel According to Mike

Someone asked him, “How can we believe in God when we cannot see Him?”

He said, “Can you see yourself? Can you believe in yourself? How can God not exist, for you are an expression of the Creator who expresses Herself in all things.”