Throwing Rocks at God.
After three years in the Marines (infantry) I finally got orders to Viet Nam. I didn't have to go due to the opportunity of a hardship discharge my mother had requested. How could I live with myself if I quit when the real thing came up? I couldn't. But I was absolutely certain I would die there.I was there six months, up at the DMZ, when I came in contact with many parts of a 122 MM rocket. I said "Oh God, I'm hit" then everything went black and I started to gently float "upward" in the darkness. There was no emotion, fear, or interest. I was a neutral observer.
The next "moment" the darkness was full of "people" in long black, hooded robes, with their backs turned to me. As I floated up through them, one turned and looked at me. He had the saddest smile I had ever seen.
Then I entered a tunnel and began moving horizontally toward a light. The most beautiful music I had ever "felt" coursed through me. The light got brighter and closer. I was stopped right in front of the light. So very, very beautiful. I wanted to go in, but a firm, kind voice in my head said, (I will never foget this), "You must go back, you have work to do".
In an instant I was back in my body, the sun hurt my eyes, many of my brother Marines and corpsmen were working on me. I knew I was done with war and going home.
I was a well-trained and gung-ho Marine, and spiritual but not religious. I was becoming very angry with the stupidity of the war and it's destruction. This was not a political feeling. It was a humanist feeling. I brought that anger home with me. Above all, I WAS PISSED AT GOD. For years I threw rocks at God. I befriended booz and pot, and tried to destroy all feeling.
I thought about the NDE a lot but refused to examine it. I got on with what I thought of as "my life". But as the years went by I could not deny that beautiful experience.
What kept me from examining the experience were all the distractions of life, along with the anger and pain. I deeply knew way down inside somewhere that I already had the "answers to life". Then one day a voice told me to go to Arizona (where I grew up) and live in the desert away from everyone and everything. I bought a Van and some gold prospecting gear and hit the road. I deeply examined that experience from Viet Nam. I examined all the times some "force" tried to direct me, or guide me, and how I refused to listen. My heart was severely broken.
Things change. I learned to open my heart. I didn't feel lost anymore. Someone taught me to Surrender, so and I did. I lost the anger, paid some attention to the Angles and stopped throwing rocks at God. I found my way back out of my own Hell.
I have read many other NDE accounts and know one thing. They are only for that person so they may grow. The experience can be shared with others, but it's really just for them. And as far as I can tell, they only happen to humans who need them. I was out of harmonic balance with myself and with God and the Universe.
Was this experience real, or just in my head? For me it was more than real. Today my human life is full of joy and laughter, and most of all a great love of all things, especially nature.
I'm back and have work to do. Semper Fi. God blesses us all.
A.F.
The reason for my statement above about already having the "answers to life" is because of another experience I had 60 years ago in a hospital in Colorado. I was just a couple of days old. I was in a crib. There were many of us in cribs. I would deliberately try to poop myself, because then a very large black woman would come to change me, and more important, she would tickle me, and talk to me, and touch me, and I felt love.
Except for the fun nurse, the thing I remember most is the thought that "I'm back and this time I'm going to laugh and experience joy as much as possible". Then no more memory and no more nurse. Just a baby.
A.F.
