After Party

On a recent wander through a bookstore, a personal memoir of a near death experience (NDE) caught my eye. Since nothing whiles away the lazy, heavy days of summer like swinging in the hammock and reading about another person's horrific accident and subsequent NDE, I curled up with the book for a couple of hours. The memoir was written by a Baptist minister who had been crushed in his car when a prison transport vehicle, driven by an unqualified inmate, crossed the median and plowed over him.

The minister did not register a pulse and his apparent injuries were so severe that the attending emergency medics declared him lifeless. They pulled a tarp over the car, leaving him inside, while they waited for a coroner to arrive to make the official pronouncement. He didn't receive any sort of medical attention for many hours and, during the interim, he found himself entering Paradise. According to the account, the minister did not pass through the metaphysical tunnel of light that so many survivors report entering as they cross over. But, as one might expect, his NDE was in the Judeo-Christian tradition - pearlescent gates, angels flapping mighty wings, heavenly music...that sort of thing.

After he got to heaven, the book rapidly deteriorated for me. First off, he records being greeted by everyone he ever knew that had crossed over. Next, he reports that the air was filled with the sounds of angels' wings and divine music. And everywhere, spirits are praising the Lord without ceasing. I am praying that this particular version of heaven is not the only option.

First off, there are one or two folks that have gone on that I don't need to meet again. I can't imagine that the experience would be desirable for them either. I just assumed that heaven would be a lot like Friday Harbor...when you see someone you'd rather avoid, like at King's, you just take a detour down a different aisle until you're pretty sure they've left the store. Or, if there's a danger of passing each other on the sidewalk, you cross over to the other side of the street. If we can avoid this sort of awkward meeting in a tiny town, we should surely be able to stay clear of our nemeses in the infinite space of heaven.

Then there's that divine music droning on and on for eternity. I don't much care for that, either. I will be needing a lot more in the way of percussion and a dance mix in the music if I'm going to really rock the Afterlife. While I don't expect to be shaking my groove thing on the Other Side with deceased Pussycat Dolls, surely I can have music and dancing that's a bit more...well...lively.

And I really reject the idea of all that praise. My religious viewpoint is relatively sparse...whatever cosmic plan is in place is being administrated by some force outside of my immediate understanding. I take it on faith that it's being run competently and with a lot of imagination (see the starry-nosed mole and the Aurora Borealis). I am always open to spiritual transformation and hold the position that if the Almighty needs anything in particular from me, She, in Her omnipotence and omniscience, will get in touch.

I do not believe that the Prime Mover of the Universe is so codependent that She needs my relentless, fawning praise 24/7. I see Her shaking Her radiant shoulders and saying, "Thanks so much...now get out of my presence and go do something useful, for heaven's sake."

The minister only described one thing in heaven that really appealed to me. He said that everything he saw (metaphysically speaking) during his NDE was suffused with an intense light. The light and color were so penetrating that it made the level of light on earth seem muddy and dull by comparison. Interestingly enough, I had a parallel observation distilled from a dream that I had while in college. In my waking life I was taking a photography class and spending hours at a time on a light table looking at slides and negatives.

In my dream, similarly, I found myself crouched over a light table examining a series of slides. All of the slides were labeled like ordinary travel slides with identifiers like "4th of July Picnic" and "Camping Trip to Colorado" written along the bottom. Each slide was drab with indistinct shapes and flat colors. Until I reached the last slide...the focus was razor sharp, and the colors were phantasmagoric. It was labeled "Death", and I took this as a significant message.

But beyond the minister's reference to light, I am not keen on his standard EZ-1040 version of my eternal reward. It's blah. So, what this book brought up for was a very important theological question - will I get the heaven I want or am I marooned for eternity in the sort of heaven that only a Baptist minister might enjoy? I have a long list of requirements and another list of things I don't need at all.

Streets paved with gold? Not so much, but those little greasy cream cheese and crab puffs that you get at Chinese restaurants would be very nice. I'd like to be surrounded by elephants, flowers, and World Music. I want to drive a vintage Vespa along a turquoise sea and run with tigers in a jungle. I have a lot of questions that I want to run by Jesus, Siddhartha, Elizabeth I and Einstein. I'd like to tell Jimmy Stewart how much I enjoyed his movies, and Sommerset Maughham how influential The Razor's Edge was to me. I want to do and see many, many things in heaven, and none of them are in any way represented in the minister's truly dull NDE.

I don't want an After Life so much as an After Party and I wondered if the standard NDE was the only one out there and if we were sort of constrained by our expectations. My theory was that people from non-Western Judeo-Christian traditions might have an entirely different NDE to report. Perhaps, I could align myself with those people and get an after life that was more in harmony with my notion of an intriguing eternity.

I was not surprised to find out that I am not the first person to ask whether the nearly-deceased, somehow, integrates his/her previous cultural experience and religious belief system into an NDE. If humans around the planet have been reporting a particular experience since Biblical times, it makes sense to assume that there will be parallels and a few differences. The key point here is, though, in the word "few".

Raymond Moody, foremost NDE researcher and originator of the phrase "near-death experience", has ascertained that a humming noise, a sense of blissful peace, a feeling of leaving one's body, moving through a tunnel and/or moving toward a very bright light, reviewing one's life and meeting saints is pretty consistent, at least among Westerners. Wildly diverging reports do not seem too common among the people who share their NDEs with researchers. Apparently, reports of Christians meeting Muhammad or Muslims meeting Christ or Jews meeting Guru Nanak, have not been widely publicized.* Perhaps I'm just looking at English language websites for my information, and, thereby, missing the NDEs of Tantrics and Tuvites (Tuviathans? Tuvavanians? Tuvalanders?), Zoroasters and Zulus.

It's my guess that you find the Saint or the Divine Guide in the form that you hope to see - the One that will give you the most comfort as you make this crossing. A dear friend of mine was in a coma for a couple of weeks following a serious illness and his survival was far from certain. Although he is not a Native American and was raised a Catholic, he has an affinity with the Medicine Wheel. He spent his NDE buried up to his neck in corn in a kiva while a healing elder watched over him as they shot the afterlife breeze.

The obvious problem here is that the NDE is described as just a period of time where you hang around in the foyer of heaven. You haven't been shown to your table; your bags have not been taken to your room. If you go back the way you came, you just snap back into your body again and postpone your eventual permanent passing for another day. That being the case, I can't get much independent confirmation that I will get my pachyderms and peonies from people who approached the heavenly reception desk and then cancelled their reservations. I'm probably just going to have to wait and be surprised.

My not-too-exhaustive research into this matter did turn up some interesting recollections, however. Apparently, having an NDE has a profound impact on an individual, but the conclusions vary as much as the people having them. Here are a few of my favorite testimonials from various NDE websites:

"My goal in life has been to be the best, kindest, most generous, pleasant person I can possibly be, and to this day, I am the best person I personally know of." (Me, too. I don't know anyone nearly as wonderful as you are!)

"I am almost certain now that there is a God. 99% sure. No, 100%. I just wish He would show me a cure for my fibromyalgia and your plantar fascitis." (He's probably annoyed with your lack of commitment.)

"When I was out of my body, I could see that my relatives were around my bed - some of my relatives live 2999 miles away from here." (Not 2834.6 or 3017.3 miles, but exactly 2999.0.)

"I started to feel sick at my stomach. I started to sweat, and I had bad cramping in my chest and down my arm. I thought if I would sit down and smoke it would go away." (As anyone can tell you, nothing is better for stopping a heart attack in its tracks than lighting up a fresh one.)

I also learned that many people who write to NDE websites are not familiar with the spell-check function in Word. I mean, if you are going to make a strong case for Bible study as the portal to heaven, you ought to be able to spell "Satan" and not keep referring to the Dark Prince as "Satin" - a type of smooth and shiny fabric favored for prom gowns and waterbed sheets in the 70s. I secretly fear the prospect of spending eternity with a lot of really bad spellers.

I'm going to have to take it as a matter of faith that the Almighty wants my After Party to be special. Earth is a very attractive and interesting place, so my expectations are naturally already pretty high. If you don't recognize me on the Other Side, I'm the one zooming along on my Vespa with crab-and-cream-cheese-puff crumbs on my raiment.

*Lifted from www.skepdic.com/nde.html. Of note, fifteen percent, or so, of people who have had NDEs have a negative or frightening experience.

Note-to-Self 2: According to my recent email, I am not the only person with big dreams of retail success (Yes, I hear the collective groan from all you shopkeepers out there sitting behind counters and eating instant soup. Be quiet. I'm ignoring you.). After the last article, Little Shop, several readers wrote to share their retail ambitions. Here is a sampling, and I'd be pleased to collect more should you have a burst of creativity.

Just Thumbtacks (from Sky)
Just Frisbies (from Kim)
Goodwill Standing (a thrift shop for therapeutic footwear, from Anna)
Things-n-Things (a retail celebration of things, also from Anna)
Tide-to-Be (a bridal shop for beach weddings, from Amy)
Just Jumpers (a store dedicated to shapeless dresses and things that hop, also from Amy)
Yodels and Goats (a store specializing in Alpine imports, from Gretchen)
The Duck & Cover (a brew pub that also sells bed linens, from Steve)
Desserted Island (cakes, pies, etc. on an island, also from Steve)
Pups-n-Pops (a pet and carbonated beverage enterprise, from T.K.)

Photo from South China, Maine of the family business contributed by J. Hussey.

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Ingrid divides her life between the San Juan Islands (where her heart lives) and Austin, Texas (where her paycheck is generated). While Ingrid is spiritually promiscuous, she credits her guru, Jimmy Buffet, for her mantra ..."If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

Ingrid is an old-school Libra and believes that the Revolution should be a catered event.

Her column appears every other Thursday in San Juan Islander. To contact Ingrid, send emails to ingrid@sanjuanislander.com

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