Religion & the paranormal

Big brother Chris and little brother Johnny shared time together every Thursday, their “guy day.” Chris had joined the mentoring program despite being in a wheelchair with paralyzed legs, the result of a car accident. Chris cheered Johnny at his soccer games. Together they enjoyed math and science, looked for rocks and agates, flew kites, and went fishing. They shopped, Johnny riding the back of Chris’s wheelchair and learning to operate the lift on Chris’s van.

One day Johnny asked his family, “If you could have one wish, what would you wish for?” He took his turn last and wished that Chris would get his legs back. This had become his greatest wish after he learned it was Chris’s wish.

Then came the phone call. Johnny’s mom had to tell him that Chris was in the hospital and not doing well. More phone calls, and he wasn’t getting better at all. At about 6:00 o’clock on a Sunday evening, Johnny announced that Chris had died. Gently informed that they didn’t know this yet, he again said, “He’s gone.”

They learned that Chris had indeed passed away before 6:00 o’clock that evening. Through tears, Johnny said, “Chris got his legs back. He got his legs back.”

This true story, like the others I tell, support my conviction that the inner spiritual world breaks into our surface world with regularity and often it has nothing to do with religion.

I’m not saying that religions should stop trying to bring people to Spirit. With their mythical portrayal of the spiritual world, their rituals, and their supportive structures, religions offer community, dignity, and many more benefits impossible to detail. Their contributions would prove more beneficial if people understood certain distinctions—between faith and belief, between religious myths and facts, between religious authority and the supreme authority of incomprehensible Mystery.