Paranormal & Garrison

I wrote a while ago that some of my own encounters with the other side are too personal to share, and that’s what I find to be true for others. Not surprising. I don’t think it’s only wariness of skeptics; it’s the sacredness of the incidents. When the holy mystery touches us, we must not sully this precious encounter by splatting it to the world. On the other hand, visiting about it with someone who doesn’t scoff brings satisfaction and deeper appreciation of the holy touch.

Recently I got a story so startling that I’d love to tell the whole story for the sake of the skeptics. But I don’t have permission. I can only mention an unusual swooping and gliding dance of pelicans flying in bands of three and four. These numbers accurately represent a certain group of deceased persons. Remarkable. As usual when these things happen, the witnesses to this phenomenon arrived at its significance with some hesitation and then a sense of wonder.

The word “paranormal” means beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation. Such phenomena manifest pattern and meaning emanating from the inner world—it knows things before we see them happening in the external world. This explains precognition, extraordinary animal behavior before natural catastrophes, and encounters with the other side at death. They lack scientific explanation—YET. I expect science in the future to find some answers.

I believe they come from what we call God, but not the theistic/deistic idol that atheists rightly reject. I maintain that this spiritual reality is normal, not abnormal or extra-natural. God is not an individual separate from nature; it’s not a humanlike being or set of humanlike personalities. It’s embedded in and part of nature, surrounding us always yet always transcendent of nature. One of the terms I like to substitute for the word “God” is “the More.”

Paranormal happenings give evidence of this More—more than common sense can explain. But I don’t accept the view that it violates science. So far science has not figured it out yet, but I believe it’s getting closer, and quantum physics is the avenue opening up new understandings, as I state in my section on “Miracles” in God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky. Still, we will never figure it out completely because there is always more, more, MORE.

Different subject:
This evening I’ll be on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion 4th of July show in Avon. It’s in connection with my Avon centennial history book, Nestled between Lakes and Wooded Hills.

Comments

Unknown said…
Hi Jeanette... I like your name for God as "the More." I also find it satisfying that "Mor" (pronounced the same way) is Swedish for Mother, although I know we are getting away from those theistic terms. Thanks for making it so easy to get hooked up with the Prairie Home broadcast that I can't believe I missed! How neat that you were there! Val
Jeanette said…
"Mor" is Swedish for Mother! I did not know that. Thank you.

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