And Then What Happened?

The book went onto my list of "I want to read that" as soon as I heard about it. The title is Proof of Heaven. I have read several books that are described as true narratives about, or by, people who have been clinically dead and yet survived, including Heaven is for Real. For the most part, I wasn't in the market for another account.

For the most part, I maintain what I like to describe as a skeptical open mind: I believe that while we live, we mirror Christ imperfectly, but that after this part of our journey is over, we experience God in all of God's personae completely. I also believe that a great deal of what goes on neurologically helps us understand what happens when a person is in the act of dying. It's something I have seen more often, perhaps, than some people have.

Proof of Heaven caught my attention because the author, Eben Alexander, is a medical doctor, specifically a neurosurgeon. Now I was very interested. The book was published in 2012, longer ago than I had thought. Recently, an acquaintance lent me a copy, and I am now about halfway through.

First, Dr. Alexander is from my neck of the woods, and names places with which I am well familiar, something I hadn't known. Second, he is an academic neurosurgeon, meaning he teaches as well as practicing. He's good at describing what's going on and what he experienced during his time in a seemingly fatal coma.

I saw the earth as a pale blue dot in the immense blackness of physical space.... Small particles of evil were scattered throughout the universe, but the sum total of all that evil was as a grain of sand on a vast beach compared to the goodness, abundance, hope, and unconditional love in which the universe was literally awash.*

At the same time, I'm re-reading some Carl Sagan books, including Pale Blue Dot, the title of which came from the Pioneer space expedition in which he was involved integrally. Dr. Alexander, along with his engaging description of what was happening medically, is describing his dis-engagement and then re-engagement with spiritual belief. He is insisting on a teaching that "science and religion must agree."**

What happens with my belief in God when science and religion, Sagan and St. Paul, are swirled together? When "for small creatures such as we, the vastness[of the cosmos] is bearable only through love"?***

I neither need nor want scientific evidence of an afterlife. But what happens when I open my mind and my heart and my experiences to the possibilities? My whole world becomes infinitely more vast.

*Proof of Heaven. Eben Alexander, MD. Page 129, Thorndike Press edition.
**"Science and religion must agree" is a fundamental principle of the Baha'i faith.
***Contact. Carl Sagan. Page 385, Gallery Reprint edition.