Clues Can Light the Way

Text from the Book's Introduction:

It is exciting to be 82 years old in the year 2020, a year that might suggest a clarity or sharpness of vision. And I now believe I have reached a clear vision of my life’s purpose and want to share my journey to that clarity.

For the first 40 years of my life, I thought I could see and appreciate my life as a journey with incredibly exciting events. Some of those experiences were youthful, fun-filled adventures when life was simple and risk was rarely an issue. Others involved situations where the risks of serious injury or death were there, sometimes realized, rarely taken seriously, and often forgotten.

During that phase of my life, there were also times when mysterious, unexplainable events occurred and captured my attention. Those events were unforgettable and have profoundly influenced me. Some involved circumstances and outcomes so unexplainable that I could only interpret their significance as guidance from an all-knowing source beyond this world. My closest, most religious friends said that it was God or guardian angels that had spared my life, while others, especially my atheist friends, said I was just lucky. But these accidents and other close encounters with death felt like clues to the path I should follow in my life and what my life purpose could be.

My confusion over the cause and effects of those incidents and any possible divine intervention is not surprising. My father was a non-practicing Protestant; my mother was Catholic, removed from the church when she married my dad; and they sent me as a child to the nearest place of worship, a Baptist church. This upbringing and continued brief encounters with religion often felt comforting, but not convincing. There were signs along the way that gave me hope about a path I had yet to discover, but I could not see the way. In my early years I found the greatest satisfaction and confidence with the precision of mathematics and science.

The delayed recognition and acceptance of potentially life-changing events was undoubtedly tied to my 60-year career as a scientist involved with nuclear physics, petroleum engineering, oceanography, and marine biology. My degree in physics and several years of advanced graduate study provided opportunities to teach, manage organizations, develop patents, publish research papers, and conduct field investigations in dozens of countries. I was comfortable and confident with the scientific process of experimentation, quantitative assessment and analysis, and proof of data or theories through controlled, repeatable tests. Events that could not be explained — that could not be measured and plugged into an equation — were fascinating and exciting, but they could not provide the evidence I needed to cross that frightening, rapid river of doubt and confusion. I wanted a strong, undeniable experience that would provide the clarity of vision and understanding to help light my path of self-discovery and purpose. That experience happened as I approached the mid-life stage (so far) of my time on earth.

The most uplifting, life-changing encounter with the unexplainable involved my father’s transition from life to death and back. His heart stopped at age 65 while he and my mother were living in Leonardo, New Jersey, where I grew up. At the local hospital, my father was pronounced clinically dead for about eight minutes. Chapter 10, “Love and Learn,” describes his passage out of his body, through a tunnel, and into the most beautiful place he said he had ever been. I describe how a knowing — a strong emotional directive — led me to go home to New Jersey from Alaska. After considerable disbelief and attempts to ignore the directive, I went anyway and then learned that my father had died earlier but had come back.

To my amazement, he was not surprised by my arrival, seemingly aware of a request for me to do so. Describing his experience, he told me of a reunion with his brother who had died earlier that year. He spoke of how a brilliant light behind his brother communicated telepathically with clear messages of love and understanding. What he learned changed his outlook on life and why we come to earth. I could see that my father was no longer the grumpy, lonely, and depressed man I had known most of my life, and he spoke with love and appreciation of me. We discussed our many misunderstandings and hard feelings, and it was wonderful to reach a happy closure on those issues. About a month after I returned to Alaska, my father died, and I was so glad for the time we shared during that last visit.

My father gave me a new perspective on the close calls I had experienced to that point in my life. Each event — the frightening ones and the enlightening ones — became an example for how I could better appreciate the path I was on. I began to see the lessons from each experience as clues about the value of every person. The connections with people and the help we can provide for each other became paramount. It became increasingly clear that my ability to grow spiritually did not depend on proof of concept and validation with mathematics and science.

I grew to appreciate more than ever that I am not just my physical body and that the survival of consciousness after death need not be proven. The personal stories I have selected from my own life journey and provided in this book leave me satisfied with simply the likelihood that each of us is part of something so very much greater than ourselves — a perfect expression of love.

Nothing we ever think, say, or do can change what lies beyond this world. In a very real sense, it is comforting beyond measure to know that:

Whatever is, just simply Is…