The Dead Saints Chronicles: A Zen Journey Through the Christian Afterlife

by David Solomon

  Heaven Is So Beautiful It Makes Earth Look Soiled

  The most brilliant late Autumn Japanese maples are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Yet, as the Tao Te Ching (The ancient Chinese book of wisdom) puts it: “The whole world recognizes the beautiful as the beautiful, yet this is only the ugly.”1 This same idea is reflected by Rhea’s NDE. Heaven still makes even the most beautiful places on Earth look soiled:

  This place that we walked was the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It was like a grassy, hilly place filled with flowers. The colors were so bright and vivid. It makes the greenest grass here on Earth look dirty. Like Hawaii but the colors were so bright they looked like wet paint. After our short walk, he stopped and asked me if I wanted to go back with my mother and brother, or did, I want to stay. At that second, I thought of my mom and brother for the first time. I told Him (without speaking) I needed to go back with them. He smiled at me, and in the next second, I was back on the table in the doctor’s office.2

  Marilyn saw heavenly gardens during her NDE when she was 12-years-old. She was playing a horse and rider game, which consisted of tying a skipping rope around the neck of one of the other players, and while on their hands and knees, another person sat on their back and they rode the first like a horse. In the melee, the rope around Marilyn’s neck became knotted and tightened to the point she could not breathe. In a panic, she tried to get her younger sister to get it off, which she tried, but could not get out the knots. She started to climb the basement stairs to have her mom help her, but felt herself fall down and slipped into total darkness, that’s where she spoke with Jesus, and her NDE began:

  Suddenly, I saw a white Light in the distance and thought I should try to get there, but I was too scared to move in the dark. It sounded like someone was walking towards me, but I could not see them. Suddenly I felt someone pick me up in their arms, I was surrounded by Light, and I looked into the smiling face of a man who said His name was Jesus. He told me not to be frightened. He was here to take me back. He had shoulder length brown hair and dark brown eyes. He was wearing leather sandals on His feet with straps that went between His toes and tied around His ankles. He had on a long white gown with long, big sleeves with a long light blue tunic over it. There was a gold color rope tied around His waist. His voice was very soft and kind almost musical and I felt a feeling of pure love and complete safety and trust.

  Marilyn could hear birds singing, see butterflies flying and little children laughing chasing lambs, as she walked through the tall grass:

  As we were walking up the stairs, I noticed the left side of the wall was still basement wall but…the right side of the wall disappeared and in its place was a beautiful garden full of long grass and wild flowers. I could hear birds singing and there were butterflies flying. I could see little children playing and chasing little lambs and I could hear their laughter. It looked like so much fun. I asked if I could go play with the kids and was told, no. There was no time today for that I have had you too long as it is. He made me promise to tell the world about what I saw and if I did, then when my time comes, I will be able to walk in the garden with Him.3

  There are dozens and dozens of Dead Saint stories describing such breathtaking Afterlife vistas: the mountains, gardens, butterflies, colors and wildlife of Heaven. In the following NDE, which occurs during an asthma attack, Anthony describes the process of building a Garden Temple on a sacred mountain over the course of 2500 years of Heaven-time:

  The voice [a high spiritual being] told me I was to build a garden on the mountain and every year a brick would appear on the top of the boulder and with the bricks, I was meant to build a path up the mountain from the base to the boulder. I was told to plant trees which appeared as acorns etc. at the top of the mountain…As the years passed I watched the trees grow, the flowers and grass I planted also grew, the color of the flowers weren’t of any color I have ever seen, like there was 20 different colors in the rainbow there, I couldn’t describe them as there’s just no frame of reference to what they looked like…The last brick that appeared on the boulder appeared some 2,500 years after I had first arrived. I was aware of every year. It was not dreamlike. It was “real time,” if that makes any sense.

  The path now stretched from the base to the boulder, but over the years, the boulder had gradually changed shape and now looked square like some sort of altar. The trees I had initially planted had grown, the bows and branches had arched, and the trunks thickened to form what I can only describe as a temple at the top of the mountain. The voice told me the first part of my job was finished and I now had to set foot upon the path. I went to the bottom of the mountain and put a foot onto the path.

  …The voice was kind and patient and said it was with me and I would finish [the garden path], but I needed to learn the lessons it was teaching…I continued to the end of the path with the encouragement and presence of what I now understood to be some higher spiritual being. I reached the entrance to the tree temple, went inside, and saw the only other being I saw the entire time I was there. It had its back to me and was kneeling as though in prayer.

  …I was also told the garden I had created would exist there forever, and I would return there one day. As I walked with the being back out of the tree temple, I saw for the first time other people coming to the garden and sitting on the grass, looking at the flowers, talking and laughing. The being smiled and said, ‘See what you’ve accomplished here?’

  The entire experience had taken about eight minutes from my initial [asthma] attack to being “back.” I’ve never reported this before as I guess most people would say it was a hallucination. I can only say it was more “real” than anything I have experienced in this world.4

  Anthony’s description of laying bricks as a pathway up a bare mountain, planting trees, flowers, and various greenery, and a pathway up to a “tree temple,” over many centuries, is a perfect analogy of our own journey up the sacred mountain we must traverse during our journey through Earth University. The garden in Heaven reflected the lessons, both the joy and the pain he caused others throughout time.

  7-ton granite stones leading up to entrance of Akio Botanical Gardens. Spring 2013.

  Carmel, who had a previous NDE at age four and encountered “Grandfather Jesus,” had a second NDE forty years later, when she died of a bladder infection. During her second NDE, she again encountered Jesus and this time saw a mountain with a very large living Light at its summit:

  At first, I noticed, (Jesus the same man was waiting for me, but this time He was not alone.) There were hundreds of people there, moving about with what seemed to be purpose to me. It was dark, like this place was in space and I could see the tree again. There were no gates this time, but there was now a mountain that looked to be about 20kms away. On the top, there was a very large living Light presence. I knew this was GOD or SOURCE and this is why it is called the LIGHT.5

  We will explore deeply the metaphor of the sacred Mountain, the garden and the Gardener as we examine and take an accounting of our own lives before we exit Earth University. On that note, let’s take a closer look at the garden metaphor in Christianity.

  Jesus the Gardener

  Perhaps the Apostle John wanted to make a point about the garden and the gardener when he tells the story about Jesus rising from the garden tomb three days after His crucifixion. When Mary Magdalene finds the stone rolled away, and is shocked to see Jesus has disappeared, she sees a man in the garden and not recognizing Him, assumes he is the gardener:

  Jesus says to her, ‘Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?’ She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, ‘Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.’ Jesus saith unto her, ‘Mary.’ She turned herself, and saith unto Him, ‘Rabboni; which is to say, Master.’ (John 20:15-16)

  Scholars believe Mary did not recognize Jesus because it was early morning and t
oo dark to see Jesus’ face clearly, but the passage begs the question—why didn’t she recognize His voice, since she had been His disciple for three years. I believe John was using specific language to highlight the importance of the garden itself and to acknowledge Jesus as our heavenly Gardener.

  Dead Saints often describe conversations with Christ in a garden. During Linda’s NDE, she had a revealing conversation with Jesus in a desert garden:

  Jesus put His arm around me in the area of what would have been my shoulder, looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘I have come for you, that you may know I am real.’ I was totally awestruck by His presence, yet I felt a love and respect for Him that I have never felt in physical life. I followed Him to an area I can best describe as a “desert garden.” We sat on large “sitting rocks,” and He began to speak… He was explaining the different things of life on Earth, why it was that life on Earth was not perfect, why it was that way, and what people on Earth had misconstrued about life and living.6

  The Garden, Nature and St. Francis of Assisi

  St. Francis (1182-1226) serves as a unique bridge between Eastern and Western theology. This simple Christ-like man clothed in a brown tunic tied with a rope, believed all levels of creation were endowed with consciousness including, Sun, Moon, Earth, wind, creatures, as well as human beings.

  The transformation of St. Francis, along with the Apostle Paul has, is one of the most dramatic in Christian history. While St. Francis is universally known for his unconditional love, theologians often avoid commenting on his love for the natural world, no doubt, because it bordered on nature worship. This is a true anomaly in Christian literature, since his spiritual connection with birds, animals…with all nature is legendary. Francis writes, “Our Sister, Mother Earth, who nourishes and governs us, and produces various fruits with many colored flowers and herbs. Or for our Sister Water. She is very useful, and humble, and precious and pure.”7 These suggest profound links between all manifestations of Great Nature, humanity, and God; a view largely absent from Christian dogma…though in the Old Testament, thousands of years before Francis, the patriarch Job provides a precedent when he describes the Divine lessons enshrined within God’s creation (Job 12: 7-9):

  Ask the plants of the Earth, and they will teach you... But now ask the beasts, and let them teach you; and the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you. Or speak to the Earth, and let it teach you; and let the fish of the sea declare to you. “Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this?

  Bonnie, during her NDE, sees the Light of God in all things—mountains, people, everything:

  I was shown the white Light was really made up of all the colors. I was shown the zillions of colors in the Light, more than I have seen on Earth. They were all beautiful. I don’t remember the exact words, but I do remember discussing that all things were made of the Light. I asked if even mountains, and people, and the voice (which I now think was God) told me even mountains, and a long list of things, everything.8

  Anecdotes abound of St. Francis and his reverence for and intimate relationship with all nature. In one, he and his companions were resting near the town of Bevagna, when Francis spotted a great flock of birds of all varieties nesting and chirping in the nearby trees. Awestruck, Francis left his friends and ran toward the birds, who patiently waited for him. He greeted them, as was his custom, expecting them to fly off at the sound of his voice, but they did not move. Francis asked them if they would stay awhile and listen to the Word of God.

  He said to them, “My brother and sister birds, you should praise your Creator and always love Him. He gave you feathers for clothes, wings to fly and all other things you need. It is God who made you noble among all creatures, making your home in thin, pure air. Without sowing or reaping, you receive God’s guidance and protection.”

  St. Francis treated all God’s Creation with a radical reverence. Once, it is said, when he was sitting too close to a fire, his undergarments caught aflame. He refused to put out the fire, saying to a fellow Assisi brother who tried to smother it, “Dearest brother, do not hurt Brother Fire! At other times, his love for water made him wash his hands where the water would not be trodden underfoot, and his love for rocks made him walk on them reverently because Christ was the foundation, the “rock” of all Creation.

  In a world where the resources of nature are routinely abused, St. Francis is a glaring anomaly. However extreme his behavior, his love for all creation and its Creator illuminates whatever he did. Catholic authors, embarrassed by Francis’ unorthodoxy, try to minimize his reverence for the natural world by claiming he “exorcised” and “cleansed” the pagan spirit of nature by asceticism:

  The mistake of the pagan world had been “the mistake of nature-worship…” How could they learn anything from the love of birds and flowers after the sort of love stories that were told of them? Not till the pagan spirit had been exorcised by renunciation of the enjoyment of the beauties of nature, by asceticism, that is, could a cleansed and purified love of nature, a love of nature as the mirror of its Creator, take its place. St. Francis was the exponent, the poet, the saint of that new love. In his own person he experienced the cleansing process, became the living exemplification and pattern of this purified love in a supreme degree and so was the fit instrument for the propagation of a spiritual life which, though not new in its source, divine charity, was new in its attitude to the world. 9

  However, in the light of St. Francis’ thoroughly documented life story, such comments are patently absurd. Nature (God’s creation) has existed for billions of years. It was pristine and sacred before humanity ever arrived on the scene. Before Christ, most world religions based their pagan beliefs on the veneration of natural phenomena they observed in Nature, developing a pantheon of matriarchal goddesses, representing the Spirit God in Mother Earth, Gaia. The Light they venerated and worshipped became part of the evolutionary process of our understanding of God.

  While Christian tradition seeks to exorcise the adoration of all natural phenomena as unnecessary or evil, the transformation of St. Francis among the lilies of the field and the testimonies from the Dead Saints, reveal a sacred doorway to knowing the Being of Light, and an understanding that Mother Earth, Father God, and the Christ—Jesus Christ, are ONE.

  Gospel of Thomas Describes Christ in Nature

  We find an early Christian understanding of Christ in nature on a papyrus document known as the Gospel of Thomas. One of the earliest and oldest known Gospels dating to 130 A.D., the Gospel of Thomas, was unearthed in the Egyptian desert in 1945,10 and contains a list of 114 sayings of Jesus. While many of its verses written are similar to ones spoken by Christ in the four Gospels, a few sayings of St. Thomas describe Christ as the Light in all things, including Nature.

  In verse 77, Jesus said, “It is I who am the Light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”11

  In verse 3, St. Thomas reiterates Jesus’ teaching of the Father’s Kingdom: “The Kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you.”12

  Christ taught the same philosophy when he served the Last Supper:

  And he took bread, and gave thanks and broke it, and gave unto them saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. ‘Likewise He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.’ (Luke 22:19-20)

  Jesus was saying; every time you eat and drink remember the new covenant I have made with you. The bread represents His flesh, the wine His blood. Jesus is saying He is one with God in ALL THINGS in Heaven and on Earth. “How can we explain away that He meant anything differently?”

  There is a consensus among scholars that the Gospel of Thomas dates to the very beginnings of the Christian era, and appears to
have been written on papyrus before the four traditional canonical Gospels. Initially, for a few decades, scholars argued the Gospel of Thomas was a late second or third century Gnostic forgery. When it was proven to be authentic, and could be older by half a century than the four Canonical Gospels, orthodox apologists still rejected it because it presented what was believed to be a pantheistic belief Nature is identical with divinity excluding a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

  It seems modern theologians want one theme in the Gospels with little deviation. Early Christian doctrine and emperors established the worship of God, the Creator, through Jesus Christ alone. The adoration or worship of God in Nature became pagan and “of the Devil.” Unable to conceive any possibility Jesus Christ ever taught such a theology, Christian theologians have consigned the Gospel of Thomas to hidden recesses of museums as another “heretical” pagan document, unworthy of general public mention or consideration to be added to the Canon of our Holy Bible.

  Sacrifice of the Sparrow: A Mystical Experience

  My own understanding of God expressing Himself through Nature began during my sophomore year in High School. My friends and I were hunting birds for sport with BB guns on the 25 acres of woodland adjacent to our homes. This local virgin tract in Virginia Beach was our own private refuge for fun and sport. We idled away much of our summer vacation time there.

  On this day, it was late afternoon, and I hadn’t yet bagged a bird. Most of the time we shot at blackbirds, but with the BB gun’s low pressure air pump action and our own deplorable aim, we rarely hit our targets. Nonetheless, the process of hunting itself satisfied some savage, primal part of us somehow. I’m not sure why. I approached a row of bushes lining a ditch, and spotted a sparrow perched on a branch just ten feet away from me. Without thinking, I took aim, held my breath and pulled the trigger. It was a perfect shot. The sparrow fell dead to the ground and rolled down to the bottom of the ditch end over end.