‘Everything Is Ready Now’: A Near-Death Experience

[Steelfish]

‘Everything Is Ready Now’: A Near-Death Experience by RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS April 4, 2015 [America's Pre-Eminent Lutheran Theologian And Convert To Catholicism Writes...]

NOTE: The following piece is excerpted from an essay, “Born Toward Dying,” that originally appeared in the February 2000 issue of First Things and became the basis for the book As I Lay Dying: Meditations upon Returning.

The operation took several hours and was an unspeakable mess. The tumor had expanded to rupture the intestine; blood, fecal matter, and guts all over the place. My stomach was sliced open from the rib cage down to the pubic area, then another slice five inches to the left from the navel for a temporary colostomy. I’ve noticed that in such cases the doctors always seem to say that the tumor was “as big as a grapefruit,” but my surgeon insists the blackish gray glob was the size of “a big apple.”

After they had sewed me up, the hemorrhaging began, they knew not from where. Blood pressure collapsed and other vital signs began to fade. What to do? The surgeon advised my friend to call the immediate family and let them know I would likely not make it through the night. The doctors debated. To open me up all over again might kill me.

On the other hand, if they didn’t find and stop the hemorrhaging I was surely dead. Of course they went in again. The source of the effusion of blood was the spleen, “nicked,” as the surgeon said, in the ghastliness of the first surgery.

Given the circumstances, I’m surprised that parts more vital were not nicked. The spleen removed and the blood flow stanched, they sewed me up again and waited to see if I would live. The particulars of that night, of course, I was told after the event. “It was an interesting case,” one doctor opined in a friendly manner. “It was as though you had been hit twice by a Mack truck going sixty miles an hour. I didn’t think you’d survive.”

My first clear memory is of the next morning, I don’t know what time. I am surrounded by doctors and technicians talking in a worried tone about why I am not coming to. I heard everything that was said and desperately wanted to respond, but I was locked into absolute immobility, incapable of moving an eyelash or twitching a toe.

The sensation was that of being encased in marble; pink marble, I thought, such as is used for gravestones. The surgeon repeatedly urged me to move my thumb, but it was impossible. Then I heard, “The Cardinal is here.” It was my bishop, John Cardinal O’Connor. He spoke directly into my right ear, repeatedly calling my name. Then, “Richard, wriggle your nose.” It was a plea and a command, and I wanted to do it more urgently than anything I have ever wanted to do in my life.

The trying, the sheer exercise of will to wriggle my nose, seemed to go on and on, and then I felt a twinge, no more than a fraction of a millimeter, and the Cardinal said, “He did it! He did it!” “I didn’t see anything,” said the surgeon. So I tried again, and I did it again, and everybody saw it, and the Cardinal and the doctors and the technicians all began to exclaim what a wonderful thing it was, as though one had risen from the dead.

The days in the intensive care unit was an experience familiar to anyone who has ever been there. I had never been there before, except to visit others, and that is nothing like being there. I was struck by my disposition of utter passivity. There was absolutely nothing I could do or wanted to do, except to lie there and let them do whatever they do in such a place. Indifferent to time, I neither knew nor cared whether it was night or day.

I recall counting sixteen different tubes and other things plugged into my body before I stopped counting. From time to time, it seemed several times an hour but surely could not have been, a strange young woman with a brown wool hat and heavy gold necklace would come by and whisper, “I want blood.” She stuck in a needle and took blood, smiling mysteriously all the time. She could have said she wanted to cut off my right leg and I would probably have raised no objection. So busy was I with just being there, with one thought that was my one and every thought: “I almost died.”

Astonishment and passivity were strangely mixed. I confess to having thought of myself as a person very much in charge. Friends, meaning, I trust, no unkindness, had sometimes described me as a control freak. Now there was nothing to be done, nothing that I could do, except be there.

Here comes a most curious part of the story, and readers may make of it what they will. Much has been written on “near death” experiences. I had always been skeptical of such tales. I am much less so now.

I am inclined to think of it as a “near life” experience, and it happened this way. It was a couple of days after leaving intensive care, and it was night. I could hear patients in adjoining rooms moaning and mumbling and occasionally calling out; the surrounding medical machines were pumping and sucking and bleeping as usual. Then, all of a sudden, I was jerked into an utterly lucid state of awareness.

I was sitting up in the bed staring intently into the darkness, although in fact I knew my body was lying flat. What I was staring at was a color like blue and purple, and vaguely in the form of hanging drapery. By the drapery were two “presences.” I saw them and yet did not see them, and I cannot explain that. But they were there, and I knew that I was not tied to the bed. I was able and prepared to get up and go somewhere. And then the presences — one or both of them, I do not know — spoke. This I heard clearly.

Not in an ordinary way, for I cannot remember anything about the voice. But the message was beyond mistaking: “Everything is ready now.” That was it. They waited for a while, maybe for a minute. Whether they were waiting for a response or just waiting to see whether I had received the message, I don’t know. “Everything is ready now.” It was not in the form of a command, nor was it an invitation to do anything. They were just letting me know. Then they were gone, and I was again flat on my back with my mind racing wildly. I had an iron resolve to determine right then and there what had happened.

Had I been dreaming? In no way. I was then and was now as lucid and wide awake as I had ever been in my life. Tell me that I was dreaming and you might as well tell me that I was dreaming that I wrote the sentence before this one. Testing my awareness, I pinched myself hard, and ran through the multiplication tables, and recalled the birth dates of my seven brothers and sisters, and my wits were vibrantly about me. The whole thing had lasted three or four minutes, maybe less. I resolved at that moment that I would never, never let anything dissuade me from the reality of what had happened.

Knowing myself, I expected I would later be inclined to doubt it. It was an experience as real, as powerfully confirmed by the senses, as anything I have ever known. That was some seven years ago. Since then I have not had a moment in which I was seriously tempted to think it did not happen. It happened — as surely, as simply, as undeniably as it happened that I tied my shoelaces this morning. I could as well deny the one as deny the other, and were I to deny either I would surely be mad. “Everything is ready now.” I would be thinking about that incessantly during the months of convalescence. My theological mind would immediately go to work on it.

They were angels, of course. Angelos simply means “messenger.” There were no white robes or wings or anything of that sort. As I said, I did not see them in any ordinary sense. But there was a message; therefore there were messengers. Clearly, the message was that I could go somewhere with them. Not that I must go or should go, but simply that they were ready if I was. Go where? To God, or so it seemed. I understood that they were ready to get me ready to see God.

It was obvious enough to me that I was not prepared, in my present physical and spiritual condition, for the beatific vision, for seeing God face to face. They were ready to get me ready. This comports with the doctrine of purgatory, that there is a process of purging and preparation to get us ready to meet God. I should say that their presence was entirely friendly. There was nothing sweet or cloying, and there was no urgency about it. It was as though they just wanted to let me know.

The decision was mine as to when or whether I would take them up on the offer. — Richard John Neuhaus was the editor-in-chief of First Things. This excerpt from “Born Toward Dying” is reprinted with permission.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416438/everything-ready-now-near-death-experience-richard-john-neuhaus

[arthurus]

Near Death Experience

In the summer of 72 I set out on my Honda Humpback 450, that I had brought back from the war, on a 360 mile trip to From Tampa Bay to St Andrews Bay. At Cross City an oncoming fellow with a load of whiskey in him turned left immediately in front of me. I have no recollection of the meeting but the fellow who saw it said I went straight up in the air and came down (helmeted) head first on the pavement. He said I was going pretty fast and the fellow in the car didn’t seem to slow down much when he turned. The EMT fellows (did they
have EMTs then?) carried me to Shands in Gainesville, a university connected teaching hospital.

Well, Shands had just received multiple severe injuries from a couple of auto wrecks and whoever was on duty judged that I was Dead-On-Arrival and a colored card attesting to that judgment was placed on my chest. Others who could be saved needed the scarce resources so the gurney on which I was a passenger was pushed over against the wall in the hall and lifesaving attentions were focused on the other broken bodies that had a
chance to live.

A couple of Medical students were walking in the hallway and saw the stiff unattended. One of them said, “Let’s practice some lifesaving techniques.” They did that and in the process the body commenced to breathe, so I wound up in the emergency room, anyway.

My first memory is of being flat on my back and unable to move anything and there was a doctor in a chair far away across the room who was talking somberly to my wife. There were two med students standing near. The doctor was saying something about my jaw. Presently all three med types approached me and the doctor grasped my upper front teeth and pulled. My maxilla (I learned that word right then) came forward a full 2 inches. I felt nothing and was too groggy to render an opinion on the procedure right at that moment. The doc was demonstrating to the students that my upper jaw was in pieces and not well connected. Then I got my voice back and said, “HEYwhatthef**kleemealone!!!!” The doc said “well he seems conscious,” and a med student reached out his hand and repeated the trick with the maxilla. I yelled weakly, “Dammitol! Can’t you take his word for it?” The other med student did it all over again and
I said, “What is with you guys? He wasn’t lying! can’t you believe him!?”

My wife said, “I think he’s going to be okay.”

This is likely not the sort of near death experience one expects to hear about but I was near dead and it was quite an experience. I was not then a Christian but, in retrospect, I think I was protected. I thank the Lord now for medical students.

[concerned about politics]

Today, even the newer sciences agree there is a soul - but they won't come right out and say it.
According to the modern brainiacts, "reality" is the dream, and the world of spirit is real. Those who delve deep into the world of cyberspace claim the physical world is an illusion. Even Einstien said if science closes it's eyes to the spiritual then science is dead. Theoretical physicists believe consciences, using the mind without it's body, has control over the physical. Because of modern medicine, more and more people are witnessing the other side and are living to tell about it.

On the other side, of course, there are the "deniers." These are the people who, instead of advancing and questioning everything, are Hell bent (literally) on proving man is God, and that's the end of the story. They claim they have a "consensus" on the "facts" that say if you can't see it or measure it, it does not exist.

[Steelfish]

Great story!

[Mrs. Don-o]

Below, reflections--- rather, ravings --- about part of my experience. I wrote this up a month ago in the hospital.

---

Raving

---

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Mark Twain

Hello,

I wanted to write what I can before it all disappears down the Memory Hole.

Collapsed on Jan 19, septic shock from UTI and septic kidney stone. EMT's say BP fell to something like 40. Dead.

Cardiac arrest. And again. And again. Dead, dead, dead.

No bright tunnel of light, no golden escalator with old Fleetwood Mac mix tapes, no exclusive book and movie rights. I even forgot that I'd promised, if I were ever in dramatic straits, to ask for the intercession of Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001). A giantess in the field of philosophy and one of God's noblewomen, she just needs a teeny-tiny documentable miracle in order to be beatified. I even blew THAT. I wasn't only nearly dead, I was really most sincerely dead.

Teams of people, however, were darting me with epis and drilling holes in my face, neck and groin to pump in corpse-warmer concoctions faster than my baffled body could tolerate them. They forced the issue, Lord love 'em all. I was on a ventilator for sixteen days.

Prayer groups started double and triple teaming me, which opened up spaces even in the Enemy's territory where grace could operate. Dozens of St Mary's people came tumbling into the Med Center ICU with their hand-knotted rosaries and their Divine Mercy prayers, with sweet trust bordering on obstinacy.

Was it before or after my airway collapsed that a Greek Orthodox priest friend anointed me with sweet oil from a myrrh-bearing icon of St. Anne? Was it before the Two Specialists started staring at the CT and MRI results and muttering “Look at the size of that obstruction. Christ Almighty, what a mess!”--- that my pastor came and gave me the precious Blood of God –- a transfusion from the veins of Jesus Christ Our Lord?

Lord have mercy 12 x. Lord have mercy 40 x. Lord have mercy Women's Plus Size XXL with elastic waistband.

Was it before or after I started hallucinating, that the “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, Chant-o-Matic” was being dialed up to Max right there in the Med Center atrium? Yes, dearest Baptist friends, Catholics do chant. (And OK, Orthodox buddies, we do mumble.) Anyway, a skeptical world could see how Catholics come fully armed and ready to rumble.

If you're laughing a bit, here's where it stops.

I was given a vision of evil.

I am not writing this because I want you to think, “Oh woo-woo, Mrs Don-o must be holy, she has these Mystical Experiences TM” or even (closer to the truth) “Is there nothing this proud, ignorant, hypocritical woman will not say for 15 minutes of fame?” I haven't the strength in my shaking hands to waste on dubious claims of “God told me,” nor breath in my body to argue about these things, nor (this is the important point) do I understand what I saw. God (!) told (!) me (!), “You're not going to understand but zero-point-one percent of this,” and behold, all-y'all, the fact is, I don't understand it.

I saw evil.

I saw the mouth of evil.

I know that, trembling hands or not, I'll have to explain about the “mouth,” –- though I can't. But I'll try.

It was not large. It was about an inch square, no bigger than a typical chessboard square. It was not a lewd, loose-lipped, lolling Miley Cyrus mouth, nor a thin-lipped Atheist Medical Ethicist mouth with moustache attached, like a cheap movie Mephistopheles.

In fact, there was no face attached. It was a mouth. It had one single snaggle tooth, barbed and recurved on itself like the kind of fish hook that, when the fool fish tries to back off, just digs in deeper. On the tip of the snaggle tooth was a single drop of green venom sufficient, I thought, to destroy life on all inhabited planets.

And the mouth was inside-out.

How you can tell a “mouth” is "inside-out" I do not know, except that it seems I read somewhere about some odious marine parasite that chomps down on some part of its intended victim and then turns itself inside-out, so that the victim is enveloped and slowly digested by the writhing, now-exterior intestines.

Holiness? Heaven? People speak of near-death experiences glowing with consolation and beatitude; my NDE was more involved with Homicide and Hell.

On the way from the CT scan unit to the ICU I had an RN transporting me whom I know only slightly, but who has always been---- shall we say ---- a challenge to my Faith-Hope-Charity. She is brisk, paper-rattling and officious, a sort of pointillist-Catholic as it happens, and I was already running almost bone-dry in the Theological Virtue department.

She got passive-aggressive with me when I was experiencing anguish and terror. She had disputed with me for hours, contemptuously, dismissively, over whether I could have a freaking mouth swab.

Not that I could speak much beyond “ungh, ungh.” But I could point to the mouth swabs which were an inch beyond my reach, and point to my mouth where everything was stuck together like Crazy Glue, and make the classic Praying Hands gesture, and she would say, “You had swab 32 minutes ago, thang Q!” and then walk away.

I couldn't make out her accent but she had evidently was trained someplace where they told her that it is the ultimate in American professional courtesy to end every sentence with “Thank you,” regardless of context. Thus:

“Do NOT bite tongue, thang Q!”

“Do NOT move finger, thang Q!”

“Stop BREATHING, thang Q!”

“You are NOT thirsty. You had swab 44 minutes ago, thang Q!”

He face right next to mine (and she smelled like Citrusy-Fresh Floor Disinfectant) “You are not thirsty. You had swab only 55 minutes ago, thang Q!”

I was left sweltering in my own sour sweat for hours in a claustrophobic underground corridor between the CT unit and the ICU. "Nurse DeeDee" attempted no gesture of consolation, offered nothing, disappeared for hours without explanation, would pop back round the corner with,

“I SAID, Do not bite tongue, thang Q!”

Bad nurse. Nurse Ratched.

Motto: Service to Subhumanity.

DeeDee, Destroyer of Worlds.

If I had a choice between Jesus Christ or a filet knife, I would have chosen the knife. I'm sure I could have done a satisfactory amount of damage with it. If I had a choice between Jesus Christ or pushing this despicable woman through a window, my dying words would have been, “Ah, lovely bloody plate glass.”

Then I saw the Mouth of Evil open up to swallow me and the entire world. And the entire world. And I heard an intense warning:

“Forgive her.”

“I can't, Lord. Can't You see my mind is disintegrating?”

“Forgive her.”

“Are YOU freaking crazy, too? I'm being destroyed by this stupid disease and I'm laying in this stupid lithotomy position at the mercy of this stupid odious DeeDee, my mind is being shattered under the hammer-blows of pain and fear. I can't chose anything, can't calculate anything, can't desire anything ...”

“I didn't say anything about 'Calculate.'”

“I can't forgive her.”

“Of course you can't. Your pulmonary, cardiac and renal functions are failing. Your brain function is disintegrating. YOU can't forgive her. How right you are. Ask Me to forgive her.”

“How long do I have to decide?”

“You moron! There is no more time! Do it now!”

I was well and truly freaked.

“Oh, Dear Lord...?”

“Yes?”

“Dear Lord, forgive DeeDee...”

“And?”

“And wash away her iniquities, or whatever it is You do...”

“And?”

“And don't hold her offenses against her. And help her to become the kind of RN and the kind of good Catholic woman she ought to be.”

There's a whole lot more I could say but I'm already past my 0.1% comprehension and well into the realm of Memory Remodeling and Confabulation (Google it.) Thank you all so much for your prayers. The infected kidney stone? It disappeared. Gone, baby, gone.

Forgive your DeeDee's.

And as for Servant of God Elizabeth Anscombe? Thank you, old girl, thank you.

[Steelfish]

Thanks for sharing this. What a story on this Holy Saturday where sinful souls are purged before the vision of the Divine Light.

[arthurus]

The liberal conception is that Man is God and liberal professors and rulers are God’s brain.

[GreyFriar]

Nde ping

[jackibutterfly]

Are you a writer? Man, You SHOULD be! Your post was fantastic! Thank you.

[jackibutterfly]

P.S. And I’m glad you’re still with us. :-)!!

[Zeneta]

Extraordinary.

Thank you.

The thoughts that come to my mind.

The first is the HBO series “True Detective”. IMHO, it was about one thing in the end, “Can Satan exist without God?”

And if Satan does exist then God must also exist.

The other thought is this;

Regina Spektor - “Laughing With”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pxRXP3w-sQ

[imardmd1]

Pre-operation MRI scan, 9/18/2010:

After insertion of anesthesia lines, no memory during the meningiotomy; six hours or so and bloody, I'm told. Afterward, my memory is just me and the Lord, and peace, and light, and no time. But finally it happened that my eyes opened and I saw the clock at the foot of my bed, then closed them and rested it seemed for several hours. Then opened my eyes again, saw the clock, but only about two minutes of real time had passed. This went on for a long, long time in my inner senses, and my soul was at peace as I went on rehearsing the verses I had been memorizing before the operation:

"Be not overmuch righteous, neither make thyself overwise:
why shouldest thou destroy thyself?
Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish:
why shouldest thou die before thy time?
It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this;
yea, from this withdraw not thine hand:
he that feareth God shall come forth of them all."

This was from Ecclesiastes 7:16-18, and I had taken it as a direct message from God to continue to keep my ways straight before Him.

I still remember that suspended-time experience, though it tends to fade when the illusory rush of life and its craziness wants to keep taking over. But His admonition is, "Don't let it."

Blessed be The Father, and the Son of His Love, risen to resume His Glory! I praise Him for sending His Comforter, His Spirit, to be with me at all times, especially through my operation.

Near death? I believe so. How gracious He is to give me a preview and not be afraid of departing this sphere. I believe His angelic beings have been protecting me all my life, even when I was so evil-minded.

Being with the Lord alone is too wondersome to articulate.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Thank you, Jackibutterfly. I am grateful to be still in the air-breathing world.... with a lot to think about.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I like Oscar Wilde’s saying, “Every saint has a past -— and every sinner has a future.”

[Mrs. Don-o]

"And if Satan does exist then God must also exist."

I think that's absolutely true.

Thanks also for the song from Regina Spektor. Wow.

[Mrs. Don-o]

This is beautiful, and so comforting. You must have had your dear ones praying for you!

[Mrs. Don-o]

And that MRI is just -— Good Lord, impressive and scary. I don’t know anything about reading or interpreting an MRI, but it sure looks like Our Lord pulled you back from death’s door, and gave you an experience so you won’t fear it anymore.

[Mark17]

Our Lord pulled you back from death’s door, and gave you an experience so you won’t fear it anymore.

He once told me, essentially, not to fear death. As a child of God, He will hold your hand, every step of the way, and will welcome you across the threshold of eternal life. I have always taken solace in that, and have never forgotten those words.

[zot]

Thanks for the NDE ping. Excellent stories.

[tired&retired]

“Today, even the newer sciences agree there is a soul - but they won’t come right out and say it. “

First, thank you Steelfish for posting this excellent article.

As a result of a near death(or death experience) I gained the ability to read souls in detail, including stored memories from conception to current. This is not a blessing as the ability includes feeling the stored memory full blast, whether it was joyous or painful, emotional or physical.

This ability has allowed me to work with many people, finding the original root cause of many psychological, emotional and physical illnesses. For some reason, my consciousness works like an MRI and I can feel inside people from many feet away. (Memories are not stored in the physical body. They are stored and processed in the soul and exist even when the body is destroyed.) I’ve used this ability to study the anatomy & physiology of the human soul or spirit, just as one would study the anatomy & physiology of the human body except that dissection does not cause harm to the person.

Prior to the NDE, I was a university professor. After it, I had a new focus, i.e. to understand the new abilities and how they work. I got another degree, this time in psychology and went on to study neuroscience to gain a better understanding of the interaction of the soul or spirit with the physical body. (It is relatively simple from a neuroscience standpoint to explain and demonstrate how the soul interacts with the peripheral nervous system)

Last year I taught a six week seminar course at Duke University entitled “Embodiment of the Human Soul.” It went over really well and I’ve been asked back to teach more courses. (Wish I had the time to do more.) I also did several programs at the Duke Divinity School for the congregation on “The Science of Prayer.”

For over twenty five years I have had this ability, but prayer and meditation time responses were always the same, “It’s not time to share yet.” That is, until recently. Now it is time. Many of you know this based upon the unfolding of world events.

I’m presenting a lecture titled “ “A New Perspective on Christian Scripture Based Upon the Science of the Human Soul or Spirit” for a conference in June. My wife, who is an MD on the Duke School of Medicine Faculty for over twenty five years is also presenting a lecture to help people distinguish between the symptoms of mental illness and a spiritual awakening. People need to understand this in order to not grasp fear when they experience the Holy Spirit. Perfect Love casts out fear, but fear also pushes out the Holy Spirit. Many people choose fear and in doing so block the Holy Spirit.

Yes, there is a human soul. And, it has very complex anatomy & physiology just as the physical body does. This learning process has been very humbling for me as for every question answered, there are twenty more unanswered questions.

Performing scientific research on the soul has not removed my acceptance of Jesus as my Savior or my reliance on the Bible as truth. In fact, it created a Christian from a borderline agnostic/atheist. The Bible verses make a heck of a lot more sense now, without changing them or discounting them as translation errors or mis-interpretations. The wisdom is there for those who see it.

For me, science is the process of learning how God works. There is no such thing as a miracle, it is merely science that we do not currently understand. Science has just been looking in the wrong direction. Einstein understood this as it was the source of his greatest knowledge in March through June, 1905, his miracle year. But he lost his connection and never went far enough to fully comprehend how it works. His success caused him to become full of himself. Per Einstein, “A problem is not solved at the level of consciousness at which it was created.”

Prayer and meditation is the best way to reach the level where the solutions are located and they are free for the picking. (This is why Loving God is so critically important.)

At that higher level of consciousness, the perception of reality changes in that what is invisible at the lower levels of consciousness suddenly becomes visible.