Fingers in the Light

By J. H. Soeder

Emerging completely unscathed from a major car accident, beating the odds from several early near death experiences and considered the Miracle Boy of St. John’s Hospital after having a massive heart attack, J H. Soeder is no stranger to
what he calls “The unseen hand” in his life.

Fingers in the Light is the true story about what J.H. Soeder calls "the unseen hand" in everyone's life. The amazing but extremely personal stories he tells will force you to think about the times in your life that you just had to throw the word "coincidence" out of your vocabulary. These are real stories, with real people and stories that step into the supernatural, but then guided, some how and some way through impossible situations.

You will find yourself mesmerized, unable to put the book down.

Here’s what critics are saying about J.H. Soeder’s books:

“...definitely worth the price of admission.”
–Nowick Gray, Cougar Webworks, Alternative Culture Magazine
“A great read.”
—Robert Conrad, actor, CRN Talkshow host

“...I started reading and couldn’t put it down.
It’s well written, fun, and emotional at times.”
— Michelle Hollow, Pet News and Views

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. H. Soeder
• Release date: Jul 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465967657

J. H. Soeder

From the age of two, Jon didn’t think having intelligent conversations with his pets and the many wild animals he encountered was anything unusual - until years later when he would relate his true stories to friends and family. “You should write a book!” was always the response...and so, he did!True Tails relates Jon’s experiences with creatures big and small, from the tiniest of insects to the largest creatures living on earth today, the majestic whales. Not a “whisperer,” but simply a friend of those who inhabit the animal kingdom, Jon shares his personal stories in the hope of raising public awareness that humans aren’t the only life forms on our planet capable of expressing thoughts and feelings, and that they deserve our admiration and protection. Thus, all of the net proceeds from each copy of True Tails sold will go to animal rights organizations.Jon is a graduate with honors with two degrees from the University of Miami. Among Jon’s accomplishments is his participation in a ninety five hundred mile Bicentennial relay run through the continental United States and years of missionary work. He currently resides in Ventura, California pursuing his art and writing. He also works with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services designing their promotional brochures and scientific publications.

Book preview

Fingers

in the Light

J. H. Soeder

Copyright 2010 Jon H. Soeder

Smashwords Edition

This book is dedicated to those

searching for the light

and a chance

to place their fingers into it.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

He Who Should Be Named

The First Words

Gifts along the Road to Enlightenment

Is it Just Coincidence?

Yes, He Works in Mysterious Ways!

When the Spirit Moves You

The Unforgettable Walk

The Dream Becomes Reality

A True Spiritual Teacher

Pointing the Way

Becoming the Artist

Burning the Candle at Three Ends

Doing His Work When He Calls

A Very Difficult Run

Hands of Love

The Woman with Green Eyes

Walking the Path of Life

The Miracle Boy of St. Johns

About the Author

There are people

who will cross your path

throughout your life -

some having faith

and the others

needing faith.

Preface

On reading my first book, True Tails, people would often ask me if I had other abilities that I had not mentioned. Their reasoning was based on observation: since I had the gift of hearing and communicating with creatures, were there other abilities available to me, not mentioned in my stories?

The short answer is Yes.

It was at the age of two that I discovered I could hear and speak to animals. Having that ability—or should I say being open to that gift—changed my life and the roads I would subsequently follow.

And why was that?

When you are at the tender age of two years old, you live in a world that is already in place. Indeed, you assume you can do things that you are later told you cannot do, and vice versa. In most cases, you don’t have the luxury of deciding. A simple example is cooked liver. If Dad loves it, Mom fixes it for dinner. If you don’t like liver, there are no other choices. And if you are stubborn, well, you just have to sit there until you eat it! In my case, I came up with solutions that didn’t always work!

Children can be inventive though! As with cooked liver, I found that there were vegetables I hated, such as lima beans. And since your parents don’t always watch what you are doing, there was a marvelous discovery I made, one day, hidden underneath our dining room table.

No, it wasn’t a pet dog!

Our table had additional sections called leaves—flat sectional pieces that can be inserted to extend the table’s surface for more people. When the leaves are not in use, they are stored beneath the center of the table, held by a pair of telescoping wooden support joints.

At least one leaf was in use at that time. As a result, small, flat-bottomed vertical openings below the tabletop were left vacant—and I could reach them!

As I made this discovery, opportunities made themselves apparent to me. An immediate solution for the dilemma of liver and lima beans came to me like beams of light piercing through the dark clouds of despair! And as my awareness grew, a plan blossomed in my tiny mind.

I carefully watched my sisters and my parents eat, planning and waiting for the right moment when I would not be noticed. Then, when no one was looking, I carefully took the unwanted and terrible-tasting morsels and nonchalantly placed them in my new, private storage space!

This plan worked rather well until a few weeks later, when my mother asked if any of us could smell something funny in the dining room. She spent about an hour sniffing the air like a hound dog on its scented trail! And true to the code of honor of any liver and lima bean hater, I quietly left the house in search of friends. The real purpose was, however, to escape confrontation and discovery of my dastardly deeds!

It was the same evening that we had another dose of liver. This time, my mother announced that if any more unwanted food were found underneath the table, the culprits would still have to eat it—no matter how long it had been there!

I knew at that moment that my window of opportunity had closed for good. Liver and lima beans never became my friends, not even to this very day.

As I said, while growing up you do not have a lot of choices. For that same reason, you also assume that whatever you are experiencing, your parents and friends far older than you have already had those same experiences—they just didn’t see fit to mention them. Whatever you experienced, you would continue to experience until an adult told you it was bad or good.

When I realized that others could not see and respond to the creatures around us, and that they did not have the foresight I had, I was at first confused. I had thought and supposed that everyone else had the same abilities as I did. However, watching other people’s facial expressions when they personally encountered my world—the surprise, and then the fear, in their faces—made me wonder why they were afraid?

Was there something wrong with having such abilities?

I quickly learned that these abilities I had were not something one talked about with friends or family. With two older sisters who were always off in their little world, I was left alone to work out the experiences I was having. I had to seek out my own friends and keep my own counsel.

Some children have invisible playmates and quite often, vast imaginations which fill the void of loneliness. Life was a bit different for me as a child of two. It was colorful, bright and big; I never knew about invisible friends! What I did know was that creatures around me always responded positively, and that I could hear and talk with them when they so desired.

When I was two, a small wild sparrow communicated to me mentally that he would be my friend, and then jumped onto my finger. A door to a greater reality opened itself to me! And a new vista of friends (and I do call them friends) became available to me.

That willingness to experience life around me in all its facets led to other experiences that my own religion (I was Episcopalian) could not explain or address. My mother always said that she had prayed me into her life, and thus she believed I was quite close to God. I did not understand what that meant. There were times in my early life when I had near-death experiences and yet lived. And when those experiences occur, very few people have answers. To be honest, most ministers I have encountered over my lifetime either didn’t believe me or were not willing to pursue answers not contained in established religious dogma.

Comments like works of the Devil or Anti- Christ come to mind. Those who have sought to understand supernatural or unusual spiritual phenomena have been classified as heretics or devil worshippers, or more simply off the wall. Or there is the enforced idea that men are not privy to such things and that such notions border on witchcraft.

These comments are all well and fine, until the unexplained happens to you. And when these phenomena happen with frequency, the experiences leave you with questions—many questions. The result is that your reality does not match what you are told or expected to believe. I began to question just what was really true about the religion I was told to practice and what was not true.

Several examples come to mind.

There was one time, at the age of eleven. I was riding my bicycle on the sidewalk in our neighborhood. The city blocks were always cut in half with an alleyway. On our particular street, there was a very small, wooden general store bordering the alley, directly across from our house. As I approached the store, I suddenly heard a woman’s voice say Jon! quite clearly. It was so abrupt, distinct and sudden that I stopped my bicycle short of fully crossing the alleyway. In that same instant, a car came barreling through the alley, heading for the street that fronted our house!

My bicycle wheel had been far enough into the alleyway that the car hit my tire and bent the front rim and spokes. However, as I had already started to dismount, the glancing blow of the car knocked me onto the pavement but without major damage!

Had I not stopped my bicycle as I did, I surely would have been maimed or killed! At that moment I looked everywhere around me—there was no one, no woman near me! The pavement in either direction was barren of any people. The fact is, even the market was closed and there was no one in the store!

The voice, however, had a familiar sound to it, like someone I knew. But there was no one around!

The driver got out of his car, sheepishly approaching me. Looking at my bike, he apologized, saying that he needed to pay better attention. He then tried, unsuccessfully, to bend the mangled front bicycle rim back to a semblance of its former state. He appeared quite nervous and I felt he really did not want to stay and help me.

Astonished rather than upset, I just thanked him for stopping. I slowly got up and dusted myself off. I really didn’t know what to make of it all, save the fact that I considered myself quite lucky! Looking up at the bald-headed man, who was visibly sweating, I told him apologetically that I couldn’t tell him where I lived because he was a stranger, but it wasn’t far. I said I could walk my bicycle home. He accepted my apology quickly (it seemed too quickly), and then abruptly got into his car and drove away.

I leaned my damaged bicycle up against the whitewashed wooden wall of the old marketplace. I walked around the building—and saw no one. I then looked over into the backyard next to the small store. No one there, either. I then returned to the front of the store and peered in through the windows. It was completely dark inside the building.

There was just no one around, anywhere. What had just happened? Where had the voice come from?

When I got home, I told my mother about the accident and about the voice.

She listened to me quite intently and then said, Well, it looks as though your guardian angel was working overtime!

I had never heard about guardian angels up until that point, but I was happy that I had one at that moment! I really didn’t pursue the matter further, simply because I had heard about angels in church and was not too sure what had really happened. Besides, it was a little frightening to me that I maybe had someone watching over me all the time, someone I could not see!

But the truth is that a very distinct voice, a body-less voice, had saved my life. It was an experience I will never forget.

Then there was the time I had acute appendicitis and had my appendix removed. The doctors were worried that I would not wake from the anesthesia, due to the infection and the seriousness of my high fever.

What I do remember is seeing a very bright light. The light was beautiful and warm and I began moving toward it. However, as I came closer to the light, I felt physical, warm hands engulf me. The hands gently began pulling me away from the light!

The light grew dim as it moved further away from me. A warm energy began to fill me, giving me a perception similar to pumping up a bicycle tire. As that wonderful, warm energy flowed into me, it then pushed out into the extremities of my body—my hands and feet.

At that moment I became conscious of my surroundings. I let out a deep sigh and realized there was a warm hand on my head and a man praying. It was the Father of my Church, reciting the Lord’s Prayer. His name was Father Stew. I cannot explain it, but I felt warm and happy all over, like I had returned from a very long journey.

I sighed deeply again. Father Stew gently took his hand from my head. His huge, warm hands grasped my tiny hand.

God has been good to us, Jon. We almost lost you.

Where did I go, Father Stew? It seemed to me that I was in a hospital bed and had not been able to move or go very far.

He smiled at me.

You were pretty sick because of your appendix. I have been here with you for some time. But you have nothing to worry about now.

I never forgot that light and how bright it was, how much I had wanted to enter it. But also being pulled, gently and lovingly, away from that light!

Years later, reading about other people who had similar experiences added to the fascination. With more reading and research, I became increasingly aware of stories like mine. I’d already experienced enough magic for a lifetime.

Yet these things were just the beginning!

There were the dreams! They were in color! Sometimes I would see my family, friends and myself in situations that would occur in perfect sequence—like a television sitcom, but with an unusual twist.

The best way I can describe one of these dreams is that I would be sitting at our dinner table and my parents would be talking about work. Then one of my sisters would comment about her day and how it went. Meanwhile I would be looking at my dinner plate filled with meatloaf, potatoes and string beans. I would then begin eating.

This was the dream. It was short and really of no consequence. Usually I would wake up the following day and remark to myself that it was just a very strange dream, as it had no purpose for occurring.

The length of the dream would vary, but usually it was quite short. A week or two later (sometimes even a month), I would be sitting at the table having dinner with my family. In the process of the meal, the exact scenario took place, right down to the conversation, food, clothing and mannerisms of my entire family!

How would you as a child react to this? What do you say? And what person do you tell? And who would believe you?