Spiritual Eyes: Seeing is Believing: Destination: Sowing and Reaping 2

By Sheldon A. Woodson

When Michael hears people talking about religion he explodes into a tirade of well-constructed blasphemy. His wicked logic helps to turn minds against all things God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit; creating advocates for the work of Satan. Mike, with one conversation, turns spirituality upside down. His logic based lies cause believers to question their belief and nonbelievers to believe in his self-proclaimed theories as law. Fed up with his arrogant ignorance, Michael is blessed and cursed with spiritual eyes in order for him to see, first-hand, how things really are on the other side.

Michael gets to see that the wrestle against flesh and blood is nothing compared to the fight mankind faces against the principalities, powers, and rulers of darkness in this world. "Spiritual Eyes: Seeing is Believing," not only takes Michael on a journey to the other side of life, light, and darkness. But it also takes the reader on the same journey where spiritual enlightenment and its reverse equivalent fight to usher in its cosmic purpose. The rulers of good and bad have a well-defined plan and purpose for all things created. Spiritual Eyes attempts to shed light on those purposes in hopes of helping readers to use their God given super power called "choice" to see, realize, and take the right road.

"Spiritual Eyes: Seeing is Believing" comes from the expanding "Destination: Sowing and Reaping" universe, where the veil of mankind's true reality is pulled back to reveal a series of unexpected karmic experiences needed for spiritual development.

Brace your heart and your mind for this electrifying punch in the gut, geared towards spiritual truth!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheldon A. Woodson
• Release date: Dec 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386885962

Book preview

Acknowledgements

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There is a God. That is not debatable. I try not to debate whether or not God exist because to me it does not make sense to do so. If someone does not agree with my philosophy, the subject of conversation becomes mute.  Everything that exists has a creator, whether that creators name is God is debatable but it doesn’t matter. God is the English dictionary name for The Creator of this world and beyond. This is what I believe. I hate using the words belief when it comes to talking about something that is a reality.  Belief is a choice, a story told and a decision made, whether or not to believe.  A truth is a reality based on what is.  I don’t believe a table is a table because I can see it or touch it.  I know a table is a table because it is. God is. Belief is not. Belief is a choice. Debating the name God over Creator, which in some way, form, or fashion can be said to be the same thing.  This can potentially be a good conversation if the conversation is based on Trivium Knowledge specifically targeting grammar and the etymology of the word. Whether you know it or not words are things. And words shape thoughts, ideas, and deeds. Words have the power to create or destroy. Words have the power to build or tear down. Words have the power to inspire or to numb. Assume were talking about the same God, as in The Creator of the world, the heavens, and the universe, and you call him Alpha or Allah. Okay, praises be to Alpha. Praises be to Allah. Since I like the name God, I’ll use God and you can use Allah. The Creator of the universe most likely has a multiple number of names undefined, unheard, and unspoken, so getting pass that; there is a God.

The literal Jesus vs. the figurative Jesus is also a debatable subject because it speaks to belief, rather than infallible truth. We the people are introduced to Jesus via a book of stories and are told to believe.  The problem with that is all religions do the same thing.  They read a book of stories, representing it as truth, and tell you to believe. A truth shouldn’t have to be believed based on the power of a story and the power of a person’s presentation. A story should be step one in the act of coming to truth. Proof should be step two but that proof should come about through the elimination of what is impossible.  Truth, at most times, is the remaining residue of what makes sense in the physical realm, if were explaining things from a physical plane. Explaining a truth in spirit, based on what is observed in the flesh by supporters of a cause, cannot and should not be viewed as empirical evidence of a truth in whole. Personal experience should be the third step in validating a truth. In some cases personal experience cannot and should be used to validate a truth based on the severity of the experience. For example, I don’t need to burn up in a fire to know fire will burn me up.  So, in my opinion, the story of Jesus can be either viewed as a literal truth or a figurative truth. No matter how you see it or believe it, the principles taught from the life and times of Jesus is an infallible way to live. For the disciples, believing in the literal Jesus was easier because they got to experience Jesus through the five senses of the physical plane. They got to experience Jesus in the spirit through the hidden, unnumbered, senses; people in the physical don’t know are present in them. Watching Jesus do the things he did and placing them in a book for those who came after to simply believe is a hard thing to follow.  Today we tell people we know, natural, provable stories of things that happened to us in our day just to hear the words, I don’t believe it. Personally, I believe, it’s crazy how provable, doable, facts are not believed, whereas, events that occurred in the past, that are not provable, or doable, by the common person is believed. In today’s society, this is the way most people operate when deciding on whether or not to believe or trust in someone. I think that’s why most people living lives in the world of religion like to ask, "are you a believer?’ It’s ok to be a believer, if you’ve heard the story, felt the vibe, and based on experience. I know it’s real because everything doesn’t have to be tangible to be real. For example, love is a spirit, love is a feeling, and love is and can’t be physically seen. Truth is like love when it comes to that comparison though truth can take on both forms of proof.  Truth can make its self-known in the physical and invisible form. Believing in truth is not a requirement in a world that yields too choices.  Truth will reveal its self in a person’s missteps and based on what he or she believes is their reality and reality, for individual people, is perception. Perception is not reality; perception can be guided by societal norms, religions, politics, and the personal belief to understanding.

The best way I’ve found to work, when dealing with truth and belief, is to do what Jesus told his disciples to do in the following statement, if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. I personally take that to mean, you can’t convince anyone of anything. Truth is proven by its very definition. The truth is simply the truth proven or not. Proof is often ignored to feed into a targeted narrative. This narratives purpose is to spin a lie into a truth and make that truth questionable enough to democratically shape the mind of a people. Once the minds of the people are shaped, to believe a lie is the truth, and the truth is a lie, the vote comes in and the truth loses. Those people believing truth is subjugated and demonized by society and the world keeps on spinning. The Devil has no place in this society. He has already spent the wheels of deception and left it alone for people to consider good or bad. Most people, because of societal norms, believe the opposite about good and bad. The meaning of good and bad has been switched causing legions of living, breathing, people to make bad decisions. They’re wrong, for making flawed choices, based on faulty information, essentially being guided to hell because the information they were fed was protected. Choice should be protected; assuming the inevitable consequences of that choice is well defined. The cause and effect of choice can be known via the study of empirical data. If history repeats its self, as predicted and regurgitated by scholars the world over. A choice based on ignorance is unintelligent and should be heard. Once the ebb and flow of a choice is known, the protected rights of choice should commence.

God or should I say The Creator, created everything and gave the universe, the planet, and the people natural law. Natural law governs everything in life and beyond. Knowing natural law is knowing God, not knowing natural law is not knowing God. Not knowing God, is not knowing self, and not knowing self-will eventually lead to some form of devastation because natural law is and cares nothing about a person’s belief. Natural law, like the law of gravity, will respect those who respect it.

So, this acknowledgement goes out to God.

God is!

Special Thanks

To the writers of the Bible, the original writers, it’s editors, and revisionist. If you’ve done the Bible some justice to help the common folk understand. Kudo’s to you. If you revised the Bible in a way that has caused hate and discontent, whoa buddy. Wait until God see’s you!

Special Thanks

Special thanks go out to the late great Andre’ Crouch. Andre’ Crouch wrote a song entitled Got Me Some Angels back in 1984 which is the heart of this book. His words in the song lead me to a scripture in the Bible, which inspired me to write this book. Some of this book contains axioms and scriptures found in the New Testament, the Old Testament, and the Lost Books of the Bible. The written word, found in the Bible, and all of its inspired counter parts, has always inspired me to write books based on the spiritual nature of the physical body. It makes you wonder if the spiritual world is reading or observing the physical world in order to sharpen the sword of universal mind which encompasses the all.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,

But against principalities, against powers,

Against spiritual wickedness in high places

Ephesians 6:2

If we could see though our spiritual eyes

I know we would all be surprised.

Angels may not be in shiny robes of white,

But in armor ready to fight.

Andre’ Crouch

We are going to be dead a lot longer

Than we are going to be alive, and what

We do now will reflect on us in the hereafter,

They’ll be the only stories we’ll be able to tell

Concerning our time in the physical body.

SAW

Prologue – Spiritual Eyes

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If we could see through are spiritual eyes

I know we would all be surprised.

Angels may not be dressed in shiny robes of white,

but in armor ready to fight.

- Andre’ Crouch -

The smoke and soothe produced by the burning brimstones and fire made the air difficult to breath. The different shades of smoke and the innumerable chorus of screams, coming from the inhabitants, were indescribably worse than anything anyone has ever talked about, written, or could image. The sound, the smoke, the visuals and everything else in this place surrounded me like air is a bubble.  I was completely submerged in this bottomless ocean in spirit but physically experiencing pain, pushing, pulling, grabbing, clawing, screaming, and being squeezed to nothing that existed as a viable destination to land on.  The old and new inhabitants of this place shared in the vibrational feeling of our environment as if we were one body being pinched, snatched, burned, poked, and whatever medieval torturous act was being performed on us.  We felt these things as a collective and as individuals.  My description of this place and its terrors pale in relation to physically being there and it’s not a place you want to visit to validate my claims. Nothing I said or will say is the worst of it.  Nothing I say or will say can compare to it.  No language on earth can describe the etymology of what I went through. My hellish experience was the same hell described by the pastors of various churches many times over.  Their descriptions were poorly made and I can now see that their descriptions were based on regurgitated information either from books, testimonials, and other means of gathering information.  I say that based on the retardation of my words in physical form, though crafted, and fined tuned to effectively describe, in detail, what I felt, saw, smelled, heard, and everything else I can bring out of spirit to the physical realm.  I don’t know if it possible to do. For a short time, I was one of its tenants.  No matter how award winning Oscar like pictorial description I project from my words to your imagination, it will be poorly conceived and misrepresented due to my inability to physically transport your, mind, spirit, and body to that place. The horrors I talk about should be multiplied by a thousand to the 100th power. The pain will be 1000 times worst, the anguish 1000 times worst, the hunger 1000 times worsts and all other physical, mental, and spiritual needs in order to survive was not provided. There was no rest, breaks, no union to fight for our rights, and there was no death after death. The collector and definer of words would have a difficult time trying to define what I experienced in this place, so knowing that, here is my rendition to what happened to me hell."

"I was grabbed by the arm when I entered the gates. A dark menacing beast knocked me off balance. I fell to my back, and dragged me at a speed I was incapable of responding too. This beast had hulk like strength and anger. This beast hands were ruff and ridged. They felt like broken glass and rusty nail digging into my skin. The beast claws penetrated my body just as effortless as small wooden splinters and just as easy as needles. Blood soaked the once white robe I wore during the judgment. I couldn’t tell by sight because this place I had entered was dark. It was as if coal had covered my eyes; even with the constant burning of the fire.

The demon dragging me had finally stopped moving at the edge of some dark bewildered place.  It slammed me into the ground as if I was a piece of meat being sliced up by a butcher, ready to be packaged, sent out, and served to my next torturer. I believe the demon was trying to hurt me to a point where I couldn’t move. Wait a minute, this is not something I believe, this is something I know because somehow we were all linked in thought. We were linked in feeling and some kind of vibrational frequency. I knew what the demon was thinking when he was thinking it, it was like, it was my thoughts. I knew what everyone was thinking, while thinking it, like it was my thoughts. Thinking, feeling, and the vibrational effect to what everyone was experiencing disrupted my own thought process amongst the other processes and senses I have in my body. The celestial body, though not of flesh, remembered and felt the pain of the incidents that brought discomfort. The demon slammed me to the ground to disrupt my union with his thoughts, feelings, and vibe to surprise with me with what he would do next. Extreme pain was the only thing that could be done to shut off a person’s connection to the collective. Extreme pain temporarily unplugged me and it felt better than being plugged in. I was lying there in pain, dazed, and relieved a greater agony.

It actually gave me time to think. I thought for a moment to get up and run but as soon as I began to recuperate enough to make a move, the demon grabbed me again. He grabbed me around the arm and squeezed it as if it was inside an anvil. His purpose was to cause more pain and he easily accomplished that task without real effort. This pain was worse than the slam. This pain disconnected me from the collective and caused me to think only of myself and the pain he was putting on me. I screamed in agony and the demon cursed me. This wasn’t his best effort and it made him mad that I was acting as if it was. With his other hand he punched me in the stomach. This pain was greater than the burning, the collective thought, and the vice grip arm grab. This pain allowed me to hear his mind, it said, showing signs of pain was illegal here, but if you didn’t show pain, they’d get mad you. They’d get mad if you didn’t show pain. They were mad they were there and they disapproved of anything me or any of the tenants of this place thought, felt, or vibrated.  They had reasons to punish us, they were logical reasons based in illusion.

In the distance I could hear the laughter of other demons. They were chatting and cheering on their fellow demon co-workers. The demon that handled me loved the praise. I could hear it in his thoughts. I could feel it through his hands and through the vibe he emitted from his emotions. He felt me feeling him and slammed me to the ground again, this time a little harder than before. While I was dazed and clear of the noise of the collective I heard him rush over to a chain with shackles.  He returned to me and slapped them tightly around my wrist and ankles. I screamed in my daze not feeling his vibe, not hearing his thoughts, and not sensing the connection to the collective. It was good and bad but mostly bad. The demon didn’t like anything about what I thought, screamed, or felt and pulled me to my feet just to punch me again. He punched me in the stomach and sent me to my knees. Like a comedy club, laughter erupted all around me. And I could literally hear the man in the Cinemark commercial scream ‘feel... the... power...’

On the opposite end of the chain and shackles was a weight. I noticed it after coming too. All the screams, thoughts, and vibrations of the collective started to invade my mind and the demon punch me in the stomach again. I wanted to scream but I didn’t. I held it in and the demon smiled. I started to invade his mind to hear his thoughts but before I could do that, he slapped me across the face, lifted me up, and threw me in a pit of brimstones not yet lit. He looked down at me in the pit, as I looked up at him from the floor of the pit. I stood up and he backing away. He spoke for the first time, counting, in a deep haunting tone that bounced off the walls of the pit as if I was in a sound room.

1-2-3... The demon said aloud and at the end of that count the brimstones lit up like hot coals on a barbecue grill. Just as red but ten times hotter. I was standing bare foot, on top of these coals, and the pain from them was excruciating. I screamed in agony and envisioned a lobster being thrown into boiling water. This is what they felt. This is what I felt. This is what everyone in this place felt but more. Since we we’re all connected we felt each other’s pain, our pain, and the pain of the universe. All I could do was jump up and down on the brimstones to try easing the sting but it only intensified each time I landed on them.

Just when I was numb to the fire the stones cooled. I fell from my feet to the floor and lay down on top of cool stones. They felt good. They were relaxing. They were healing. I pulled myself up to a seating position and held my feet until the pain subsided. I spit the last remaining saliva I could gather into my hands and rubbed it across my blistered feet. Surprisingly relief came. But it didn’t come from the saliva; it came from me, my spiritual body, and time as it existed. The blistered instantly healed and I was feeling good. The voices in hell silenced and I was at total peace until suddenly and slowly the brimstones began to grow hot again. I felt the heat on my butt so, I stood up and tried clinging to the walls in order to keep the heat from burning my feet again but I couldn’t get a grip. The walls didn’t allow for any clinging so I kept sliding back to the heated brim stoned floor.

1-2-3. The demon counted again, and the brimstones lit up even hotter than before. I yelled at the top of my lungs. The pain this time was unbearable. It took my mind off of everything but the feeling I was experiencing. It dominated my mind, my emotions, and all of my senses. I felt like I was spinning in fire, lost to equilibrium and balance. I tasted the flames and it burned my tongue away from my mouth and left me void of flavor. I heard the flames and it burned away my ear drums leaving me deaf to sound inside and outside of my head. I smelled the fire and it burned away my nostrils and left me without scent and senses. I closed the lids of my eyes to save my eyes but the flames burned my eye lids away. The flames burned me from both, inside out and outside in forcing me to see my torture from all angles and then blinding me to it until the flames died down.

Whatever was left of me fell to the floor again and enjoyed the coolness of the coals. These coals were holy. They were my savior, my Lord and redeemer. I worshipped the coals and kissed them. My feet and body healed itself and there was a peace once again. The inhabitants of this place all enjoyed the peace and communicated that peace to each other. We all praised and worshipped the coals because the coals gave us peace. The coals showed us mercy and grace. The coals, the coals.... I looked up for the demon but I didn’t see anything. I knew he was still there because I could hear his mind, I could feel his thoughts, my mind vibrated on the same frequency as his and I screamed up from the pit at him. Get me out of here! I didn’t do anything in life that rated this kind of pain and punishment.

The demon heard my words and was entertained by them. The demon and his co-hearts laughed at me. My voice wasn’t the only voice screaming those words. Those words were being screamed by the other former human host in this place. We collectively screamed those words at our oppressors like a chorus in a choir. They collectively laughed like a verse in a song, they all knew and sang many times before. It was their favorite verse. They regurgitated this verse for every chorus we sang and their laughter rained down on us like hail shaped daggers from a fiery sky.

I can remember all of the pleas we screamed up at them but one of the pleas angered them and they all screamed back, Pain! You ain’t felt pain yet!

The coals... The coals warmed up and the demons screamed Feel real pain!

Collectively we screamed Nooooo! but the next sound was of them counting down.

1-2-3. At the end of the count the brimstones lit up. The pain hit all parts of my body at the same time. I jumped, screamed, and begged in more pain then before. This time the brimstones just didn’t light up, they burst in flames. The flames went over my head, covering me from head to toe, in a blanket of fire. It literally, figuratively, and metaphorically burned away the flesh from my body. It left my bones to burn like logs of wood in a fire place. I could see my spirit self, it was gray, it was dirty, it was trapped inside the cage of my burning skeleton.

Then suddenly the fire went down, the brimstones cooled off, and I was lying on top of them, recovering, as my flesh began to resurface. The healing process was complete just in time for me to feel the brimstones grow hot again. I wanted to spit on my feet but this time I couldn’t because my mouth was dry, my tongue felt like sand paper, and my lips were cracking. I looked up at the demon emotionless; my sanity was about gone. The brimstones shot up in flames again. I screamed, jumped, and fell to the floor. I was lying on top of the enflamed stones feeling nothing. The parts of my body that initially burned away; resurfaced. My mind had checked out. My body was there but my mind was gone. I felt like I was just above it, looking at it, but thinking of nothing.

Once the fire died down the demons saw me lying on the floor. They stopped laughing. They gathered around my pit and stared at me shocked. I could feel their emotion. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. They had never seen anyone trans-out in the pit before. They had never seen anyone get pass the pain in any mental or physical state they were in. People prayed, people begged, people passed out, but in each case, the fire showed them who was boss. The fire made them pay attention. The fire demanded anyone participating in its purposeful tasking; to fully experience what it was capable of delivering.

Somehow, I defied the fire. I was like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. When the flames died down, a horde of demons gathered around the pit I was lying in. They stared at me and then at one another. They were dumbfounded at what they were seeing. I was an anomaly. I was awake but unconscious to what was going on but the experience was registering in my mind for me to remember what was happening. I felt like a walking dead person because the only thing about me that worked was my brain.

The brimstones in the pit were growing hot. The main demon smiled and signaled for his partners to see what he was seeing. He nodded his head indicating to them to watch this. Let’s see what happens now. The brimstones grew bright red and ignited into flames just as before, even hotter than before. The flames burst out of the pit about five feet higher than the last time, it ignited like a blast from a bomb sending the demons back a few feet so, they wouldn’t be burned. They watched as the flames jumped out of the pit, like physical bodies, attacking and devouring anything it found in its reach. The brimstones in the pit were its source of power, so it could only go so far without dissipating or dissolving into nothingness.

The flames died down once again. The brimstones grew cold. The demons all gathered around the pit looking down upon me in amazement. I hadn’t moved. I was still tranced out, my flesh didn’t burn away from my bones and my spirit didn’t have to make an appearance as before. I was completely untouched.

The demons looked among each other in astonishment and then away at a larger demon coming toward them. His footsteps echoed across the place like the boom of a bass beat vibrating from a huge stereo speaker. He roared as loud as a lion in anger. Why aren’t you working? He howled at the lesser demons. The demons all scattered to their various pits. The demon in charge of my torture remained at my pit in fear. He watched at the higher ranked demon approached his station, speechless.

This demon was twice his size. He was red and black with black and gray wings folded into his back. When he reached the pit he looked in at me. I was in my Trans. He raised his right arm and opened his hand extended his fingers to the black un-seeable ceiling and bent his fingers ¼ of an inch inward. The coals in the pit got hot. Small, individual flames, in the image of human bodies, rose out of the rocks. I didn’t move from my position. I remained in my translucent state.  The big demon found that interesting. He smiled but was angry. His smile was his expression of anger. His laugh was his expression of fury. His screams, shrieks, and howling was his way of communicating a command. Commands made, backed by the vibration of fear, moved most action. The big demon closed his hand slowly and watched as the flames grew from infant flames to adolescences. He grabbed the lesser demon around the neck and screamed What’s going on here? Why is he not affected in my place of torture?

The lesser demon looked at him and then at me, he was asking a question. The question was, look, you can see what I’m seeing?  But he dared not respond with a verbal answer, his thoughts, his vibe, his everything was already being communicated to all of the inhabitants of this place. He glanced over at me lying in the pit, then at the bigger demon wide eyed and confused. The big demon closed his hand even more and the adolescent flames became young adult like in statue and power.  The heat and flames filled the pit to the brim like a full glass of water. I couldn’t be seen in the pit. All the other residents of hell was enjoying pits without fire, without heat or smoke, they were connected to all the other minds and fields of torture going on in other areas but in their own, they were enjoying peace.

The big demon felt the heat of the fire when some of the flames jumped out to burn his toes. He took flight above the pit holding the lessor demon around his neck with his left hand. He closed his hand even more to allow the young adult flames to grow into full adult flames. These flames jumped out of the pit and danced around the pit as far as they could go. They tried grabbed things to devour, they tried grabbing the bodies of other people near the pit, they even tried attacking the demons of those pits that had no sense enough to fear them and their power. The big demon had enough, he closed his hand and watched the flames mature, and they became elderly and soon after that they died beneath the stones of the pit. I was still unaffected by any of it as if it didn’t happen. The big demon hated that something was wrong in his area of responsibility. He was going to have to face the General for this and by now the General knew what was going on. The Generals responsibility was so expansive; he wasn’t in the business of doing things his self. The big demon knew that in short order a delegation of higher ranked demons would be coming his way if he didn’t enact punishment on the lessor demon and work diligently to fix the problem.

The big demon, in rage, slammed the lesser demon down in the pit. Get him out of there! Give him to me! I’ll give him a greater punishment where even death can’t avoid its torture. He can stay in that state while bathing in agony!

The lesser demon took the shackles off of my ankles and wrists and handed me up to his boss hoovering over the pit. Before lifting me up, I could feel the stones grow hot. I was in the hands of the higher ranked demon looking down on the lower ranked demon. The lower ranked demon put his hands up to be lifted out of the pit but the higher ranked demon glided up towards the ceiling a few feet away from the pit and all of the demons in the area counted, 1, 2, 3... and the fire from the brimstones shot up out of the pits, all around me, engulfing the people in them and the lower ranked demons caught inside my pit. Though the scream, pain, and agony of the people and this demon filled the atmosphere like rain all I could think about is, why were we shacked and chained to a pit when there was no way for us to climb out of it.

The demon in the pit, scream, was so loud, and so shrieking, it took me away from my current thought back to the thoughts of the collective which included the demon in the pit. Theses demons had never felt the full force of a fiery pit and were now collectively enjoying it experience. The pain was beyond the definition described in the land of the living and all of our minds sought out something on a universal level to compare it too. All of our minds went away from that thought when the flames died down. It was the ebb and flow of collective thought when forced or coerced to think a certain thing. When the fire became a flame the big demon laughed and landed in front of the pit. He looked into the pit and walked away dragging me along. The other demons looked on in fear. Not one of them laughed, or spoke. The lower demon, still the in pit, asked for help but no one moved to help him. Fear told them to do nothing or this would be their fate. What’s interesting is, every once in a while, in moment of clarity and inner peace, I could hear the thoughts of the demons. They weren’t always demons. They were fallen angels and preferred to be called that. I could feel them wish they had stayed in heaven and wish for redemption. This place was too much and after centuries of living here, they finally understood the promise they pledged their loyalty too, was just a lie."

Bob stopped talking. He stared out of the window from the passenger side of his co-workers car. They were headed to work after a two day weekend that seemed like eternity for Bob. Bob watched leaves fall from the trees and thought about the fallen angels. When they hit the ground his thoughts went to the fallen people, in hell, and tears wet his eyes and fell from his face to his chest. He quickly wiped them away and blew his nose.

The driver of the car looked at Bob and back at the road. Driving with his left hand he put his right on Bob’s shoulder as a form of comfort.  Bob smiled and his emotion changed. He couldn’t tell if this co-worker believed him or not but he seemed to care.

Man. That was just a dream. Believe you me. If you were actually in hell, you wouldn’t be here telling me about it, the driver said. Think about it. You said you were in a translucent state. If you were actually in a translucent state; how would you know about not feeling the pain when the flames rose up above your head? How would you know the demon that put you in those shackles burned in the pit? Or about the big demon taking you away? How would you know all that? Dreams are crazy man. Dreams can be about anything, and most of the time they don’t make sense.

I don’t think that was just a dream man. I could really felt those flames burning me. Bob said.

Listen. It was a dream. I have dreams like that all the time. Once I had this dream I was having a fight with Mike Tyson on my left, and Royce Gracie on my right. In the dream I was actually feeling the blows, and feeling the pain. They had my eyes and mouth all blooded up but I was holding my own. I was swinging, they were swinging, I was throwing some hay makers, and they were throwing some hay makers and I swear to you, I put Mike down with an upper cut to the chin. This was before the Buster Douglas debacle. I grabbed Royce right when he grabbed me. He tried throwing some of the jiu-jitsu stuff on me and I reversed it on him by grabbing his wrist and twisting that baby 90 degrees away from normalcy. Royce screamed like a girl and I slumped him to the floor like a sack of potatoes. I remember it in full detail like it actually happened. I woke up feeling nothing and seeing nothing. There wasn’t so much as a bruise on my face or body. And you know what? Because of that dream; I actually felt like I could take those guys in a real battle. I really believed I could. It changed the way I moved around. I mean the first big guy I saw. I tried proving my ability and you know what happened? He slang me around like a rag doll. That’s when I really realized what I knew about myself was alive and well in my dreams but dead and gone in my reality. That dream wasn’t real. Nothing about it was real. That stupid dream almost got me killed. That’s what’s happening to you. You’re allowing a dream to enter into your reality and letting it dictate how and what you think. It wasn’t real. If it were, you wouldn’t be here right now. I guarantee you that. Hell to my understanding is a permanent place sinners go. It’s people who don’t believe in God and disobey the rules of the game. We’re all living this life and are asked to play the game, if you play the game by the rules, you go to heaven, if you don’t you go to hell. You don’t get to go to hell for a minute, wake up at the sound of and alarm clock, and go to work the next day. That’s something you can believe because it’s the truth and to my knowledge, truth is reality. The driver looked up to see a red light and stopped. He looked over at Bob for a response and saw Bob asleep.

Bob’s coworker reached over and grabbed Bob by the shoulder and shook him, waking him up. Bob woke up startled.

What? What? Bob was unaware of what just happened.

What? Are you serious? I listened to your story of hell, brim stones, and fire and you can’t give me the courtesy of listening to mine? Is there a picture of you under the description of rude in the dictionary? Without words, what you just did to me explains it all.

"Come on man. I’m tired. I didn’t just dream a dream that’s simply a dream. I lived a reality inside of a dream and I was given a chance to tell you about it. I don’t want to hear your brush off. Every time I tell you something you brush it off with an explanation. There’s only one explanation to what I experienced and it’s for me to tell you, so you can do something about your life. Doing something about your life is the only way to avoid what happened to me. Ain’t no coming back from a place like that unless... Look, everything can’t be explained, can it?

Nall, it can’t, but we live in the age of reason. We have a mind to think, process thought, and make choices; don’t we? Don’t you believe in input, processing, and output? You don’t right? You just want me to drink the cool aide? I ain’t drinking nobody’s cool aide without thinking about what’s in the ingredients. The co-worker responded. By the way, you know me. I don’t believe in all that holy moly stuff. I know about it yeah, but believing in it because of a dream is something else. I got to actually go there like that chick, ah Mary K. Baxter went there. This chick supposedly spent forty days and forty nights in hell. You want me to believe that crap? I don’t need forty days and forty nights all I need is 10 minutes. All I need is to know this place is not a dream and I’d waking up confessing to the priest, the minister, my wife, and all the knuckle heads I’ve done wrong in my life. 10 minutes will convince me, but guess what? It ain’t going to happen. People always telling stories trying to convince somebody of something, it’s a sales tactic. I don’t scare easy. Most of the televangelist I know tells it’s listeners about judgment day just for one reason, to keep you as their parishioner, to keep you faithful to their church. They use the fear of loss or hope for gain strategy. Not all but most of them are prosperity pirates. Give your money to me, via your tithes and offering and I’ll give it to Jesus to give back to you tenfold. Being a church pastor is a good racket to get into. Cars, houses, diamond rings, and all tax write off you can claim in the name of the Lord, hallelujah!!

That’s the way you see it hum. Bob responded.

That’s the way it is and you know it! If it wasn’t for that dream you’ll be sitting over there talking about your next practical joke.

I don’t agree... I don’t believe all churches are like that. There are a whole lot of legitimate pastors out there in the world who dedicate their lives to preaching the gospel.

Yeah, right... From a book, that may or may not be the word of God. How can you trust a book that’s been written by man and then re-written several times over? Go to the book store; look at those Bibles they got out today. Which one is the right one? Can you tell me? Or do you even know?

Bob looked him in the face for a moment then turned away. Look I rather not get into this stuff right now. All I know is what I saw in that dream, that’s all I wanted to talk about. I was just sharing with you what I saw and you brought up all this other stuff; if you don’t have anything positive to say about me or my dream, how about we just don’t talk. Is that cool?

The driver looked at Bob a moment and looked away. He paid attention to the road while simultaneously looked into space. Hey, that’s cool. That’s Cool and the Gang because what you’re talking about, is pretty much non-sense any way. I rather just leave that subject alone I ain’t trying to dream about no demons hovering over fire. That’s crazy talk.

Bob looked at him for a moment wanting to say something but didn’t. He turned his head back toward the windshield and closed his eyes.

The driver glanced over and Bob, smiled, and