The Farther Side of Paradise

By W. Thomas McDaniel Jr.

Man’s
Flight
Through
Life
Is
Sustained
By
The
Power
Of
His
Knowledge
Of
Jesus
Christ

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499053807

W. Thomas McDaniel Jr.

The Author Tom McDaniel grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia. He graduated from York High School and the United States Air Force Academy. His college degrees are in psychology, logistics management and international relations. He is a retired Air Force Colonel, who held key policy positions within NATO and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has been a ghostwriter for numerous fl ag offi cers and was the principal author of Combat Support Doctrine and the Commander’s Handbook for an Effects-Based Approach to Joint Operations. The greatest satisfaction in life for both him and his high school sweetheart and wife, Lindy, comes from their strong and active relationship with their children—Laura, Anne, Michael and Matthew.

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Copyright © 2014 by W. Thomas McDaniel, Jr.

Library of Congress Control Number:        2014913419

ISBN:                   Hardcover                  978-1-4931-8453-8

                      Softcover                  978-1-4931-8454-5

                       eBook                      978-1-4990-5380-7

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Rev. date: 07/31/2014

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CONTENTS

Caveat

Chapter One—Departing Old Earth

Chapter Two—Settling Down in Paradise

Chapter Three—God: Upfront and Personal

Chapter Four—Reconstituted Spirit, Soul, and Body

Chapter Five—Paradise’s Creatures, Large and Small

Chapter Six—At Home in the City

Chapter Seven—Searching for the Meaning of Life

Chapter Eight—Work on Old Earth

Chapter Nine—Play on Old Earth

Chapter Ten—Family, Friends, and Acquaintances on Old Earth

Chapter Eleven—Knowledge and Wisdom on Old Earth

Chapter Twelve—A Typical Day in Paradise

Epilogue—Absolute Truth

Acknowledgments and Sources

DEDICATION

For Lindy, Laura, Anne, Michael, and Matthew,

May all our progeny join us in Paradise.

Image35436.JPG

My first progeny, mid-war

CAVEAT

. . . you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

—John 8:32

Who would not choose to spend eternity in Paradise? But then, skeptics may first want to know what Heaven would be like. This book describes one soul’s departure from a three-dimensional life bounded in time to an existence somewhere outside of time and cubic space—a multidimensional abode where one can continue to fulfill his or her purpose begun on the Old Earth.

This novel is part prophesy and part memoir. The speculative part is about life in Paradise on the New Earth and is based on an understanding and contemporary interpretation of metaphysics, biology, psychology, cosmology, quantum theory, natural law, the Bible, and the traditions of the catholic Church—Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox. And like all revealed knowledge from God—never exhaustive, but always sufficient and substantial—this author has extrapolated what is known to what could be: a more expansive view of the Christian afterlife not always explicitly specified in scripture or church tradition.

Although potentially disruptive to the reader’s continuity of thought, relevant scripture verses have been placed at the end of each paragraph in which an idea is presented. (Some, but not all, readers will want to know where that thought came from.) For example, I do not wish to ignore the admonition in the book of Revelation suggesting that severe repercussions will befall those who would add or subtract content from divine prophesy (Rev. 22:18–19).

As for the autobiographical portions of the book, these comparatively mundane and unavoidably egocentric historical events are captured in reminisces about life on the Old Earth. All these events actually happened. Only the names of some characters have been truncated to protect the privacy of those who were not given the opportunity to confirm, revise, or refute the veracity of the happenings portrayed.

Moreover, recollections from a single source—me—are inherently fraught with misperception, self-deception, memory lapses, and unintended fraudulence. In short, autobiographers too often describe historical events as the authors would like them to be, not how they actually were.

Then also, there is the more insidious problem of revealing the unseen behavior that accompanies every life event—the inner thoughts of all those participating in an occurrence directly or indirectly, especially the recorder. More to the point, the conscious and unconscious workings of the mind are far richer in detail than the observer can ever fathom. If we could access and document the content of our mental processes and their effects, then we might come to understand ourselves and others’ actions far better. But the volume of information revealed would indubitably overwhelm the audience.

Furthermore, this author is no saint, like the cloistered and virtuous Therese of Lisieux, and this book is definitely not The Story of a Soul. Unlike Therese, this prideful soul eagerly confronted the world and tried to mold aspects of it to his will. Consequently, this stream of consciousness book at times is profane, irreverent, and mean. But the intent is always to remain honest, relevant, and accurate in telling this historical and prophetic tale. My only genuine trepidation, when I committed to this undertaking, was that my wife and one or more of my children upon reading this first-person tome will moan, Too much information!

Relatedly, my most difficult task was choosing what subjects to include and exclude. My primary criterion for inclusion was what events most influenced who I was and how I evolved existentially. And the excluded material was based on those happenings that would not edify the reader. But, of course, this book, like all writings, had to be contained to have any chance of sustaining interest from beginning to end.

In sum, publishing an autobiography certainly intimates a high degree of arrogance by this author since it is about a person of no renown. But let me assure you that my life and every other life lived have profound and enduring eternal consequences. Remember George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. And Paradise, Heaven and/or the New Earth far exceed our own paltry and poorly illuminated human expectations. Nonetheless, I am passionately looking forward to my unending sojourn and the unique role I will have in the New Heavens while in full communion with the Triune God and all His saints (Eph. 3:20).

CHAPTER ONE

Departing Old Earth

. . . I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.

—Luke 23:43

Remember when you were a kid and someone would ask you, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ How come no one ever said they wanted to be a saint?

Lindy smiled to herself but knew this was a rhetorical question and its philosophical or theological import was only known to me. She long ago, in our marriage, chose never to try to get into my mind. It was far safer just to skirt its boundaries: to only peer in from some distance or when absolutely necessary. Our thought processes, as assessed via the Myers-Briggs Test, were so very different, but our values were remarkably aligned. She, as an ESFP, was far too practical. And introspection was never her strong suit. Lindy was a doer and smart. Thinking needed to lead to action or it was a waste of time.

Oh yes, before this flaming ENTJ rambles on, I need to give you some context. At this moment, I’m here at home, laid out, staring at the ceiling from my death bed. My wife, Lindy, fully clothed, has snuggled up next to me. The priest has anointed me with oil and administered the Eucharist a few hours ago. And the hospice nurse is currently fiddling with a morphine syringe in the corner of the room. And my adult children have just now left the house to go get some supper downtown.

You know, Rabbit, I have never feared death. In college, when I was an existentialist, majoring in psychology, I thought life was a rat maze. And I suspected the goal box was probably empty. All that was important in life was how well I negotiated the maze—beat the other rats to the unseen cheese in that final box.

Tom, I remember well those crazy days in the sixties and what you had inscribed in my engagement ring: ‘To justify our existence.’ You have come a long way from Camus to Jesus. And I still cannot believe you gave up your Episcopalian roots to become a Roman Catholic like the rest of us.

Death has always seemed so natural and normal to me. Everybody goes through it. Right? My only fear has been that I might demonstrate some public anxiety—either from pain or the inability to inhale. I’m just a helluva lot more comfortable when I can take in a full breath.

I want to die well for our children to make it easier for them. But I must admit these shots do the trick, especially when I have a hard time getting oxygen.

I know after you became a Christian during the Vietnam War, you have never once doubted God’s existence and His promises. And I’ll never forget what you told our daughter Laura when she was in fourth grade and she asked you how to get into Heaven. You simply said, ‘Believe in Jesus.’ But now that you are so close to leaving us, surely, you’re not treating death as just another experience, another one of your ‘adventures.’

With what must have been a very wry look, I said, But I am. This will be the ultimate adventure. I’m excited to meet Jesus face-to-face. To talk to my soldier father for the first time, man-to-man. And to get my new eternal, incorruptible body so I can fly like the wind. Of course, these are selfish wishes, but I am sure the Lord will be able to perfect me. He’ll make sure I only pursue the good and important things in my new life. He and I have all of eternity to purge my pride, selfishness, and judgmental proclivities.

You know the grandchildren are going to miss you.

Yeah, that’s the only downside, not being here with the family. And I’m not sure I will be able to glimpse from Heaven what’s going on here. But maybe that is a good thing.

I believe there are no tears in Heaven, so either we are shielded from viewing hardships in the family or when we see bad things happen, we can handle them better (Rev. 21:4).

Thomas More once said, ‘Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.’ So if granted the privilege of seeing what’s going on here, I will fully understand the endgame and know with certainty that what transpires on earth is only transitory, and we’ll all be together again in the blink of an eye.

How do you feel? You look gray.

I gave a gurgled chuckle, You’ve always been a good nurse, but sometimes, way too candid. But, you’re right. I think I’ll take that shot now and be quiet for a while.

***

My body shuttered. My eyes blinked open. I felt some pain but was more conscious of my winding down, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was drenched and spent, as if I had been in a college wrestling match that had gone into overtime. Yes, I was definitely slip-sliding away.

It was dark in the room except for the two night lights on opposite walls of the bedroom. And then I noticed the silhouette of my wife and became aware of her hand on mine.

Lindy, you got to let me go. I don’t think I can hold on any longer.

Tom, I am not holding on. I love you. But you have my permission to go whenever you’re ready.

Well then, what am I doing here? I smiled a mischievous smile, gently whispered, Don’t put any ‘fucking marigolds’ on my Arlington grave. I took my final breath and left the room, leaving my family and the earth far behind.

CHAPTER TWO

Settling Down in Paradise

. . . I am creating new heavens and a new earth …

—Isaiah 65:17–25

I’ve started to write or rather record again; a vocation begun in earnest late in life on the Old Earth. I always loved words, and if I had any skills in my former existence, they were in creating text, especially technical essays—anything to do with the art and science of human warfare. My father, my brothers, and I were all warriors once upon a time. My literary strength or gift was my vocabulary, plus an ability to reduce a complex idea into a simplicity with a paucity of words—simple words when speaking and more precise words when writing for a sophisticated audience.

To make a not-so-humble point, I remember one aptitude test I took at a highly selective US Air Force intermediate officer school. The test lasted ten minutes. It was a multiple-choice exam composed of hundred words, each having four one-word proposed definitions. I answered ninety-five questions and picked the correct definition for ninety of the words.

Image35445.JPG

Focusing at Air Command and Staff College

The faculty had never seen a test score that high. They thought it might help explain my early promotion to major. And it did mitigate their concern for my lack of interest in some of their courses. But by this ten-year juncture in my military career, I had already been to war, sired three children, and earned two master’s degrees in logistics management and international relations at universities where the subject matter and instruction were far superior.

But I digress from the ever-lasting present. Now I can convey and converse in a nonlinear angelic language with a vocabulary that has no limits and stretches me more than English ever could, particularly when my dementia impeded the exactitude and fluidity of my prose near the end of my first life. However, here in Paradise with this new idea-conflated language and with my new brain, my cognitive capacity to create is unleashed and literally unbounded.

With our new universal language, reverently known as The Word, every discreet notion conveys meaning (denotation and connotation), emotion (feelings and preferences), and spirituality (divined intuition and conscience). The coupling of these multifaceted words with our heightened cerebral and spiritual aptitudes gives every saint the ability to communicate telepathically or audibly, not just knowledge, but wisdom with each thought or utterance.

My current quest is to gain and record a fuller appreciation of the intellectual, spiritual, and physical contrasts between the Old Earth and the New Earth: how different it is to live in the presence of the Triune God compared to the life of strife I knew when Satan surreptitiously roamed the earth devouring those who yielded to his will.

Yet first, I should explain that my new permanent infinite state is now beyond history. The coming of the anti-Christ, the Tribulation, the Millennium, Armageddon, and Judgment Day are all behind us. The devil, the Prince of Lies, and his followers were first cast into the bottomless pit and then into the lake of fire (Rev. 19:20; Ezek. 38–39).

Never again will Satan be able to seduce God’s children. All the saints now perpetually reside on the New Earth—in the New Jerusalem—and have been given access to the entire, ever-expanding universe. In short, the earth and its inhabitants have come full circle back to a new and vastly improved Eden. The saints and angels are once again in harmony with each other and in perfect communion with God. And blessedly, all can, henceforth, live and interact free of sin (Rev. 20).

***

So now, let me give you a brief overview of the New Heavens so you can have some context to the holy and supernatural universe I occupy. Then, together we can drill down and explore every nook and cranny of Paradise that I have visited—both the physical and metaphysical realms—recognizing my understanding and exposure to the Creator and His infinite creation is still infantile.

But first, understand that Plato’s effect on Christianity was unhelpful when trying to envision Paradise from Old Earth. Christoplatonism was misleading at best. Yet, many Christians embraced the incorrect notion that the highest form of existence is nonphysical vice physical. Plato’s writings elevated the abstract realm over the physical realm. Consequently, for the uninformed on Old Earth the eternal domain of Paradise or Heaven was devoid of any physicality. This was untrue although the metaphysical realm is essential to the totality and wondrousness of Paradise.

When I talk about the New Heavens I am referencing the entirety of the existent and mutable creation after Judgment Day and the end of time. The only subject that I am excluding, for the moment, is the Creator Himself, the Triune God. He will be discussed in follow-on recordings as the creation is more describable than the indescribable Godhead.

But in the twenty-first century, most people understood their world and the surrounding universe, in terms of three dimensions. A far lesser number of men and women understood the spatial dimensions’ relationship to the fourth dimension time. But a handful of learned intellectuals understood that up to twelve dimensions existed in the former universe.

At this stage of my eternal existence, I cannot tell you how many dimensions there are in the New Heavens. I am still learning and cannot even say whether the number is knowable since it may not be fixed and/or finite. What I do know is that when the Lord reconstituted the Old Universe, he instituted new laws of nature that apply to all of creation, animate and inanimate. And He merged the physical and metaphysical domains of our prior existence.

In so doing, men and women have been granted unconstrained powers and freedom to traverse and rule His new creation. Everything in the New Heavens has been placed in subjection to the saints, save the Creator Himself. And, in turn, the saints freely offer the Creator their unremitting and inextinguishable love (Gen. 1:26, 1 Cor. 6:2–3).

Contrary to my earliest beliefs on Old Earth, there is and always has been only one universe. And the planet earth had the only complex life form at the level of Homo sapiens. In my profound ignorance, I had always assumed, given the expanse of the Old Universe, that statistically the presence of other high or higher life forms was probable. But I began to change my opinion in the early twenty-first century when I read about a conference of world-renowned scientists and mathematicians.

These gifted thinkers composed of believers in God, agnostics, and atheists concluded that the universe was designed for biogenesis and human life. The probability of the universe having useable energy (low entropy) at its creation was infinitesimally small and yet without low entropy, the conditions for life were virtually impossible. Therefore, the evidence for an Intelligent Designer was scientifically indisputable unless an infinite number of universes existed. Then and only then would it be mathematically possible that Old Earth and its human inhabitants evolved randomly.

Other scientists, like Robert Lanza, suggested that a whole new paradigm was needed to explain the universe. The findings of physics—and its proponency of quantum mechanics, string theory, and so on—while mathematically demonstrable, were illogical and offered no hope for a grand unified theory of the cosmos. Instead, biology offered the requisite perspective to unravel the mysteries surrounding the creation and sustainment of the universe, especially the intersection of its animate and inanimate objects.

For many in the life sciences, objective and subjective reality were only possible via consciousness. They posited that there was no independent external universe outside of biological existence. What humans perceived as reality was a process of consciousness, a symbiotic relationship between the perceiver and the perceived.

Now we know from the vantage of Heaven, the physical and metaphysical worlds were always inexorably intertwined. The brilliantly consistent atheist and ultra-capitalist Ayn Rand had erred when she responded to Tom Snyder. He asked her on his Tomorrow TV show if she was anxious about nonexistence after her death. And she smiled and said, You have it all wrong, Tom. When I die, I do not cease to exist, the universe ceases to exist.

Ayn Rand would have been correct if the consciousness of the individual was the ultimate reality. But she was wrong on two counts. As the definitive spokesperson of the ascendancy of I over We, she failed to intuit that the universe had a divine collective consciousness and the universe was populated with physical matter—atoms, protein, and brain tissue—that facilitated the consciousness of animals.

Without going into the collective consciousness of God and His saints at this juncture, let it suffice to talk about the existential aspects of Paradise. Whether I place myself in the physical or metaphysical realms of Paradise, the feel is the same. I and every other creature in Heaven have an inherent spatio-temporal brain function that gives concreteness to both realms. The major difference from Old Earth, besides being able to occupy metaphysical space, is I am always in the now since Paradise is beyond time. And it is these new attributes of consciousness that makes perception and then cognition incomprehensively vivid and open-ended.

***

I’ve waited long enough before telling you about food and feasting on New Earth. My family knew well that when I wanted to eat during my sinful existence, that meant now! Yet, what Saint Paul wrote is true in Paradise as it was before Judgment Day, Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. And even though I still love eating more than ever, I no longer need to plan every meal since I have easy access to the Tree of Life (1 Cor. 10:31, Luke 14:15).

The Tree of Life is a vegetable-, fruit-, grain-, and nut-bearing plant with a living subterranean infrastructure like an aspen tree on Old Earth. The root system is connected to every above-ground tree or bush that produces edible vegetation on the New Earth and in the New Jerusalem. In addition, there are even countless underground fruits and nuts that are especially delightful to the tongue. I have not yet tasted the entire tree’s bounty as the variety of mouthwatering vegetation number in the millions. Moreover, our plant biologists are always tinkering with the tree to create genetic mutations that improve the fruits, especially the grapes (Rev. 2:7).

Even though I was a beer drinker on Old Earth and my favorite poison was Spaten Optimator, I must confess that the grapes that form the wine on New Earth are an unimaginable joy to partake. And even our former Sothern Baptists appreciate the fermentation processes that provide the body of this favored drink in Paradise. The panoply of wines is vast depending on the region of New Earth and the soils and weather that accompany the grapes’ growth. But for all those wine imbibers on Old Earth, none have been disappointed here in any way with the fruit of the vine (Luke 22:18, Matt. 8:11, Isa. 25:6).

One gastronomic craving I had in my previous life was to consume animal fat. My want of sugar paled in comparison. Nothing was better than a marbled Wagyu rib eye steak. But I had long ruled out the slaughter of animals in Heaven, so I was resigned before I died to foregoing that one earthly enjoyment of savoring the juxtaposition of fat with bovine muscle. And I hoped that some vegetable oils that populated my favorite dish, pasta primavera, could replicate the taste of animal fat.

So I am happy to announce to all the fat lovers, we have not missed our blubber in Paradise. The oils or triglycerides from the Tree of Life when exposed to our new sense of taste far exceed the flavor of any rib eye on Old Earth.

***

I need to pull back, again, for a moment and define the boundaries of Paradise. Well, in a nutshell, there are no boundaries. Paradise is an infinite existential place with no spatial or temporal constrains. It has many dimensions in both the physical and metaphysical realms. The New Jerusalem hovering over the New Earth is the primary residency of God and the saints. But the saints can teleport themselves anywhere in the New Universe, provided they know where they want to go. And although exposure to most of the stars, planets, and dark matter/energy would not have been hospitable to our former bodies on Old Earth, our new selves are immutable unless we consciously allow them to be affected by the environment. In other words, they are incorruptible and indestructible. (I will inform you more about our new bodies elsewhere.)

So Heaven or Paradise, as I prefer, encompasses the Creator and all of the New Creation after Judgment Day. Since cosmology is not my expertise and many of the old laws of nature no longer apply, I do not know if Paradise is in a homeostasis mode within the new inanimate physical universe; it certainly is not in the metaphysical realm as I continue to learn more about God and Paradise.

Many of the saints and former scientists are working to discover the new rules that govern our eternal existence. They are excited about their quest as their knowledge will yield better stewardship of creation. But given the quantum complexities, they have no allusions that they will ever have an inexhaustible perfect understanding. They will never be omniscient on the topic, a god, as the Mormons were reproached for believing.

***

The mobility of the individual saint in Paradise is exquisite and diverse whether involving intergalactic travel or proximate levitation. We saints can only be in one place at a time in the physical realm of the New Heavens, but we can go anywhere we desire with our latest technologies, resilient bodies, and cerebral will. To employ a pun, gravity no longer has a pull on us (2 Pet. 3:10–13, Phil. 3:21).

For you to have a modicum of understanding, I need to have a short tutorial on the basic ingredients of the New Heavens. In the twenty-first century physicists liked to talk about matter and energy as separate and distinct constituent entities of the universe. But some scientists wanted to relegate matter to a subservient status even to the point to suggest that matter was really a particle of energy at the quantum level.

Now it’s also true that God did some tinkering at the quantum level when he reengineered the New Heavens. And I cannot yet adequately explain the differences. But I do know the effects. We are now able to harness the energy fields that permeate all of space. The effect is instantaneous placement of our bodies anywhere in the cosmos by manipulating the ubiquitous energy fields within the cosmos. If we can think it, know the cosmic coordinates, we can go there.

We can levitate at will on the New Earth or the New Jerusalem. But most of us continue to walk or run so we don’t miss anything in our present location. A casual stroll or jog in the city or down on the New Earth expose us to astounding details of the new creation all around us: plants, animals, rock formations, micro-weather systems, soil compositions, above and below ground water aggregations and on and on.

***

By the way, not that I could forget, purgatory is not a place in the New Heavens; it is a process that can persist beyond Judgment Day. When I was attending classes in RCIA (the Rite of Christian Initiation), I posed a question to Monsignor McCarron about purgatory (1 Cor. 3:15, 1 Pet. 1:7).

He had just delivered a superb lecture on hell. And the monsignor had explained that our eternal existence is outside of time. And he had alluded to the fact that purgatory should be thought of as a process vice a place. So I told him, As an Episcopalian, I have not believed in purgatory. And I agree that if there is a purgatory, then viewing it as a process seems reasonable. My concern, however, is this. How long is the process since we will be outside of time?

Astonishingly, the monsignor was taken aback and said, I have never thought of that.

Well, I too was taken aback that he had not thought through this conundrum given his age and extraordinary theological training. So I adopted a belief on Old Earth that has proven true here in Heaven. Yes, we were purged of all our sins at Judgment Day; however, we continue to be refined by God. We never stop learning about the thinking and ways of the Lord. We try to act as He would in all our interactions with our sisters and brothers in Paradise. We no longer do bad things, but we are always discovering how to do things better.

One other conversation that night with the monsignor was more lighthearted. After the lecture, I went up to him as the rest of the class went over to the refreshment tables. With just the two of us within hearing range, I recounted the fact that in Heaven marriage was obsolete and conjectured that there was also no sex (Mark 12:25).

He instantly blurted out in his booming voice, You got to be kidding me … after all these years of celibacy. We both laughed, but no one else dared approach the two of us, clearly fearing the unknown reason for his remark.

Who said the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church have no sense of humor?

***

As I touted before, the physical and metaphysical realms in the New Heavens are indistinguishable—not discernibly different—when you are occupying space in one or the other. The only dissimilarities are twofold: (1) when located in the physical realm of Paradise, you are in the now and when you are in a metaphysical location, you are in the past or future; (2) entry into metaphysical space is via a state of spiritual somnolence, while living in the present physical realm is the norm in Paradise and is sustained until you willfully place your consciousness into a state of somnolence.

I personally love being in both realms, but must choose one or the other as only God can be in both simultaneously. But let me describe the metaphysical realm since it is unique to Paradise and did not fully exist until the creation of the New Heavens. When you decide to enter the metaphysical past or future, there are boundaries. You can only experience those events—rewind or fast forward the spatial-temporal tape—that have occurred or have yet to occur after the culmination of Judgment Day and the receipt of your resurrected body.

What is most fascinating is you can relive events and create alternative outcomes as was depicted in the Butterfly Effect movie. For instance, I like to revisit some of the sport games I have played, especially if I or my team lost. It is interesting to see if a change in tactics or effort can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. But most compelling is to relive conversations with other saints—to either expand or extend topics or just re-experience the emotive pleasure of listening to a beloved friend or historical acquaintance.

As for metaphysically traveling to future events in Paradise, I have only done this once. Curiosity was the main motivation. I chose to go to a small party I planned to host for three other saints in my home. I did not know them well. So I wanted to make their visit as welcoming as possible. And the advance experience did improve my logistics preparation, but it also diminished the spontaneity of my conversation, or so I perceived. And the anticipation—the looking forward to the party—was also degraded.

But maybe, I just don’t know how to optimize this new freedom in Paradise. It may be possible never to experience the party in the now having already experienced it in the future. Then, of course, I cannot be disappointed by the comparisons between the same event happening twice. Let’s face it, Paradise offers the saints infinite options on how to live their eternal lives. I will just have to let the Lord teach me what is best for Him and for me. But it’s all exciting, different, and fascinating. The boredom on Old Earth is nowhere to be found.

Let me digress once again, when you are in the physical realms of Paradise you can, as always, access your memories from Old Earth. But you have no power to alter your memory or the events you experienced there. All of us in Paradise are beyond history, and Old Earth’s history is immutable as is the eternal record of our salvation or condemnation. To use an Old Earth expression, It is etched in stone.

CHAPTER THREE

God: Upfront and Personal

God said …, I AM WHO I AM.

—Exodus 3:14

The instant I entered Paradise, I was overwhelmed with love, truth, and light. I was only aware of goodness spilling over and enveloping me that emanated from the glorious Trinity. My initial consciousness was of the Godhead alone. Within my body-less soul, I saw, heard, felt, tasted, and smelled God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Suddenly, I was standing before an emerald haloed throne veiled in flashes of silent lightning. The throne was surrounded with softly chanting cherubim and other exotic beings hovering above an elevated, carnelian, tiered settee. A solitary, lean, six-foot figure stood up, descended a 360 degree flat conical crystal ramp and made His way straight toward me. Jesus was robed in white and bounded in light. His whole person exuded masculinity and strength. His cropped hair and beard were dark brown with faint blond highlights. And He had a tanned complexion. But that face with those striking eyes—His eyes—were locked on me, piercing my soul with welcoming kindness and acceptance (2 Kgs. 19:15; Rev. 4, 5 and 22:4; John 14:9).

When He reached my bowed, trembling, exposed self, Jesus embraced and gently kissed me and simply said, Peace is now forever yours, my son. And then He turned and walked back to the glittering, shimmering eternal throne of adoration. And for the first time in my life, I experienced the unbounded joy of being one with Him and finally beholding His beauty and truth One-on-one. At last, I knew with serene certainty that God would always be freely available to me (Ps. 27:4, Heb. 13:8, John 17:3).

***

Although I did not know it at the time of my first encounter with the Lord, my arrival in Heaven coincided with the gift of an enhanced multidimensional sixth sense to increase my spiritual capacity to perceive and comprehend—to better access the mind and will of God. This new sense transcended the receptivity of the other senses combined. (I had experienced a similar sense via my spirit with the Holy Spirit on the Old Earth, but rarely in a conscious state and with a vastly more muted effect.) This enhanced sense I now possess has retained the name Spirit.

My new physiological senses were confined to my soul, while Spirit, I later learned, is omnipresent throughout the universe. Spirit permeates the New Earth and the New Heavens: all of God’s reconstituted animate and inanimate creation. Spirit—the conveyor of love—saturates my entire being as it does every creature in the new cosmos. At first, it was just my soul and, later, after Judgment Day, included my modified and indestructible physical body. The origin of this new dominant governing sense—its source—is the Godhead that resides on the New Earth and radiates love via the Spirit to the furthest reaches of the New Heavens.

In a nutshell, the loving Spirit of Jesus is the substance that holds the cosmos together. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, astrophysicists had begun to