Not Everyone Wants to Believe…

 …Even when you can help them change their mind and look at things differently.

During a dinner discussion with a friend, let’s call him Dan, he was explaining why he broke away from the Catholic Church and no longer subscribes to all the dogma. However, I would soon see that the religious indoctrination of his youth is not that easy to walk away from.

Eventually he asked me about some of the paranormal investigating I was doing and asked about the existence of ghosts in general. Dan doesn’t believe in the existence of ghosts. He asked about it as a courtesy to me and to make conversation. I talked about some EVP work I had been doing and some troubling questions that arose from it as a result.

I had recorded EVP’s of people who grew up in a close knit community during a very religious time in the history of our country. It occurred to me that these people believed in all of the writings of the bible and believed wholeheartedly in heaven.

I captured a series of EVP’s of a young woman named Lucy, who had died from typhus. She was a beautiful, deeply religious young woman greatly admired and loved in the community for her generous nature and the people she helped.

Lucy sickened and died at the age of 22, a few days before she was to be married. She was buried on her wedding day. All of the townspeople attended her funeral. She was buried in a plot at the entrance to the cemetery, in a spot more prominent than that of the founders and first settlers of the town.

If there was ever an angel in that town it was Lucy.

Yet, here’s this fantastic and devout person and I’m capturing her EVP answers to my questions more than a hundred-and-fifty-years after her death. My friend knew exactly where I was going with this and what was troubling me.

Dan said, “Why didn’t she go to heaven?”

“That’s what’s bothering me.” I said. “She grew up believing everything the church taught her, but her life energy is still here.”

“Why doesn’t she just go into the light? Why doesn’t she go to heaven I wonder?” Dan asked again.

I then said to my friend, “Dan…what the hell are you doing here?”

With a puzzled look he said, “What do you mean?”

“You’re dead Dan. What are you doing here? Don’t you remember the accident? Why aren’t you in heaven? Why don’t you go to heaven?” I asked.

“Dude, you’re creeping me out.” Dan said.

“See my point?” I said. “Some people die suddenly, or are not ready or don’t believe they’re going to die. They don’t know or understand what’s going on, but delude themselves into believing they are still alive. Asking them to go to heaven is like when I just asked you. How do you ‘GO’ to heaven? They don’t know how to. I don’t think anybody does.”

Dan went quiet and contemplative.

I said, “Your mom may not have been young when she made the transition, but I do know she wanted to live. I was there three years ago – remember?”

Dan just nodded. I then said, “Her life energy and love of life was strong. Would you be willing to go to your mother’s home to see if I could capture her voice on my recorder? The chances we’ll get anything at all are very slim, but would you be willing to try it?”

Dan straightened in his seat; his eyes were large and searching. Dan was very close to his mother. He began to nod with the possibility of hearing his mother’s voice again. That he might actually be able to talk to her and she talk back to him. Then his eyes dulled and shifted away from mine. “No, I don’t think so. I like to think my mom is in heaven and not stuck here in some sort of limbo. No, she isn’t here. She is in heaven.”

The conversation pretty much ended after that.

Even though he had a momentary glimmer of hope that he might speak to his mother again, Dan went back to what he had learned in the church and decided to remain comfortable in the belief his mother was safe and happy in heaven.

I can’t blame him – to believe otherwise would have been unbearable for him.

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