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Berserk
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DATES WITH DESTINY
We've been discussing whether any of our life experiences are divinely scripted. I want to share 3 experiences that bolster my conviction that at least some key events are predestined.
This date with destiny arrived at an anxious period of my life. I was in my last year of Princeton Seminary's MDiv program. I had recently changed my plans and now wanted admittance to the Harvard doctoral program in Scripture and Judaism. But I lacked the requisite specialized courses and two of my friends' applications to this program had been rejected. I was assured that I had no chance either. But what would I do then?
One night [yet another] Roger came to my dorm room. Roger and I had taken a class together and had once had lunch with a group of guys in the cafeteria. Beyond this, I didn't know if he cared whether I lived or died. Yet that night he came enveloped in an atmospere of PUL. [Both Roger and I are straight guys!] He knew I was anxious about my Harvard application. He told me that he had been praying for me and had received assurance that I'd be accepted. I normally experience such pious assurances as well-intentioned wishful thinking. But this was different: in the presence of that PUL Roger's assurance became my own. I thanked him, but to this day Roger has no idea how grateful I am for his prayers.
Shortly thereafter, I had a date with destiny tinged with intrigue and synchronicity. Ann was my friend John's girlfriend--or so I assumed. I liked her. She had been a source of comfort after news of a friend's untimely death. But unknown to me, John had just broken off the relationship. Ann seemed to assume that John and I had conversed about the impending break-up, but we had not. An anonymous caller had told her that she was unstable and unfit for seminary. Evidently the caller sounded just like me. To my horror, she stormed over to my room and angrily accused me of making this call. I was in despair. How does one defend oneself against such a false charge?
In the heat of her harangue, the pay phone rang in the hall. It was for me. It was the Harvard professor who controlled the Dead Sea Scrolls. He called to tell me I'd been accepted into Harvard's doctoral program with a nice scholarship. How awesome was the shift in my emotional state from despair to a powerful sense of God's loving and vindicating presence! When I returned to my room, Ann angrily asked, "Who was that?" When I told her, she was stunned and her expression became uncertain. During the ensuing awkward pause, she suddenly asked, "Are you all right?" I said, "Sure, why?" She replied, "Just look at your pants!" Blood was gushing from the palm of my right hand and covering my pants. Now I'm not Catholic, and so, have never believed in the stigmata (the bleeding hands of Jesus, first experienced by St. Francis). But Ann evidently did. She saw the timing of my Harvard acceptance and my stigmatic experience as signs of my innocence and sheepishly excused herself. This left me wondering what might have caused such bleeding. I went to my door to see if I might have cut my hand when I opened it, but was never able to come up with a satisfactory explanation. This whole episode overwhelmingly confirmed for me that God's script for my life at least included doctoral studies in early Christianity and Judaism.
(2) My parents and younger brother D (age 18) helped me move to Cambridge. D was happy for me, but sad about his own life. He worked hard, but his high school grades were mediocre. After they dropped me off, my Dad and D went on a bus tour of New York City. D was deeply moved by all the derelicts and homeless people he saw in the streets. Just then, he received his call to be a doctor.
When he returned home, he went to the Med School, announced his new intention, and asked for more information. The admissions officer took one look at his grades and laughed: "Forget it! your grades are low and admissions to Med School are highly competitive." D snapped, "Grades won't be a problem!" False bravado? Hardly. D sailed through the honors microbiology program with straight A+s. I was delirious with joy for him. His date with destiny had suddenly made him a brain.
When D entered Med School, he bought me a Moving Star sapphire ring for Christmas. Because this gift stems from the most transformative period of D's life, it ranks as my most treasured possession. D is currrently practicing medicine in Colorado. I often wonder whether the exorcism he had performed at age 16 was part of his calling to be a healer [On this see my "Agenda" post.].
(3) I've saved my most important life experience for last. I was 16 and well on my way to becoming an agnostic. I was detecting problems with biblical authority and was growing increasingly cynical about the charismatic manifestations I was witnessing in my Pentecostal church. For example, I had experienced the intense ecstasy of speaking in tongues. I knew this experience was potent enough to cure heroine addiction. But I now thought my own experiences of this could be explained naturally as the product of wishful thinking and manipulation.
But I was going to give God one last chance. I went to Manhattan Beach Camp in Western Manitoba. After the evening services, people would tarry at the front and get swept away by ecstasy. But not me! Empty and disillusioned, I went for a long walk in the country. I told God I was at a crossroads. If He wanted my allegiance, He had to bless me in a convincing fashion, almost against my will. I felt that this demand bordered on blasphemy, but I was desperate. That evening, I fasted for the evening meal and put the money reserved for it in the offering plate. As usual, I knelt without emotion at the front after the service. Eventually, everyone left but me. My heart felt like stone. My fists were clenched in my determination not to give way to a contrived experience sparked by my pressing need.
It was then that I was immersed in the most transforming experience of my life. One moment I was defiant and resistant, the next I was swept up in what I can only describe as the "wind" of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2 mentions that the early church's first outpouring of the Spirit was preceded by "a rushing mightly wind," but I had never taken this image seriously. Now I had to!
Seemingly against my will, I was possessed by the Holy Spirit. With each passing moment I was engulfed by wave after wave of liquid love. The intensity of this love increased dramatically with each wave until it became so powerful I feared I might die. I felt as if my ego might at any second be absorbed in the divine mind. It is heart-breaking to even try to describe it. I can only say that the experience of the sweetness and goodness of God's love was over 100 times more powerful than anything I've experienced before or since. The whole episode lasted about a half hour.
Soon spectators started trickling into the deserted amphitheatre and quiety sat down to watch me. I asked one of them why she was there and she said, "Because your face is glowing!" A stoic Lutheran minister approached me to ask if I would lay hands on him. He was visiting out of curiosity and wasn't into this sort of thing. But the instant I touched him it was as if I had electricuted him! He exploded in other tongues and was enveloped by ecstasy. At that moment, if you had brought me a blind person, I would have had no doubt that he would have been healed.
But there is a sobering dark side to this adventure. When it ended, I tried in vain to recreate it in my mind. My memory bank had nothing with which to compare it. The contrast with normal consciousness was depressing. And then there was the disturbing message that the Spirit impressed upon me during the experience. The Spirit told me that my theology was flawed, but it was simply not His way to dictate the truth to me. He said that living the right questions was more important for me than believing any answers. He encouraged me to make it my lifelong quest to probe His mystery. He even gave me the impression that He wanted me to forget about speaking in tongues now and to have the denomination in which I was reared. These messages were not dictated to me. They came in what Robert Monroe would call a rote, a ball of thought that needed to be contemplated and unraveled. This event has defined the course of my life.
After this experience I became clairvoyant in many ways for several years. For example, I often knew when certain people would die. Once when I was about to leave my apartment, an inner voice yelled, "Sit down, you're going to hear about a death that will affect your life." At once the phone rang. It was the chair of my Theology department, saying, "The professor who was supposed to teach the summer grad course in Scripture was just found dead in bed, and you're the only one around who can teach his course. Will you do it?" I gladly accepted this assignment.
On another occasion, I was playing bridge with some Education professors. A colleague, Joe, had just died of cancer and his widow, Elie (another Education professor) was in mourning. After the bridge, I suddenly found myself saying to Paul (the Dean), "Elie has been contacted by Joe and is wondering if her experience is real. Tell her I can assure her that it is indeed real." Curious, Paul contacted Elie and told her what I had said. She confirmed that she and her family had just returned from Pennsylvania. In the car, the family erupted into laughter for the first time since Joe's funeral. Ellie was in the back seat, when she suddenly had a waking vision of Joe from the waist up--laughing. He telepathically communicated to her, "This is the way I want to see you. I'm OK. Don't worry about me." Elie had told no one of this experience. These examples could be multiplied.
Don
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