LESSON EIGHT: “Remember, It’s Always Your Choice”

This is where Brad hangs out every morning. Yes he brings his own sign.

Just tell the whole story about Agnes* and Kevin* …just begin and I will bring it all to mind.

* (not their “real” names)

Ryan and I finished a phone conversation moments ago …I told him I didn’t know what LESSON EIGHT was going to contain just yet, but I knew that the two different stories we had just told each other would probably be a major contribution to it. The true stories we exchanged were precipitated by us both realizing we were being led in different directions related to an issue and the reason why the answers we received from SPIRIT about a seemingly different issue were not the same either. Ryan and I tend to be quite comfortable about the fact that while we are drawn together and closely associated, we are often led to look at things differently and process things differently.

People who write to us for spiritual insight are sometimes surprised by what seems to be two different approaches to the same challenge. On closer analysis, it isn’t all that different. We both usually have a “so what” attitude toward our differences. Yesterday, however, Ryan wanted to understand and so broke through with SPIRIT to a point of clarity …and was almost sorry he made the inquiry – he was instructed clearly that he neither needed to know nor did he probably want to know. It had to do with his future as opposed to mine. He could choose to change his future, if he wants to, but I doubt, at least for now, that he has any desire to make that choice. That’s my perception (and, therefore, it could be incorrect) of what I received when I just asked and was told to tell the whole story including the foregoing “prelude.”

Ryan and I changed the subject to the stories about “Kevin and Agnes.”

“Kevin” is a close friend and a past business associate of Ryan’s whom I have met. I asked Ryan during, our phone conversation just moments ago, “What is Kevin’s spiritual orientation?”

Not everyone is comfortable with this type of visit.

“Actually,” Ryan replied, “it is not all that different from ours. In fact, I am about as comfortable talking about spiritual things with Kevin as anyone I know. Kevin wants nothing to do with organized Christianity or, for that matter, any religious belief system, but he certainly believes there is a parallel, ongoing spiritual realm that is in the present and he certainly believes in Jesus.”

The reason I had asked the question was that Ryan had recounted several instances during which Kevin had said he had visits from individuals who had “passed on.” One of these visitations was a rather vivid account of a member of a Canadian Indian Tribe who had committed suicide and who told Kevin during this visitation that killing himself had caused him to have to “start all over again” and, therefore, a choice that had no merit.

As a rule, I avoid conversations revolving around “reincarnation” because of the controversy that surrounds it. Having to “start over again” smacked of “reincarnation” to me. I am aware of just about every argument both pro and con about the concept – and, to me, the arguments are all irrelevant and all miss the point. When somebody asks me if I believe in reincarnation, I generally respond: “What difference does it make what I believe? …that won’t change your or my reality” – and leave it at that. But Ryan’s recounting of his memory of a conversation with Kevin triggered a memory in me and this about “Agnes,” the mother of a businessman whom Ryan had also known fairly well back in the late 1990s. I have never told the story before to anyone except the referenced businessman and, of course, now Ryan.

“John” was a business consulting client and close friend; he called me and asked if I would visit his dying mother who was in a hospital near Olympia, Washington. about a two and a half hour drive from where I lived at the time. He told me that he knew she could be healed and that she really respected me, so he felt she would be open to a visit.

When I arrived she was strapped into a bed and there was a railing that was raised alongside the exposed side that was away from the wall. She appeared to be asleep. I reached down and touched her shoulder. Her eyes flickered open and she immediately recognized me, smiled and spoke my name.

I quietly prayed, asking what I was supposed to say and, as soon as I heard it in my mind, I immediately repeated it: “Agnes, it isn’t time for you to die, let’s get up and take a walk.”

At first she told me that the doctors had said she shouldn’t try to get up anymore. When I asked her why, she told me that she was dying. I asked her if that was what she wanted …she just kind of shrugged and said that’s what the doctors had told her. She went on to tell me that they bathed her, turned her regularly and brought the bedpan whenever she requested it and the people from Hospice had already begun counseling sessions to prepare her.

I asked, “Wouldn’t you rather live?” To which she answered, a hesitant, “well the doctors say that my condition is incurable and that I am going to die.” I repeated the question a few times and she finally answered in the affirmative that she, indeed, preferred to go on living.

“Shall we take a walk then?” She immediately began fussing with the straps until she successfully had them unbuckled and sat up; lowered the side, swung around and put her feet down and I remember put on her slippers (which thinking back now seems strange that they were so close, since they had practically ordered not to get out of bed) and off we strolled with her hand on my arm. Just outside the ward, in the hallway, a nurse, greeted Agnes and me with a big smile.

“What’s going on here?” She asked in a very friendly manner.

“Agnes decided to take a walk with me I told her affably.

“That’s wonderful, she hasn’t been out of that bed for two weeks, so go easy on her,” she said with a laugh, then added, “How does it feel Agnes?” to which Agnes said, “very good” and the nurse continued on her way saying no more.

“This beats dying, doesn’t it?” I asked.

Before Agnes could answer, a short man, with a round face, wearing rimless glasses, dressed in a rumpled brown tweed suit, starched white shirt and tie stood directly in front of us. “Excuse me, I’m Mr. Carroll, the administrator here, may I ask who you are?”

I introduced myself and offered my hand, which he ignored, and asked if I had permission from “Mrs. Moore’s doctor to be walking her?”

“No, I just asked her if she wanted to go for a walk and she did. Her son asked me to look in on her, “is there a problem?” I asked.

“The doctors have left strict orders that she must stay in bed, she has only days at best to live.”

“Well, if they’ve already determined that, it shouldn’t do much harm for her to be up and around for a little walk, should it?”

“I’m sorry, but the liability is too great, my responsibility is to follow medical orders.” He said this with a determined look on his face and his arms folded in front of him.

A strange thing came over Agnes; she looked up at me and said, “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“Agnes,” I responded as gently as I could, “Your son wants you to go back home and I’ve already talked to your other son and his wife who will stay with you. Wouldn’t you rather go back home?”

“Well, yes,” she said hesitantly, “but I don’t want to cause any trouble, just take me back to the bed.”

“Is that what you really want Agnes? I can’t do anything unless you give me some help here.”

She repeated that she didn’t want to cause any trouble. We walked back to her bed and I stood by as she climbed into it, feeling helpless knowing that she was signing her own death warrant. She smiled and thanked me for visiting her and that it had been a nice walk.

At that moment my client’s brother walked in with big smile – with a “hi, mom” and a nod to me… “I see he’s got you sitting up,” he said to her.

“We’ve actually been for a walk,” I told him,” but they made her come back to bed.” He was visibly shaken by the news, in a very positive way – and I shared with him, the interaction with the administrator trying not to show any of the frustration I was feeling. I told them that I’d leave them so they could visit …and he asked Agnes if he could come right back that he wanted to speak with me for a minute.

As soon as we had gone out the large glass doors to leave the hospital lobby and start down the stairs, he exclaimed, “What the hell happened? You’re telling me mom was healed and that they stopped her from walking?”

“Harold, she made the choice, so as to be polite and not cause any trouble. It is like a spirit of death took over. I know that you and your wife are willing to have her live with you, there isn’t any resistance to that from you guys is there?”

He assured me that there wasn’t and wanted to go in and demand her release. I told him that his mother needed to agree …that I didn’t understand it all, but that she made a choice – I exclaimed, “You should have seen her walking! Just as spry as I remember when I visited three or four years ago” – Agnes was in her seventies.

Harold told me, emphatically, that he didn’t need to see her walk – just sitting there with all the color back in her face he knew she’d been healed. I told him that she needed to reverse her decision and that he needed to get her agreement so that he had legal authority to leave. “She’s being polite with the enemy and it isn’t the doctors or the administrator, do you understand what I mean?”

“ I think so, what shall I do?” he asked almost sounding desperate.

I responded frankly that I didn’t know …I told him that I hadn’t done anything …that I had just prayed for direction and told him what I had been given to tell her, that is, that it wasn’t her time to die and that she had almost flown out of bed. He asked me if I could stay in town for a day or two. I told him that they didn’t need me, that all he needed was for her to make a decision …that this was somehow a legal decision and he had the authority to deal with it and his mother needed to make the choice. I told him I’d wait in my car and pointed to it, while he visited with her; and that I was in no hurry to leave.

I waited there in the car alone for about forty-five minutes – I was praying for her and heard clearly that she had made the decision to accept the decree of the physician and she would have to “start all over again.” I was startled by the thought because at the time I wouldn’t even consider the concept of “reincarnation.”

I was struggling with my thoughts when Harold opened the passenger door and got in and sat down with a big sigh. “I don’t believe this,” he said, “she just lays there and keeps saying she doesn’t want to cause any trouble. I argued with her and pointed out that she had already been walking and that you had told her that it wasn’t her time to die …and she just kept repeating that she didn’t want to cause any trouble. I called her doctor and left a message with his receptionist that I wanted to see him as soon as possible. When I first walked back in there, a nurse said, ‘Mr. Moore, did you hear about your mother? She was up walking around with some man about an hour ago, isn’t that exciting?’ – is this crazy or is this crazy? – It seems like she has just given up and there’s nothing I can do.”

I remember that I didn’t say anything, knowing that it was the truth. That the spirit, who was the “real” Agnes, would have to start all over again …I had forgotten all about this incident until this morning during my conversation with Ryan.

I asked, just now, what I am supposed to do with this . . .

“Remember, it is always your choice, your lesson for today to share so that they don’t give their responsibility for LIFE away to others.”

…and that’s that for today

b

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