Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 47 - The Elysian Fields Part One: Olson

This is Episode 47 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store or at Amazon.

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

The Elysian Fields Part One: Olson

PART III MERCY

I can do all these things in him who strengtheneth me.

-- Philippians 4:13 1

Chapter 1: Heaven and Hell

The stars in the tunnel fell as if burst by the harmony of the angels that rang around me. The music intensified. A dozen groups of a thousand angels each resounded. Then this choir again multiplied by a dozen. The pulling from behind had lifted me. I shot up as fast as a lightning bolt emits down. I rose with those most indescribable sounds of the angels. The earth sped past me. My soul collected within the speed. The Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia were presented before me, cloudless and without boundaries. Then I left it, without remorse. The world was the past for me. I projected to my future. I turned from the earth to look above. The angels sang from above me. There, hundreds of thousands of lights moved to the harmonies of an ancient symphony. The lights danced to form shapes. They spun, and their colors changed. They formed a cathedral of lights, colors, and stars.

As the humming of motion filled me, the lights formed another tunnel to a more beautiful, more peaceful light. I tried to quantify and compare the two lights I had seen, the upward and the downward, but I failed. I focused on this upward light, which I knew I had striven for since my creation.

Soon the inexpressible light enlarged. It became an entire meadow of green-clipped grass and blue flowers, edged by towering oak trees.

“Maybe I’m back in Florida in spring,” I thought. But at the edge of the tall oak tree woods that rimmed the meadow stood a four-story-high ornate white and gold gate. Inside that forest burst upward the light I had seen beyond the stars. This light seemed to be the source of the singing angels’ lights, the cathedral that danced, and my poet guide. It allowed me to see into Maureen. It also illuminated me, my unity of swirling lights. That was the source that held together my knowledge, my mind, and my former desires in a one. At first, without my material body’s connection to the earth, my soul seemed as if it would dissipate into nothingness. But the light and its energy bound my consciousness together. All I retained was gratitude to this light, to the angels that surrounded me, and to those I had loved on earth. The roots of my gratitude were my love and knowledge. My soul, floating in the meadow before the white gate into the forest, consisted only of the love and knowledge my body had retained on earth. I kept all of it, even my forgotten studies from a youth’s education, because I even remembered Dante, the poet I had ignored in high school.

“Welcome, Jonathan, to what many have called the Elysian Fields,” Dante said. He smiled, although he had no mouth as humans would see it.

“Thank you, poet. Is this heaven?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Dante laughed. “Some people die and come here, Jonathan, and they call this heaven. Some return to earth. Those souls seldom venture beyond that gate yet. But you are destined to go across now, for you had imperiled your own preservation in order to see what lies behind it. I do not know whether you will remain or return to your body.”

“Very well. Are all these souls--”

“No, most of us here are permanently dead, as you thought.”

“How did--”

“I anticipate your thoughts, but I apologize.” He laughed. “I must allow you to finish articulating those thoughts, for your own sake.”

“Yes, Dante. Certainly, you have foreseen my thoughts again. If I go back, I must be able to express what I see here to others.”

Dante laughed again. “Yes, Jonathan, of course. You have risked much for them. Now, many of us come to these fields from time to time. But it is difficult to illustrate how we spend our time, even for a poet. The best I can say is that we participate in the Beatific Vision. Also, we spend a lot of time conversing about the mystery of mankind.”

“Still?”

“Oh yes. But all this description of how and where we spend our time is meaningless.” He laughed. “Our concepts of time and place are inexpressible to you.”

“Can you answer the question that has plagued humankind since we first began to think? That is, what is the nature of the universe?”

“Always the first topic asked of us, except by scientists, of course. The answer is simple: The earth is God’s head. Man has lived on God’s head for centuries. And His body is simply resting on the back of a huge horse. The two ride through the stars…”

“To whom do you think you are talking, poet?”

“I am sorry. I love to give those old explanations. Other souls would use them during the Middle Ages when the earth was flat. One time they told Alfred the Great--”

“Please pardon me, poet. I’d like to hear the stories of these ancient dead, but I believe my time here is limited.”

“Right, I am not accustomed to time constraints,” Dante said. “Here is the nature of the universe and God, described with the late-twentieth century perspective. The cosmos has an ultimate building block. It resembles what you might call a string. These are very, very small. No one or no thing will ever perceive them. Not even instruments. They only exist in mathematicians’ heads. The strings vibrate and appear to have density and mass. These vibrations cause the various forces and energies of the universe.”

“How did it begin?”

“Always the follow-up question. The universe was originally ten dimensions, but it was unstable. It cracked in much less than a second into two: one universe of four dimensions and one of six dimensions. The six-dimensional universe is extremely small, if one may describe it in terms of size. It too is imperceptible. The scientists have isolated this event as the Big Bang. You may call it the beginning of the universe, although time was completely irrelevant then. Essentially, the energy and mass level of each of the strings and the entire universe is eternally perilous. That light glowing over those trees set it up and, for our sake, maintains those levels.”

“So, has the universe always existed? Although ‘always’ is an inadequate word, because time was not invoked yet. When it became relevant, after that fateful split-second, the Almighty maintained the energy of the smallest bits of matter. He persists the universe. Each of the tiny strings constitutes the bigger instances of matter and their energies.”

“Yes, that is the twentieth century legend.”

“Did you say that was merely legend? Are those mere words to represent what I cannot comprehend?”

Dante laughed, as always. “Yes. I did that to illustrate. Little of what I said about the nature of the universe is true. Man tries to put God’s creation in human, understandable terms, insufficiently, for the greatness of what God has provided us is too magnificent to contemplate. God created out of nothing, and is totally separate from changing things. So, most explanations fall short.

“Light is a fitting analogy for you, and it also expresses Truth. Yes, as you are thinking, the notion of light as the source of everything conveniently fits human understandings, since living trains us that the sun energizes everything on earth. Everything stems from that divine source, like life stemming from the sun on earth. If one enters a dark room, one has nothing to see and experience. Thus, nothing exists. Metaphorically, without the light in the room, without God in the universe, nothing exists. The more likely theory is that God formed us and the sun to give us that innate ability to experience Himself.

“All souls here discuss this topic, given what we have learned by being here. We also examine some of the discoveries of your scientists on earth.”

“Even you consider the scientists? That’s astonishing. This all must be images inside the Magic Theater, right? I would expect real souls to provide the ultimate Truth.”

Dante boomed with laughter. “Jonathan, you are humorous. Even if we knew the final absolute Truth about this mystery, we could not tell you. If you return to the physical world, no one will believe you or understand you. You would not understand it either, even if you were a scientist or theologian. But be comforted, my young friend: We join you in your lack of full knowledge.”

“Still, Dante, you have illuminated a new world for me. I am grateful.”

“My pleasure. We’re here to explain to you the personal and individual gifts that God provides for everyone, to overcome the fears and temptations of earthly life.”

Suddenly, several flickers of light emerged at my sides and behind the poet. The first light manifested itself. It was my grandfather. “Hello, Jonathan. Welcome.” Others appeared and greeted me: my Aunt Millie, a great-great-grandfather that I had never met, a distant cousin, a duke who was a brother of a direct ancestor, and a friend killed in his childhood by a drunk driver. All these deceased and several others showed themselves. Only the dead appeared. How could a Magic Theater know to produce only those who had died?

They smothered me with their warm love, as if I had safely completed the most dangerous of all journeys, although I had just met with what I thought was the ultimate peril.

“Jonathan, is that you?” It was Daniel Olson. His light was muted, but fierier. “You have served us well.”

“How, Daniel? Why am I here?”

“Do not fret,” Olson said. “Your quest will be clarified for you. I will see you, and we will talk more, one day, perhaps soon, perhaps in many years. I must go now, Jonathan. Pray for me. I will pray for you.” His speck zipped down and away.

All around me, the souls buzzed and glowed. The lights bathed me with their love. Their light was an expression of it.

“Yes, it is, Jonathan,” Dante said with a laugh. “What you thought is true. Our light represents love, and is emitted from our Almighty. God is like the energy within matter, but He is what you call perfect Goodness, that is, holy Love, among humans. Our forms that you see are our unified souls. Our words are the knowledge we grant to each other. The light is His love. It is what men on earth should emit to each other. It unifies all of us souls into individuals. Thus, we souls appear to be glowing.”

“Welcome, my son.”

It was Maureen’s mother. Joy flowed through me even more.

“Mrs. Kelly.”

“Jonathan, I have only a short time with you. Maureen’s sacrifices burst out to the saints, who took her prayers for me and other dead to help cleanse us and bring us here faster. In turn, we delivered worthy prayers to Our Lord, who helped her. And you.”

“Thank you.”

“I must thank you. I’m praying for you to return to life on earth with my daughter, but I don’t know Our Lord’s will. If you do, remember that we will intercede for you all, because life on earth is difficult.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kelly. I’m humbled to meet you.”

She floated away with the winds that whispered through the grass and the oak trees beyond, toward the gold and white gates.

Next week: Episode 48 - The Elysian Fields Part Two: Babies

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