Last night while on the train home from school I finished the book Return From Tomorrow by George Ritchie and Elizabeth Sherrill. Here is the synopsis of the book:
George leaves his body and sees it lying in his bed. He is not aware the dead body in his bed is his. Wanting eagerly to travel to Richmond, Virginia to start college, he finds himself flying in the air toward a city. He is not sure how he acquired these strange powers of flight and transparency.
He arrives at a city and discovers he has lost his solidness. He flies back to the hospital and sees his lifeless body in the morgue and realizes he has died.
Suddenly, Jesus appears emitting a tremendous light and love. George's entire life appears before him. Jesus asks, "What have you done with your life?" He realizes Jesus is not judging him, but he is judging himself.
Jesus gives him a tour of four different dimensions in the afterlife. They both fly toward a large city on Earth where they notice a group of assembly-line workers at work. He witnesses the spirit of a woman trying desperately to obtain a cigarette from the workers who are oblivious to her presence. This woman died severely addicted to cigarettes.
In a house, Jesus shows him the spirit of a boy following a living teenage girl and begging for forgiveness while the girl is completely unaware of the boy's presence. Jesus tells George that the boy committed suicide and is "chained to every consequence of his act."
Jesus shows George a bar filled with sailors who are heavily drinking. Spirits try desperately and in vain to get a drink or to control the sailors' alcoholic behavior. These spirits are from humans who die severely alcoholic. He is horrified as he observes a drunken sailor pass out and an alcoholic spirit jump into the body of the sailor.
Jesus takes him to a new dimension away from Earth and shows him a kind of "receiving station" where spirits would arrive in a deep hypnotic sleep because of their beliefs. These are spirits who believe they must sleep after death until Jesus returns.
Jesus shows him a dimension where angry spirits are locked in hand-to-hand combat, trying in vain to hurt each other. He hears verbal abuse going on. He observes some trying in vain to get sexual gratification from each other. He also sees spirits arguing over some religious or political point and trying to kill the ones who did not agree with them. Here, he realizes he is seeing hell. These are spirits who are locked into some earthly desire that went beyond the physical and which cannot be satisfied in the spirit.
He is then taken to a different dimension appearing like an enormous university. Here he observes people dressed as monks engaged in some form of artistic behavior or research. He is taken into an enormous library where all the important books of the universe are assembled. He asks Jesus if this is heaven. He replies that these are the people who grew beyond selfish desires while on Earth. George realizes these people cannot see Jesus, just as the others could not see him in hell.
Jesus takes him into outer space toward a distant city made of brilliant light of a similar description to the city in the Book of Revelation. He speculates this is the place where people go who have become Christ-like while on Earth. Here, love was the dominant focus of life. He realizes he is seeing heaven, but he is not allowed to go in. Jesus then shows him the future of the Earth. He then returns to his physical body.
"Death is nothing more than a doorway, something you walk through." - Dr. George Ritchie
First let me say that I'm not a huge fan of reading books about people and their beliefs and experiences with God I find them to be cheesy and not quite inline with who and what I believe god to be. Obtaining this book was a mistake I was looking through the free books on my kindle and I read the short about this one and figured why not so I clicked it and it started to download. I looked later and noticed that it in fact was not free, and so I figured if I paid for it I might was well read it and so I did. Boy, I'm glad I did. It just made me realize that our priorities here on this earth are sometimes skewed. People get caught up in material needs and let what's really important like love and compassion for one another take a seat on the back burner.
While leaving the platform to walk to my car, a gentleman who I would say was about my age if not a year or two older was waiting for a bus. Me being in a good mood and just having finished this book made eye contact with him and smiled which got a reaction I did not expect. He proceeded to smile back and then asked me if he could ask me a quick question. I said of course, thinking that he would be asking something about when the bus was coming or where it goes. He ended up asking however "That smile you just gave me.... what was that about? Is it the cigarette I have in my hand or the way I am dressed or what...?" I was caught off guard and said the first thing that came to mind "It's been a good day, I'm happy and why not smile?" He chuckled and said "I guess that's reason enough. and Thank you."
This little experience made me realize that a simple smile shared with someone can make a change in their day.
I've made it a personal goal to smile at everyone I meet in passing and love as many people as I can unconditionally. The second one is going to be a toughy because I've grown up thinking that in order for you to love someone they have to earn your love or prove that they are worthy of it. This book made me think if God treated me that way, I would never be good enough. But the god I believe in loves everyone for who they are blemishes and all and I'm going to try to do the same to make this world a little more heaven like and enjoyable to be a part of.
