The Rapture Occurred

On Saturday, May 21, I had the most powerful and meaningful experience of my life. I witnessed The Rapture, and it was not at all what anyone fully imagined it would be.

Over the last several years, I have spiritually grown immensely. I learned to love and humbly respect all others more and more. My perception of others and Nature as separate from myself increasingly diminished.

However, something was still incomplete. William Blake said, “If the doors of perception are cleansed, all things appear as they are, infinite and holy.” I was still clinging to a dirty separatist perception within the World of Twoness. I still felt partially disconnected and disrespectful to those I saw as ignorant of truth.

The great psychologist Carl Jung powerfully established the very important institution of synchronicity. Underlying all events and words is a divine synchronistic order that transcends the superficial, literal meanings, and interconnections among everything are not mere coincidences.

Learning to seek the underlying truth in past and current words and experiences is perhaps one of the most important activities a human can engage in. Doing so empowers one prophetically. Prophecy is not the rare thing most envision, but simply imagination and intuition. The more powerfully one develops these senses, the more accurately one can read current and future experiences.

Leading up to my experience of The Rapture was a very long, if not infinite, line of synchronicities. However, for the purpose of brevity I must summarize.

The week prior to The Rapture, I met a new friend who radically confronted my worldview. I still believed that people like me had a monopoly on Truth, and that fundamentalist Christians et alii were extremely ignorant about most things spiritual and political. He helped destroy this last vestige of separatist thinking by convincingly arguing that everyone holds truth and an equally meaningful perception of reality.

After he told me this, I was still not fully convinced until The Rapture. The day before The Rapture, I discovered the woman I was very interested in did not reciprocate my feelings, so I synchronistically chose to go canoeing with one of my best friends on the day of The Rapture.

On our way to the Buffalo River, I chose not to call the shuttle service, so when we arrived, we were surprised that the river was at flood stage and too dangerous to float. Instead, we hiked to Hemmed-In Hollow Falls with considerable disappointment.

When we arrived, a Christian bus was parked at the trailhead. We then began hiking down toward the river, and on our way down we saw a Rapture far different than anyone could have imagined.

We discovered a dozen expensive hiking backpacks loaded with gear, probably all worth nearly $2,000. We were very surprised that the group of Christians would just leave this gear. All kinds of fantastical and exciting ideas about The Rapture entered our minds, and I began yelling at the top of my lungs for the Christians.

We waited for at least thirty minutes discussing this discovery. My friend was operating with more thought-brain and believed they had just wandered off somewhere. However, I was operating more with my imaginative heart-brain. I began powerfully envisioning a literal Rapture of those I considered ignorant to another dimension of existence.

I wondered if fundamentalists, corrupt political leaders and even drug war-enforcing police may have truly disappeared, leaving Earth to those like me that deeply love Nature and desire world peace. I thought Heaven on Earth may have dawned.

On the other hand, the fundamentalists that were hoping for a literal Rapture envisioned themselves leaving to Heaven, while all the “sinners” like me are left to burn in hellfire. It turns out all literal separatist perspectives were partial truths that together revealed deeper Truth.

The Christians eventually appeared synchronistically right as we left the scene of the metaphorical Rapture. I humbly corrected my evaluation of the experience, and immediately changed course to the much deeper Truth, which became the most earth-shattering shift in my perspective ever. All that my friend John had said made complete sense, and I was humbly forced to admit my wrongness.

I immediately saw how both my literal interpretation of the Rapture and the Christian interpretation were only partial, separatist truth, but together our truth fit like a puzzle into the deeper actual Truth. Neither party was correct about a physical transition to another dimension, but both were right that the Rapture happened. However, what the Rapture actually ended up being was far different than our visions.

Apocalypse from the Greek word apokalypsis means “lifting of the veil,” “revelation,” or a revealing of something that is hidden from humankind as a whole in an age dominated by misconceptions. This is the kind of apocalypse that happened.

The Rapture revealed to me the deep value that all humans and experiences entail. I saw that the raptured Christians held truth that I did not fully grasp. By leaving their material possessions behind in such an extraordinary way, they demonstrated more faith and trust in their fellow brothers than I had. Many people like me still lack that deep faith to worry less about locking doors, and clinging less to materialistic objects. Likewise, I am sure they could learn a lot from the partial truth I hold.

Carl Jung also said, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” I believe this is very true, and that just as George W. Bush has been my most powerful teacher, fundamentalist Christians can teach people like me a great deal, and vice versa.

Only by humbly respecting the reality of all others can we see the full puzzle and Truth that underlies All. I used to think enlightenment was a continuum, and one could become more enlightened every day, and I think this is still partially true. However, I now experienced the light switch moment where I fully see ever expanding Truth and the world as a complete Unity. This moment turned out to not be something that difficult, but a simple “duh”. Enlightenment, duh!

First Corinthians states, “Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail…For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” This quote now makes perfect sense.

From now on I will work to give far more respect to everyone, and become a far better listener. I am now convinced that every word and action from every person includes divine synchronistic poetry below the surface. However, to sense this poetry and Truth we must develop immense imagination, humility, love, respect and intuition.

I feel that with this new found enlightenment came greater Oneness, inner peace and fuller grace in the moment. I now believe I will intuitively know when is the right moment to think, speak and quietly listen.