When I was an adolescent, my mom bought this contraption which clipped onto the side of our ironing board.  One interesting feature of this thing was that the very bottom of it was a plug, attached to a long extension cord, which was then plugged into the wall.  One could plug and unplug the iron without having to bend over and try to reach the wall outlet.

One day I was not paying close attention when I plugged in the iron, and, when I was done, reached to unplug the iron without looking.  I had not, however, pushed the entire length of the plug into the extension cord.  My fingers came into  brief contact with metal which was still a bit exposed.

The jolt of electricity that suddenly and unexpectedly ran through my fingers and up into my wrist instantly got my attention.  I had never paid attention to the reality of the power lurking right at the edge of the plug, but I promise you that my encounter forever changed how I approached the simple procedure of plugging something in.  To this day, at age sixty, whenever I plug in anything, I make sure that it is fully plugged in.  An electric shock will do that to you.

I haven’t been on this blog site for quite some time because my father, whose views on fundamentalism I was beginning to critique, spent the last three years of his life battling one medical crisis after another.  He simply was worn out, at the age of 87, when he passed on.  His dying process was such a peaceful death, with a radiant smile on his face to the end, obvious (to me, anyway) that he was already communing with the other side. It had a profound effect on me.  Shortly after he died, I read Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

My soul felt as if it had inadvertently touched some great source of power.  Everything I had been wrestling with, up to the day before my dad’s death, looked suddenly different. Scripture suddenly became more alive, lyrics to the songs in church meant more, and the Lord’s Prayer was more intensely sacred.

I experienced a spiritual shock, and I want to digest that here along with a continuation of my story.  I am not a good writer, but I am so transformed by what I discovered recently that I want to put it down into words.  I don’t know if it will help anyone or not, but it will be a record of what is an awakening.