I think I know experientially what St. Paul means when he talks about being "snatched away" into "Paradise."
I have been "snatched away" only once. I had just come out of dream sleep, and was flat on my back in bed, mind alert. I tried to take a breath but was unable to move. My body was still in the paralysis of sleep. That sort of thing had happened before, and I had learned to wait, trusting that my breath would soon resume. But that night as I lay waiting something happened that had never happened before, and that has not happened since.
Paul uses the word "harpazo," a word use in the greek translation of the hebrew scriptures to describe what thieves do: they steal things by force, against the will of their owners.
It seemed my body was being, suddenly and by force, snatched away, levitated up from the bed. It was the most terrifying thing ever, sheer distilled hellish terror. Reflexively, I tried to flail my arms and sit up, but nothing happened. Seeing that I was powerless to fight back, I surrendered, and with that surrender, the hellish terror turned instantly into a thrilling heavenly bliss. I still felt like I was in my body and that my body was seemingly being carried away. It seemed very final, like the end of my days on earth, and I wanted to say some parting words to my wife who was in bed beside me, and increasingly, it seemed below me. I tried to call out to her, but no sound came from my mouth. All that happened was that my jaw went slack and when I felt my jaw go slack, it seemed that a separation took place between me and my body.
Paul described the process of being snatched away to the heaven in these words: "In the body? I do not know. Out of the body? I do not know." That sequence describes what happened to me. There was a feeling of being snatched away in the body followed by a sense of being separated out of the body, and in both phases there was an "I do not know" thought. It was all so sudden and unexpected and strange that I was unable to asses what was really going on. I could not feel anything outwardly against my skin. I noticed that there was no sense of blankets holding back the ascent of my body. I might have attempted to open my eyes early on when I was trying to sit up and flail. I am not sure. But in any case, I saw nothing with my outward physical sense of vision. So there was a clear "I do not know" thought, but after I surrendered, this not knowing was in no way a worry. I had never been so worry free before.
The in the body, out of the body ascent took only a few seconds maybe, and then I went from being completely alert and observant and blissful to blanking out. Looking back, it was sort of like a deep sleep, but with no groggy phases going into it or coming out. When I came out of that heavenly deep sleep I was back in bed breathing naturally completely awake. In that first moment of return to the body there was a perplexity about where I had come from. I remembered the sense of going up into the air, but there was no sense of having come down. I just woke up in my body. Had I been somehow in my body the whole time? It was obviously the same body, in the same bed as before the heavenly ascent. Or had I been somehow up in the air without any body?
This perplexity about where I had been during the heavenly deep sleep mirrors what Paul says about being snatched away into Paradise. I was obviously "in the body," the same body as before. But there where had I been a moment before: "In the body, or without any body? I do not know." If you have ever awakened in an unexpected place and taken a moment to reorient, that is what it is like. You ask: Where am I? In that first moment awakening out of heavenly deep sleep, I was not prepared to be in my body or in bed or on earth.
There is much that Paul leaves unsaid. Obviously, the "I do not know" phases were preceeded by and followed by being "in the body" and knowing it.
What sort of body awareness preceded? What kind of body awareness came afterward?
ReplyDeletePaul's words in an earlier letter describe it well. Before the ascent the "image of the man of dust" was imprinted on me. I was horrified by the unveiling of the perishable nature of my flesh and blood body. The metaphor if the seed was too hopeful. If my body was seed-like, it was like an infertile seed. It was not normal, and all I wanted was too get back to normal. That is why I tried to breathe. I thought it would bring my body awareness back to normal.
In Paul's language, it was a "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" awareness -- naked awareness of frail, inglorious perishability.
And what came afterwards?
ReplyDeleteIt was paradise on earth insofar as my body awareness was concerned. My natural body was clothed in heavenly shining, and lightness of air, and clarity, and in that moment, I felt no desire. In Paul's language: my body was "changed:" the perishable body had put on imperishabliity, the mortal body had put on immortality.
Gradually, I returned to a more ordinary body awareness. But the sting of death.
What happened in the middle?
ReplyDeletePaul compares heavenly bodies sun, moon and stars, to earthly bodies. This became clear to me. My first sense of being lifted up was my first sense of a heavenly body. that first body was the sun. Then came the moon. Then came the darkness. These are the first second and third heavens. The metaphor of becoming a star really fit: the first thing I experienced upon coming out of heavenly deep sleep was a falling star. and then as my body morphed into awareness, it was like my body was made of sparks. this was the god-given body.
how does that relate to Paul's man from heaven and man from dust?
ReplyDeletePaul says that we ave will bear the image of the man from heaven. When he says "I know a man in Christ snatcheperishable was cloaked in the inperishable, d away to heaven" he is talking about an image imprinted on his inner being. He does not consider it his own property. It is a gift from above. that his why he speaks in third person. It is his knowledge of another, but it is intimate knowledge.
Paul know that those who are perishing can see only perishability.