Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
Better, in fact, than he had ever felt before

Better, in fact, than he had ever felt before

Last updated on: May 29, 2022 at 3:52 pm by Dan Peterson

Better, in fact, than he had ever felt before 2022-05-29T15:52:46-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We docked today a little past this bridge in Lisbon. It was built between 1960 and 1966 by the same firm that, much earlier, built the Golden Gate Bridge at the mouth of San Francisco Bay. I think that I don’t need to point out the similarity between the two structures.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

***

Episode Six in the Interpreter Foundation’s series of short video “reels” that are connected with its larger Witnesses film project has gone up. It is entitled “Sidney Rigdon and the Witnesses.” We invite you to watch it, to share it, and to subscribe to the Interpreter Foundation’s YouTube channel.

***

I’m a very enthusiastic admirer of the writing and thinking of David French, and this article has done absolutely nothing to dampen my enthusiasm:

“A Commitment to Kindness Does Not Mean Surrendering Your Convictions: What civility is and is not.”

I can’t listen to this where I’m currently located, but it sounds quite interesting. If anybody out there does listen to it, I wouldn’t mind hearing a report:

“Social Media Is Making America Stupid”

***

I’ve run across some really good comments on travel over the years. Here are five of them — three of which come from Mark Twain, who traveled a great deal by our standards — to say nothing of the standards of his day.

“All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” (Samuel Johnson)

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” (Mark Twain)

“Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.” (William James)

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness” (Mark Twain)

***

Many years ago, there was a period when my speaking engagements on behalf of the old FARMS — the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, predecessor to the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and, organizationally, to BYU’s new-direction Maxwell Institute — got a bit out of hand. I was being sent out at least once a month, often to one of the coasts and, once or twice, first to one coast and then immediately, on the same weekend, to the other coast, to speak to sometimes rather small groups. It was wreaking havoc with my family and with my personal academic work.

On one such occasion, the father of the woman who had organized a fireside in a middle-sized eastern city at which I was to speak picked me up at the local airport. As it happened, she wasn’t even in town. I can’t recall the reason, but she had been obliged to go out of town at the last minute. Moreover, the fireside had received virtually no publicity (and only about thirty people showed up when it happened), and her father plainly resented being obliged to take time to deal with me. (It was right after this trip that I finally put my foot down. I didn’t want to be a prima donna, I said, but I was also tired of flying across the continent sometimes twice a month in order to speak to only politely-interested groups of two or three dozen.)

Anyway, the fellow who fetched me at the airport was distinctly sullen about having to do so as we drove the considerable distance to where I would be staying. It was more than bit uncomfortable. I really hate being the unwelcome guest. But I’ve always remembered that drive quite positively. Why? Because, for some reason or another, the topic of near-death experiences came up. (I can’t for the life of me remember how or why.)

I’ve had one of those, he said. I replied, Tell me about it!

Here’s a paraphrase of his account:

Once, in his late teens, he was driving very late at night along one of the densely forested rural roads in that state. Suddenly, without warning, he was t-boned at an intersection by a truck that had run a stop sign. Almost instantly, he found himself floating a least a hundred feet above the accident, looking down on the two vehicles.

From his vantage point above the tree tops, he soon saw the flashing lights of police cars and an ambulance coming from a distance toward the scene of the accident. He watched as the medics worked on his body, trying to revive him. He tried to tell them not to worry, that he felt perfectly fine — better, in fact, than he could ever remember having felt before. But he couldn’t make himself seen or heard. Then, without warning, he felt himself reenter his body and, he recalled, “it hurt like hell.”

That story has stayed with me for all the interveningyears. It’s astonishing how often, when the subject of near-death experiences comes up, someone in the group will say that she or somebody close to her has had one.

Anyway, with that as a lengthy preface, you’ll readily understand why this story, which I came across long after that trip, struck me when I read it:

A young man lost control of his car during an evening snow storm. He crashed and left his body as icy-cold water began to flow into the vehicle he had been driving.

I saw the ambulance coming, and I saw the people trying to help me, get me out of the car and to the hospital. At that time I was no longer in my body. I had left my body. I was probably a hundred or two hundred feet up and to the south of the accident, and I felt the warmth and the kindness of the people trying to help me.(Reported in Nancy Evans Bush, Dancing Past the Dark: Distressing Near-Death Experiences [n.p.: Nancy Evans Bush, 2012].)

Posted from the Atlantic Ocean, between Lisbon and Porto

Uncategorized

Book of Mormon

Book of Mormon Witnesses

near-death experience

near-death experiences

OBE

OBEs

out of body experience

out-of-body experiences

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon

Previous Post

May 28, 2022

A brief stop in Andalusia

Next Post

May 30, 2022 "A purely defensive war only ever ends one way"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Jesus Peter Paul John the Baptist