Religious Odyssey of Ken Wear

How I (Ken Wear) came to my present religious understandings: a personal discussion
composed 1985 and posted with minor revisions July, 2000; footnote added Dec 2004

A preacher friend has commented that one’s life has been imprinted by the lives from which he has sprung. I admit that, as my father before me, I early in manhood questioned the adequacy of the church teachings on which I had been grounded.

It seems an oddity that I did not know of Dad’s religious quest until after his death; he never mentioned it, much less discussed t. The notes he took at meetings he attended were the only clues I had and they did not fall into my hands during his life. The Scopes affair unfolded a few miles north of his Georgia teaching position, and I have no doubt it influenced his acceptance of the Fundamentalism taught in the Sunday Schools of his childhood. At any rate, he questioned conventional wisdom and I in my turn questioned it also.

However his interpretations of religion and scripture may have been colored, Dad saw to it that each of his four children had reasonable exposure to conventional wisdom -- a choice I myself later made. I attended Sunday School sporadically at churches near the various places we called home; in my mid-teens I made a public profession, was baptized, and was accepted into the fellowship of a Southern Baptist church.

In my later teens I had not only become regular in attendance, but (possibly because my older brother was now a student minister) I became active by teaching a Sunday School class myself (10-year-old boys). I also helped organize and then operated our church library (since I had been heavily involved in my high school library), and in general tried to give substance to the commitment that is supposed to be part of the faith. All was well in my life.

Like most professing Christians I had not thought there might be more to my Walk With God than I had already undertaken. But one day as I was riding the bus homeward after work I fell into contemplation. I had for some time wondered about this doctrine of Predestination wherein our every act and word in the minutest detail had been exhaustively mapped out for us by the authorities in the spirit world, that we are actors performing the roles written for us by ????. It came to me that, in spite of the teachings of the Apostle Paul, I am the master of my own destiny. And I had an encounter with God on the bus that day, an encounter wherein I vowed, ever in search for His guidance, to be of value to my fellowman throughout my life in whatever roles became available to me, teachings of the church notwithstanding, even to the extent of forfeiting the promised niche in Heaven.1 (To view footnote, click here.)

My life did not change suddenly or drastically, but I became owner of an assurance that followed me thereafter. Opportunities of service have not always been obvious, but I have been led on a journey of intellectual inquiry that has brought me today to a moderately steadfast statement of belief in many areas of religious life and a compatibility of science with religion that is wholly adequate to my limited mind.

I had had discussions with our preacher about doctrinal issues and been quite content to learn what the faith taught -- in fact, tried to learn so I could adopt and believe. But that chink in the doctrine of inerrancy opened the door to exercise of my own mind. There was something liberating in recognizing I could compare conflicting teachings and select what seemed most compatible with my own mind-set, that I could reach for truth on my own. I was thus prepared to study the teachings of science in college and fashion an understanding that allowed compatibility of science and religion.2 (To view footnote, click here.)

For one thing, my early questions about how the scripture came into being have been adequately answered: God did not grasp the pen and write, nor did He manipulate the fingers of His authors in violation of their own volition or free will; instead we see devout men sincerely seeking to do the divine will, writing from their own experiences in their own vocabulary and style. We must see each individual as an imperfect instrument of the Perfect Will.

It was not until years later that I came across these verses from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

Oh Thou, Who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with predestined evil round
Enmesh me, and then impute my fall to sin.

i.e., don't condemn me for doing what you required of me.

With earth’s first clay they did the last man knead
And there of the last harvest sowed the seed;
And the first morning of creation wrote
What the last dawn of reckoning shall read.

i.e., the end and all between were designed at the beginning.

whose absurd implications fully and irretrievably convinced me of the correctness of my own free will and my ability to bring about change, traditional teachings of the church or the preachings of the most exalted or most lowly of its ministers notwithstanding.

I have since served in nearly every position within the church except preacher. With time the results of my intellectual inquiry led me to depart more and more from officially espoused doctrine, so that eventually I felt, as a matter of intellectual honesty, I must cease to myself proclaim ideas alien to my own understandings. And since I have found few willing to traverse the same path, I have withdrawn from discussions that may damage another’s cherished system of belief. Religion is, after all, a highly our world. These included efforts to remain abreast of scientific advances as well as some fringes of mysticism (including notions of the continuity of consciousness -- sometimes referred to as 'heaven' or the 'afterlife' or, again, as Karma and reincarnation). (I have the utmost respect for the scientific method and the results of scientific inquiry. While my mind is wholly inadequate to embrace the entirety of scientific interests, this web site includes my responses to a number of prevailing interpretations of science.)

There is one other crucial event in my odyssey: a spirit visitation by my mother, dead some 50 years at the time: and it has significantlysolidified a number of views. I report it in some detail because of its strength in persuading me of aspects of the spirit realm and the reluctance of many people to believe in the reality of psychic events (a view I had myself wonderingly held prior to this event).

The visitation unfolded in this way: I sensed a momentary pressure in the center of my head, about midway between my ears, and there immediately followed an expansion of that sensation into verbal and video imagery and then further expanded to a verbal sequence (still in the center brain and not related to the ears). The nature of the message has precluded any other interpretation but that it was what it seemed to be -- a visitation from the realm of those who had departed this life.

The message consisted of three parts, the first being a validation wherein the words "don't feel harshly toward us about . . ." were followed by the unfolding in my mind a sequence of events from early childhood where I was falsely accused of and punished for disagreeable stunts by my older brother, who was the favored child. Events unknown except to me, my brother -- also dead some 35 years -- my mother and possibly my father -- then dead perhaps 15 years. I have been unable to ascertain how else such a chain of thoughts could be induced -- thoughts from my distant past, thoughts that had disappeared from my consciousness -- unless it was indeed a visitation from the spirit realm.

The second part of the message was simply "We love you." Plural. Present tense.

And the third part was related to the trauma of a broken marriage, which was still very unsettling to me.

That visitation served to solidify my view about a spirit realm and the continued cognitive existence of spirits there. I searched for alternate explanations of what I had experienced but that validation proved too powerful to refute. And I have embraced the consequences of inquiry into the context in which such a visitation is possible and was imposed upon me. (Three other experiences that have served to cement my views appear as a footnote.) 3 (To view footnote, click here. .

I am now a Theist -- one who believes that the Master Intellect has been at play, and continues to be active, in our evolving universe, galaxy, star system, planet and life forms. The degree of His recognition of me as an individual I do not know, but I have access to Him through a continuing connection to spirits subservient to Him. This has been my Walk With God.

My Walk With God, while unique to me, has led me through study of the Bible and study of science, into observation and interpretation of the natural world, to exploration of ideas and ideals, to a personal enjoyment of life through love, family, dance, song, excursions, study, and a wide appreciation of nature and people. I can't help thinking how empty, how futile, life would be were the sense of deity absent from my life.

There is an emptiness outside the church because I cannot share ideas with other inquiring minds. But there is also a sense of fulfillment. And a hope that in time others will join me in worship of The Most High, but without the baggage of doctrines that the exercise of reason shows to be incompatible and unsustainable (and perhaps fallacious) doctrines. My experiences within the church assure me there are vast legions of worshipers who question their established theology and would consequently embrace teachings that bring together both what their bodily senses tell them must of necessity be true and their hopes for an adequate and complete view of their religious faith. So I have hope that, in future traverses through a physical life on this planet, there will be fellowships who have examined these truths and found a satisfying unity of the whole.

Should you have an inclination to inquire into the beliefs I currently espouse, you will find various essays at this web site, the contents of which you may access by clicking here.
Or my present understanding of myself in the universe is presented in My Reality, which you may access by clicking here.
My presentation of Rational Theism may be accessed by clicking here.
Should you wish to share a description of your own religious odyssey and your resulting convictions, you may e-mail me using the Subject -- I read your Odyssey -- exactly as you see it here (to pass my spam filter) and click here for the e-mail form.
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Footnote 1:
From the standpoint of a teaching that, after death, we are at once reconstituted in physical form in a perpetual state of bliss (Heaven), which was my understanding of what I heard from the pulpit, this seems a heavy price to pay for seeking and pursuing God's Will. In retrospect that seems a part of my compact with God, but, in the light of my later understanding of the Spirit Realm, it was simply an altered emphasis in my role as a member of the faith.

Incidentally (5-8-07) I have, since that day, had the sense that, as long as I walk with Him, He walks with me.

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Footnote 2:
Paragraph added December 2004.
I have recently begun to refer to a religion that is compatible with science (or a science that is compatible with religion) as Rational Theism. But I will forthrightly proclaim this caveat: Who am I to question the validity of the mystical experience, of the extraordinary communications, or the truth content of the message? I, who claim a visitation from his mother, dead some 50 years at the time? Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son, Isaac, when God provided a ram as a substitute. Moses saw God on Mt. Sinai and received the Ten Commandments. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was visited by the angel Gabriel to announce the supernatural nature of her pregnancy. Jesus proclaimed Himself to be the Son (special representative) of God. Muhammad was visited by an angel (later identified as Gabriel) in the cave north of Mecca. Bab revealed a new Holy Book. Joseph Smith was visited by the angel Monroni, who showed him the plates of gold inscribed with the words of wisdom and provided special glasses to allow translation. There were no witnesses; there was no physical artifact seen by others; we rely on the veracity and motivation of the claimant. As Jesus of Nazareth said, "By their fruits you shall know them."

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Footnote 3 added Oct. 2005
Two other experiences that I now interpret as psychic events:

(1) A recollection from childhood which, for reasons unexplainable, remained within my memory: I had pneumonia at 5 or 6 and I recall looking down from a corner of the room at the ceiling and seeing a small figure abed and a woman bending over that figure in prayer. Years later, upon hearing the concept of out-of-body experiences, I realized what I had observed was seeing myself in that bed with my mother praying. I can adequately describe the house and room: This was New Hampshire in the winter; that room was heated by a wood-burning stove and was, as was common at the time, the only room in the house that was heated (other than incidental heating from the kitchen stove).

(2) My older brother, who was my hero and idol, died prematurely as a young adult when I was about 20. His death was terribly distressing to me (Why?, why?, why?) and my mind was a jumble. But at his funeral, as I rounded a corner in the church's sidewalk, I had the distinct impression of my brother saying to me "In time you will understand." That was immensely soothing and provided the spark that returned my mind to functionality.

(And prior lives) Years ago there was a central location in Atlanta that was headquarters for people of mystic bent. There was offered a course of six sessions on prior life recall -- as it turned out using a relaxation technique rather than hypnosis. (I should point out that, under the relaxation technique, your instructor is your guide and you proceed as directed although what you experience is from what appears to be a prior life; under hypnosis there can be guide-client exchanges so the prior life experience proceeds in keeping with the client's purpose in seeking help of the hypnotist.) Our instructor was our guide for my first prior life experience, which unfolded in this way:

We were led through a darkened tunnel into the light. Upon emerging I saw just ahead and to the left a ladder of light consisting of a central shaft and short projections of light staggered like the spikes in a telephone pole. Our guide instructed us to turn right and to look at our hands and feet and to examine our surroundings. There were age spots on my hands and I was wearing knickers and strange-looking shoes similar to pictures of what the Pilgrims wore. It was a dirt road and led around to the left, where I saw an old house whose thatched roof was sagging on the front corner nearest me. I went in; the house was abandoned long before; it was a two-room house with dirt floor and a beam separating its two rooms. To the right where there should have been a kitchen there was only a structure of wood for food preparation; the other room, apparently a bedroom without windows, was empty. At this point I saw that ladder of light outside the back door and ceased to follow our guide; I went out the door and commenced to ascend and soon found myself in the midst of creatures similar to those depicted in the movie Encounters of the Third Kind. I was soon in an otherwise empty cubicle making a verbal report on my visit, although I have no recollection whatever of the content of my report. About then our guide ended her instruction and we exchanged impressions of our experiences, each marveling at his own experience.

My second prior lives experience was revealing, but in a different way. I awoke abed and looked down to see ham-sized legs and large arms protruding from a bright green coverlet. I went from there into the kitchen, with its huge pots and animals heaped on tables. I was evidently well placed politically, but people kept their distance. My guide asked what learning experience this prior life held, and I answered quickly and easily: "Might as well be king of the dung heap." What a far-reaching statement! I have since relished that response because of the suggestion that, no matter how high or low your estate, life has meaning and your place in it has reason.

My third prior lives experience placed me among American Indians. I have not pursued further experiences. I leave it to you to make of these accountings what you will. I should make the single observation that prior lives recall is in exquisite detail.

In later years I have been able to put these events into a consistent context that logically requires that life in its totality is more complex than a simple Earth-bound evolution-derived animal existence admits.

Comment added 5-8-07: I ran across something written over 35 years ago when I undertook a religiously-oriented newsletter, At Issue, many years before my search for prior lives experiences or the visitation from my dead mother. Let me quote:

Either THERE IS or THERE IS NOT; one must be true, the other can't. I am persuaded there is something beyond death. I am persuaded, not by arguments or proof about the nature of that time or place, but by the nature of the here and now.

If there were no hereafter or eternal reward or afterlife, life here must be likened to a Can of Worms. I remember as a child watching larvae of houseflies in nearly-devoured garbage, each crawling endlessly over, under, and around each other in search of whatever the body required, each mindless of any existence other than its own or any moment beyond the present; I close my eyes and I can still see the nasty mess these creatures knew as life. And how different is man's life on earth, if there be nothing beyond death, from such a Can of Worms.

If there be nothing beyond gratifying one's self, then what purpose to sacrifice unselfishly for family and children, to live by an ethical code that respects other people and their things, to cooperate as a people in furthering common objectives, or to carry out any action that looks to tomorrow or to others for its reward -- what purpose these things that bring meaning and warmth and spiritual peace into our lives?

I sometimes experience rank cynicism when it seems that, incident by incident, to each person truth seems to be whatever most efficiently advances his causes, with recollections and interpretations of events adjusted to that purpose. And I sometimes experience an idealistic surge and recognize that in each of us there is a sense of essential fairness and unfairness, a trained conscience that makes us wince at sharp dealings, feel remorse during the commission of shameless or hurtful acts, or feel guilt for another who fails to give needed aid. And that conscience has roots in something outside ourselves, in something beyond man; it is more than ethic, more than "do unto others . . .," more than its own reward. Rank cynicism notwithstanding, I know that behind his facade of sophisticated selfness each of us has a spark of the Divine, a hope that "It will be worth it all when . . ."

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