Moving From Victim to Participant an Excerpt from Escaping Christianity - My Journey out of Fundamentalism and into Christ
I have been married for 36 years and have three wonderful sons and five beautiful grandchildren. The events described here happened several years after my departure from church. Following us “out” were my sons, my daughter-in-law and grandkids.
Christian, our middle son was a bit of a wild child growing up, always pressing the envelope of acceptability. He had tattoos, piercings and blond spiked hair back in the day. I remember clearly when he told his father and I that he wanted to enlist in the army. 9/11 had just happened months before and Chris was adamant that this was his destiny. We were proud of him for knowing what he wanted to do with his life and supported his decision reticently.
I guess he thought he was giving me some sort of comfort when he came home from Fort Hood prior to his deployment sporting a new tattoo. He took his shirt off and turned around to reveal a giant robed angel holding a sword on his back. He said, “Don’t worry Momma, while I am over “there” an angel has got my back.”
He had been among the first wavers to enter the theatre of war and had been stationed in Tikrit, Iraq. He was able to use instant messenger to keep in contact with us and we cherished the phone calls we would receive on occasion. He came home on leave after six months in theatre and we had a “Welcome Home, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Years and Happy Birthday” party for him, all the celebrations he would miss over the next 6 months. It was spring 2004 when he finished his 3rd year in the Army and was discharged honorably. He returned home from Iraq without a scratch. He got engaged to Joanna, his girl as life was getting back to normal and he was looking into school or starting a garage door install and repair business in our city.
It was spring of 2005 and life was busy. Lyle, my husband, was enrolled in the Executive MBA Program at Texas A&M University while working as the VP of Sales for Amarr Garage Doors. There was not a lot of free time for the two of us but we managed to juggle life, family work and school. Lyle is a bit of an enigma, very smart, borderline gifted-genius. But emotionally he always seemed a bit behind the curve opting for logic rather than to be “touchy-feeley” as he puts it. He has been very good for me, providing a healthy measure of left brained thought processes to an acutely right-brained female! I had been struggling however with bouts of what I thought was depression. For some reason I would be apprehended by this sense of dread and I remember pleading with God, “Please God, don’t let this happen.” I didn’t know what “this” was, although I recall the sense of impending sorrow and despair. I think the tears that I shed during 2005 would have covered the bottom of a bath tub about 2 inches deep. When the tears came, they would not stop, sometimes for days on end. Lyle would travel, and I would just let them come, feeling that if they did not, I would burst.
One night in April 2005 while sleeping I awakened to Lyle sitting up abruptly in bed, cold, clammy and soaked with sweat he told me of a disturbing vision; “It wasn’t a dream because it came in a flash, it was Chris in front of me, missing limbs.” He told be it had happened the night before as well but he did not wake me to tell me. “What do you think it means?” he asked. An odd question I thought for someone so rooted in logic to inquire about the meaning to a vision or a dream...
I replied, “Maybe it is some kind of left-over fear from Chris being over in Iraq.” There was always news of soldiers being hit by IED’s (improvised explosive devices) and loosing limbs, disturbing, horrific images we would see on TV while Chris was overseas.
These “visions” would happen three nights in a row to Lyle, each night a flash of Christian before him sometimes missing all of his limbs, sometimes two limbs. Lyle was shaken to the core with these “visions.” I continued to have the bouts of tears throughout the year. They had become a part of my daily routine, to let them out when it seemed I had become “too full.”
Sunday November 13, 2005 was a beautifully clear, fall day with lots of sunshine. Keith my youngest son, Chris and Lyle had planned a trip to ride their motorcycles to Houston, a 70 mile trip to attend a motorcycle show at Reliant Arena. I stayed behind having breakfast with my mom and sister when I received a phone call from my youngest son Keith’s phone. Odd I thought, but when I answered, Lyle’s voice was on the other end. They had been gone about an hour and a half at this point. Lyle’s voice was steady as he explained to me that Chris had put his bike down, that he was okay and that he was being transported to Houston’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. He said “Come” and that Chris would need surgery and that his leg was broken. Lyle and Keith would continue on motorcycles and meet me there. I told my mom and sister of the accident and we left the restaurant right away, dropping them off and calling Joanna to awaken her, to get her to accompany me to Houston to see about Chris.
On the way to Houston I told Joanna that there was only one thing in the world that Lyle would lie to me about and it would be to understate Chris’ condition. We needed to prepare ourselves. We were quiet on the ride there. I received a call from the surgical unit at the hospital asking for Chris’ insurance information. Who gave them the number to my cell phone I wondered...? Finding my way through the medical center we located Memorial Hermann and parked. Walking quickly now to find the area where Chris was located. I asked the nurse at the desk about Chris’ whereabouts. She looked pale and drawn in her reply as she motioned us to go toward the back so that we could see Chris before he went into surgery.
“Barbara!” I heard Lyle’s voice as I turned to see him and Keith approaching us. He motioned for us to step away from the surgical information desk and to join him at a small waiting area with a kiosk. I was glued to Lyle’s eyes as he began to speak, his knees buckled with his first words. Dread. Dread is what I felt. It fell on me in a moment and coated me like dark paint. My throat burned with adrenaline and my mouth felt like cotton. Steadying himself as he pushed up with his arms to straighten his trembling body, “Its worse than I told you on the phone, Chris hit a pickup head on and his arm came off on impact.”
I froze. Joanna gasps. Looking, searching his eyes I reply, “Baby, your visions...” I was somehow transported back a few months earlier and was lying in bed next to Lyle sitting up and soaked with sweat, telling me of his “visions” of seeing Chris without limbs. What an odd thing to think about at that time. Lyle’s eyes connect with mine, the word connect seems inadequate. We remember. It is as if we had been prepared for this. We are beckoned to the back to see Chris before surgery and we walk collectively, numbly in.
In the pre-op room blood, lots of blood, on the floor near the gurney where Chris lay. “I love you, Momma” Chris spoke in response to me. The nurse tells us that he was conscious and cognizant enough to give them my cell phone number earlier. The police told us that the collective impact speed was roughly 140 miles per hour and Chris was not wearing a helmet. It was clear his head was injured but the nurse remarked, “There is nothing wrong with his memory.” Eyes swollen and closed he told Joanna he loved her and pooched his lips for a kiss. They kissed and they took him away.
The nurse hands me a plastic drawstring bag with Chris’ personal belongings. I smell his gasoline soaked clothing and shudder. It was Sunday in the top trauma center in Houston and we are told that it is very crowded in the ER waiting room. Families spilled out of the room into the corridor where we camped on the floor waiting for news. Lyle and Keith retell the events of the morning.
“It was the damnedest thing” Lyle said as be blinked in disbelief, “Chris went to pass a minivan and he never came out of the oncoming lane. We clearly saw a bright red Ford pickup truck coming but Chris did not, and the driver of the truck apparently did not see Chris either. At the very last moment the truck driver yanked the wheel to his right but they impacted anyway.” The force of the crash tore the drivers side wheel off of the truck. Dodging the motorcycle chassis from the impact and riding through the curtain of debris Lyle and Keith came to an abrupt stop. Lyle sees Chris’ lifeless body lying near the side of the road and goes to him.
Turning Chris over onto his back his tongue is hanging out and his body is vacant. Chris is white. There is no pulse, no blood, no breath. His left arm torn off, his left leg is split open from hip to ankle, Lyle drops to his knees and begins to wail. After a few minutes he collects himself and stands looking for Keith. Keith is standing nearby. Chris is not there. Lyle said that time moved very slowly as he looked down at the body and again his knees buckle and he collapses onto Chris and gathers him up in his arms wailing loudly. His sounds, he says, “are not human.”
Lyle stands again and hears a woman’s voice yelling as she runs toward him, “I am an EMT! I am an EMT!” Lyle turns to her and shouts, “It’s too late, he is dead. We need an ambulance.” She arrives to Chris’ body and says, “He is not dead.” Lyle turns to look down and see that the color of life has returned to Chris’ face and he was beginning to writhe in pain, and to bleed from his wounds. Oddly, first on the scene was this woman who was an off duty EMT and her husband, an off duty fireman paramedic - he walked towards the scene carrying Chris’ severed arm. They had bungee cords and bound up his wounds and the ambulance arrived then a helicopter to take Chris to Houston. Chris’ severed arm is packed on ice.
After Lyle and Keith fill us in on the details, we sit in silence, on the floor. I eventually find words to call family members and friends to fill them in. Over and hour and a half passes and a Doctor appears hurriedly and lands in front of me in a squat. “Symons family?” “Yes”, we collectively reply. “Christian is in trouble up there. He has lost a lot of blood. His blood pressure is 50/20. We need to take his leg, it is badly mangled and requires a lot of surgery and Chris does not have time. He is bleeding out.”
I motion with my arms as if to push him away and I say, “Yes. Go.” For the first time it hits us that Chris may not make it through surgery. We stare blankly at one another. Joanna collapses onto my lap on the floor with a yelp.
Waiting, waiting, I pace the hallway area wondering how will Chris be able to grip a crutch to learn to walk with a prosthetic leg if he does not have an arm? My thoughts border on hysteria, projecting way out ahead. I feel nauseated. Pacing. Thoughts coming too fast to process. I exit my body and go somewhere...
I had some kind of a break in my consciousness where it felt like I floated gently up just a few inches and to the right of my body. I felt like I was standing on a marshmallow. A voice spoke to me saying, “Barbara, remember, he chose this. He chose this, and so did you... remember.” I protested silently shaking my head, “NO.” I kept blinking as if to try to erase what I had just heard somehow giving credence to the absurdity of the statement. I thought why would anyone choose something like this? Why would a mother choose this for her child? No, I shook my head from side to side. He didn’t choose this and neither did I.
Now back in my body the voice continued to speak to me several mysteries relentlessly it seemed, now that it had my attention. It said that yes, we had been privy to these happenings and that choices, contracts were made to experience certain things that would aid us in the unfolding of our purpose during this incarnation. WHAT? To understand the shocking part about all of this is that I had never heard of such concepts. Contracts? I was a fundamentalist Christian up until 2000 and was slowly coming out of the fog of Charismania. Sacred contracts were not a part of Christian dogma and doctrine! Since then I have read materials where others have had this same revelation.
That day turned my beliefs on a dime. It took me months to fully grasp what had been revealed to me at that traumatic time in our lives. But I came to understand this - that we, as Divinity, in a place before incarnation, before we are partnered with humanity we know things. We are not human making these decisions and signing contracts! What human would decide such painful things? But in and through the eyes of Divinity, all we see is PURPOSE. We are divinity that knows all things. Divinity invests itself into humanity for the purposes of experience. Valuable experience. The creature, the human, is subjected to these futile experiences not willingly but by its divine counterpart who submits to these experiences in hope. Divinity invested into humanity desires to raise and adopt our body, to redeem it from mortal to immortal - a new creation that is both God and man that is fully exercised and knowledgable in duality or the realm of good and evil.
Romans 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
The understanding of this willful immersion of Divinity into humanity changed my worldview dramatically. I now saw my son, myself, as participants in this unfolding drama rather than as victims of circumstance.
Hebrews 5:8Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; 9And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; 10Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchizedek.11Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. 12For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13For every one that uses milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Here we see that if we are to learn about immortal beings and becoming immortal (Melchizedek). We see that they learn obedience through the things they suffer and experience, and so we must become acquainted, knowledgable and exercised in the knowledge of good and evil, or duality consciousness. It’s here for a reason folks.
Twenty eight units of blood and eight units of plasma later, Chris makes it though surgery and we wait for him to wake up. It would be four long days before he regained consciousness.
During those four days the voice returned to me speaking an edict, “Bridge the gap!” it said. What? What does that mean? What gap? I was unsure what this task required but the voice had my attention. I was sure it had something to do with Chris and ultimately why we had chosen this experience. Pacing around his bed in the STICU (shock-trauma-intensive-care-unit) I prayed, cried and wrung my hands in quiet desperation. Wake up Chris! Wake up!
“Bridge the Gap!” I heard again. “But I don’t know what that means! Help me!” I cried. That following morning I was walking the corridor between campuses at Houston’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. It was during shift change and I was walking amidst a sea of scrubs. I looked down mainly as my eyes and face were horribly swollen from crying. Once, looking up now I see a man, way down the corridor who had to be around 6’8” because he was at least a head taller than most. He had an unusual cadence about him, a moppy head of hair flopping from side to side as he swaggered closer. As the sea of scrubs part I see glimpses of his body, now aware that he is wearing a shirt that says “GAP” on it. I grin and think, okay, nice synchronicity, but there has to be tens of thousands of those shirts in Houston alone. I smile and continue on my way keeping an eye on this unusual guy. As he gets closer I notice that he is looking directly at me. I look down embarrassed that he has seen me looking at him. Looking up again he is closer still and now I see that there are two more words on his shirt, much smaller and above the word “gap.” My mouth drops open, he is walking in front and now beside me still looking directly into my eyes. I read his shirt and it says, “Bridge the GAP.” He smiles looking at me as he passes by and tears, once again, start falling. Messengers are everywhere if we look for them.
So what is this mysterious GAP? Over the next several months I come to the understanding that the gap is an expanse in consciousness between dimensions and vibrational in nature that must be bridged if humanity is to transition from one age to the next. It has to do with awareness of spiritual principles and the necessity to withdraw from human judgement of events so that we may become buoyant in our vibrational make-up. This will cause the frequency of our third dimension to shift and to rise so that humanity is poised to begin the ascension processes. This shift is out of the intellect and egoist dominated life and into the intuitive center of our consciousness. It is the shift out of duality consciousness. Humanity has been manipulated and is stuck in fear based systems including the religious systems of the world. We are about to shift beyond the “scratch in the record” so to speak and will move into a whole different dispensation of awareness. This level will include an understanding that we are not victims but rather participants and that we can radically alter our lives here on earth when we become conscious co-creators of reality. We are not helpless victims of circumstance. We are powerful creators destined to dimensions beyond, partnered with divinity to create and establish immortal worlds, without end.
Bridging the gap is an process by which a vibrational expanse is created in consciousness whereby humanity may “cross over” from fear based mentalities dominated by ego into that of love. It is a bridge that subjugates third dimensional mentalities and allows for the navigation across the brain, through the veil, from left brained, linear thinking into right brained, intuitive function. A leap in consciousness is taking place as the corpus callosum (the thick casement of nerve bundles that separate the two halves of the brain) is “lifted.” The bride has been readied for her groom and this “wedding” is about to take place!
By the way, years after the accident Chris came over rather ecstatic one day, pulled off his shirt and told me to “really look” at his angel tattoo. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “It looks like your angel tattoo.” He said emphatically, “No, mom, really LOOK at it, what do you see, or better yet, what do you NOT see?” I was amazed when he pointed out to me that the angel tattoo was actually missing a hand and a foot. It had never been tattooed in place.
Barbara Symons
I underwent over four decades of programming according to fundamentalist doctrine and dogma. It has taken the past twelve years to deprogram and come out from the belief systems reinforced through fear. Quite a journey. Ultimately, it is a birth out from the structure in which Christ consciousness incubates. There is a divine purpose for such a structure sort of like the Israelites being forced to migrate to Egypt because of the drought. Four hundred years later Moses emerges and helps them migrate out from the oppression of the Egyptian regime. Metaphor for our journey in consciousness to leave egoist domination and enter into life guided by the Divine within.
