You Don't Have To Die To Get to Heaven EP 416

Brian Smith  0:09  
Music. Close your eyes and imagine, what if the things in life that cause us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed we've been planted, and having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth, and I am your host. Brian Smith, welcome friends to another episode of grief to growth, where we explore life's greatest questions, who we are, why we're here, and where do we go from here? So whether you're a first time listener or you're one of our loyal followers, I'm so glad that you're here on this journey with us today. I've got the honor of introducing someone whose life has been a testament to the power of spiritual transformation. Her name is Sue Pearson, and Sue has spent more than 40 years as a journalist, winning three Emmy Awards and mastering the art of storytelling as a news anchor, a talk show host and a documentary producer these days, Sue serves as the editor of The Story project for the circle of atonement, and that's an organization that's rooted in A Course in Miracles. She gathers and refines real life accounts of spiritual awakening, awakening ranging from near death experiences to the small, everyday miracles that are actually easy to miss. And Sue's journey took a profound turn 30 years ago with her own shared death experience. As she accompanied her father partway to heaven, she found herself changed forever, and this extraordinary moment opened the door to a life filled with mystical experiences, many of what she shares in her spiritual memoir, you don't have to die to get to heaven, which we're going to talk a lot about today. So in today's conversation, we're going to explore her unique insights into forgiveness, into miracles and the possibility of divine guidance. We talk about how mystical experiences are not just relics of the past, but are very much alive and available to us today, today, and we'll ask the questions so many hearts have. Do we all get to heaven? So if you've ever wondered about the nature of miracles, the depth of spiritual connection, or the ways you can open yourself to divine guidance, you're in the right place today. So let's dive deep into Sue's journey and the wisdom that she has to share. And with that, I want to welcome Sue Pearson,

Sue Pearson  2:45  
thank you. That was a wonderful introduction. I appreciate it. I want to start with kind of a disclaimer. I don't have all the answers, some and some that have changed my life dramatically. Yeah, I was, you know, grew up in the Protestant church. We my siblings and I went to Sunday school. You know, we were just little kids made to walk this path and try to make sense of it, which I couldn't. I couldn't make any sense of it, but I went to Sunday school. Then when I got to be an adult and found my career path, I have to describe myself as just spiritually lazy. My career path had been so busy and so focused and so full of stress and adrenaline that I'm embarrassed to say this, I just didn't have time for spiritual growth. I thought, yeah, there's some really important questions about, is there God? Is there a life after? And I thought, you know, I'm not going to solve those questions. Let somebody else deal with it. I'm too busy. Yeah, so off I went on my career. I had a lovely run as a broadcast journalist, doing all those things that you mentioned and more and raising a bunch of kids. Had two biological kids and three step kids, and I pretty much raised them all, and I love them all still. We're very close, but it being a mother and a career woman and a wife and whatever other roles popped up in the meantime, just left with no to meditate or explore the deeper meaning of life until school. Reaching to a halt here. 30 years ago, my beloved father passed on and in ways I will never be able to explain to anyone's satisfaction, except those who understand there's more to our senses, I was able to go part way to heaven with Him, and I saw my deceased mother, who had passed over 10 years before she she had come to me at my home in Sacramento at the time, just a few weeks before this transformative event and my father's passing, I was in my bathroom putting on my makeup for the day, and there was nobody else in the house, which was unusual, but nevertheless, I was alone, and suddenly The room was just filled with a very, very strong scent. And I didn't have to think about it, I knew this was the scent of my mother. I can't tell you that I ever thought I knew what the scent of my mother was, but this was it on that day, unmistakably, and probably it's that mother infant connection when the infant is learning the world around itself, and that scent of the mother is very important. So I guess we all remember that, even though we don't always remember it on a conscious level, I did connect with it this particular day, and it's so shocked me that it brought me to my new knees. I had to sit down, and I thought, Is she here to be obnoxious as my mother had been so often in my life, or is she here to try to give me a message that would be helpful I didn't know. Growing up, my mother had a Cruella de Vil streak. She hit us frequently, and not just with her hand. She would pick up a hair brush. She would hit my sister across the face with it repeatedly. She would pick up sticks and switch our legs with it. She would any object that was handy. She would so you can imagine this left the three of us, my sister and my brother, with a distinctly negative experience with my mother, sure. And so here I am in my home in Sacramento, and my mother's there, and I'm going, Whoa. But I sat there and I thought, Okay, I will be open to whatever she wants to tell me. And I've not been a kind of person that believed in this kind of communication or this kind of mystical connection, but it was so strong. I was just really impelled to pay attention. And so the messages came through. She had three things to tell me this day, and the first one was, your father's going to die very soon. I did not want to hear this, I knew he had advanced prostate cancer on some level. I knew he was not going to survive it, but my father was my hero during my life. He was my fountain of unconditional love. I could not imagine him not being in my life. And so for my mother, now on the other side, to tell me he's gonna leave and you can't do anything about it, that was the second thing she told me, there's nothing you can do to change this. And I suspect she knew she had to tell me that, because I was the kind of person who just pushed on things to make things happen. She didn't want me to do that in this case, because it was going to be for naught. The third thing she told me was that she was going to help him transition. I had no idea how she was going to do that, but I trusted that these three things she told me were true. It was not a Cruella de Vil moment, although I didn't feel any love at the moment either. It was just really I have something to tell you. Here it is. So I wish I could tell you that I accept. Of it, but I was totally undone, and I sat there just sobbing for quite a while, thinking, Oh, mg, this is going to be happening in my life, and I don't want it. So two weeks later, my sister calls from Atlanta, where she lives, and says, I think it's time for us to go to Fort Lauderdale and be with dad. He's just been admitted to the hospital, and I don't know whether this is the end, but I think we all ought to be there. So I agreed. My brother already lived there in one of the two condominiums that my parents owned, and we talked to him, and he said, I'll meet you at the airport. He picked us up, took us straight to the hospital. And my father, at that time was conscious. He was definitely not happy about this circumstance. He He was a scientist all his life, and he wanted to know what's going on, and he couldn't get hold of his doctor, and if his doctor knew he was in the hospital, but for whatever reason, maybe had emergencies, wasn't checking in with my father, and that really frustrated my dad, but I had been told, as you know, that there was nothing I could do, not that I wanted to accept that. So I told my sister, I said, I need to do something. My dad's glasses had fallen off on the floor and broken. And I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take these glasses to a shop and get them fixed. If that's all I can do, it's something to keep me busy. So off she and I went to get my father's glasses fixed, not really understanding he didn't need them anymore. So we get back to the hospital, and my brother told us that my dad had written a kind of memoir. It was a kind of a lengthy essay, maybe five, six or seven pages. And I said, John, do you know where to find it? Because that's something else I can do. I can read. They paid me to read.

I think Dad would really like for us to hear his memoir at this particular moment. So John said, Sure, I'll find it. So John went back to the condo, ruffled through a few files, came up with the essay, brought it back to the hospital, and I proceeded to read it, and it was just this wonderful account of his life, he just to condense it a bit. He was an only child. Lives in Opelika, Alabama with his mom and dad, and struggled to leave a very clingy, needy mother who wanted her only child to be with her always. But he knew that he was destined for other things, and so he enrolled in Auburn University and became one of this country's first aeronautical engineers. And from that, he stepped into a job in Langley, Virginia, at an organization called NACA, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which became NASA in the years that followed. But my dad was one of the first aeronautical engineers hired in this brand new field. So I'm reading to my siblings and my dad about his life, and he's really enjoying it. He's really It's obvious he's happy that we're there and that I'm reading this. And at one point he talked about being a passenger in an airplane and being over some beautiful country. And he looked down, and he said, that is so extraordinary. I could die right now and be happy. And when I read those words, I started to cry, and I couldn't read anymore. And Dad said, no, no, no, no, no, please, go on. We're not to Paris yet. And then I knew he was really listening. And there was a part yet ahead in his memoir where he flew to Paris and the experiences he had there. And. I just felt so wonderful being able to read his memoir to him in these moments that we didn't we didn't know. Are these his last moments, or is he going to be discharged from the hospital? Not sure. But then he sunk into a coma, and he was in and out of the coma for the rest of the day. Day two, we came back. He was the same, probably in a coma more often than he was lucid. And we sat with him, and we talked with him. He didn't respond, but we were able to express our deep love and appreciation, and that at the end of the day, he still seemed unconscious, but my siblings had already gotten up to leave, and they were gone, and I took my dad's hand and I said, I I'll be back in the morning, I love you so much. And he squeezed my hand and said in the strongest, clearest voice, I love you too. So then I knew, well, yeah, they tell you, people in a coma can hear every word. And he did so I left, and my sister and I were in a king size bed together that night at one of the two condos that my father owned. My daughter and her daughter were there as well, and I couldn't sleep. I wasn't distraught, but I I just couldn't sleep, and I heard my sister snoring, and I knew she had gone to sleep, okay. And then suddenly, inexplicably, I was in my father's hospital room. So from that king size bed in the condo Bush, I was in that hospital room, and I saw how very frail he was, and then I saw this light gathering above the right hand upper corner of the room, and it was just a mesmerizing light. I was just drawn to it. It was so bright, not like the sun, where it's harsh and you can't look it was so inviting and and warm and embracing. And so I just stared at it, and it was coming closer closer and closer to my father's bedside. And I saw in that light, I saw something pulsing. And so I looked at the pulsing for a time, and then it became really clear that was my mother. My mother was in that light. She was part of the light. The light was pure love, and she was pure love in what I can only describe, because words are so pitiful. Here as an instant, I forgave her everything, in fact, nothing that she had done in this earth realm mattered at all. I saw how very beautiful she was, how innocent, how she was part of God. I thought at one point I'm looking at God. No, that can't be. That's my mother. Well, I've since this, these visions evolve over time, and I have since realized that she was part of God, that God created her, just like God has created each one of us. And so God does reside in her and in me and in you, Brian. So here we are. She's in the light this mother that I if you had said you're going to meet your mother soon, I would have said, No, thank you. I'll pass on that. But there she was, in all her incredible beauty and innocence and love and she she imparted to me. These are the telepathic communications that come through so often. I found out later, this is what visions often include. And she imparted messages to me. They were. So amazing. And of course, the first one you can guess there is God. God is real. God is not an impersonal universe. God is your personal creator and love. And why are we here? That's a big one. Yes, that got answered too. And we are here for a very simple but simple doesn't always mean easy reason, and that is to love one another truly. We make things so complicated in our lives. That's what we do as humans. We land here in this realm, and we just begin immediately to make things complicated. Well, in God's world, it's simple. We love, and we are loved and and as my experience with my mother, nothing else matters. It's all the most important stuff of life. And I realized in those moments that I didn't want to leave. I thought, Oh, my children are not going to be happy with me to know that I was ready to go. But that's the truth that that realm is so I can't even find words for it. Alluring. Doesn't come close. It's where we all belong. Is that is home. That's the only word I have for it. And I was not invited to be home at this particular moment, but my father was and my mother, this was the kind of the last part of this vision. My mother reached out from the light, scooped down into that bed and reached up with my father in her arms, and took him into the light with her. And then the light began to fade, and off they went, and then suddenly, inexplicably, I was back in the king size bed, and my sister was still snoring. And I thought, what just happened?

And in about an hour, the phone rang, and I picked it up, and it was the nurse from the hospital. She said, your father has just passed away, and if you all would like to come and just be near his body before we take him to the hospital morgue, you're more than welcome. So that's what we did. It was like one o'clock in the morning. And we piled into the car and went to the hospital and stood around his body, each of us, holding hands and just offering great, deep thanks for this man's presence in our lives. And the nurse came in, and I said, Do you Do you know when he passed? She said, Yeah, I kind of can pinpoint it. She said, I came in just a little before midnight and he, he, I knew he was close to death. She said, I came back at about quarter after midnight and he had passed, well, I had looked at the clock in the condominium, and it was midnight, and so I knew, I knew I hadn't made any of this up. It was real. It was true. And we all got into the car to go back to the condos, and suddenly on the radio there were these two incredible songs, one by Celine Dion, the power of love. And it started playing. And it it. Some of the lyrics are, I am your lady. You are my man. And I, I immediately started sobbing, because I realized my mother had taken control of the airwaves, and she was sending me these songs that were so incredibly meaningful. And the next one was a Mariah Carey song hero, and it's, it's about being strong at times that are are so challenging emotionally. And so I here I am. How many were there in the car? Let's. Two kids, four other people, and myself, and we were all really sad, but I was sobbing big time, and I think my siblings couldn't quite understand what was happening with me, and I couldn't tell them at that moment, I thought I this is just so overwhelming to me that I need time to process this whole thing. So we went back. I'll take a little bit of a break if you want to interject something, Brian, but the last part of this particular event was the next day, my brother decided that it would be good if he and I went to brunch together. My sister was in a really odd place, and she didn't want anything to do with us, so we went to this restaurant that my brother recommended, and the line was out the door and around the corner, and we thought, oh well, yeah, okay, this is a popular place. We have nothing else to do. We'll just get in the back of the line and wait. So we did. Shortly, a woman came up to us. She was wearing a navy blue skirt and a crisp white blouse, and she had a name tag on her blouse, and that just said, hostess. And she took my hand and she said, Come with me. And she started leading us past the line into the restaurant. And I looked at her and I said, Oh, is this okay? These people are kind of probably want to clobber us. We've just cut into the line. She says, no, no, it's perfectly fine. You're fine. I am here to take care of you today. She leads this to a table. She sits down, and she says, My name is Virginia. That's my mother's name, and it's not a name that was popular then or even now. And I said that to her. I said that that's our mother's name, and it's not a common name these days. And she said to us, I know I'm here to represent her. My brother and I looked at each other, and he kind of whispered to me, Do you believe this? And I said, Yes, I believe it. And off Virginia went. We sat down and had an incredible brunch, and we were going to go find her later and thank her. She was nowhere to be found. I don't know where she disappeared to, but that was a part of the blessing of that vision, I am absolutely sure. Yeah. So with that. If you have any questions, Brian, great. If you want me to just keep on Talk Talk, talk, talk talk, I can do that too. Yeah,

Brian Smith  28:16  
you can please continue. Okay.

Sue Pearson  28:19  
Well, as you can imagine, knowing so much where before, I had said, I'll leave these questions as somebody else now, I knew without a doubt, there is God. God is love. Love is everything. We are here to love one another. We are holy, innocent, beautiful children of God. Each one of us, even the ones that we feel, are the most despicable and not deserving of forgiveness, not true. Everyone of us is deserving of forgiveness. In fact, I have learned God doesn't even deal in forgiveness, because he looks at us and sees there's nothing to forgive. We see all kinds of reasons to forgive, whether it's Hitler and his unimaginable atrocities, or it's the 911 terrorists. I don't want to scare anybody who wants revenge, but there's no need. Their their forgiveness is available to all of us. Mm, hmm. And in fact, our own forgiveness not only brings their forgiveness, our forgiveness of them, but it brings forgiveness of our own. Themselves, which we desperately need. So I wanted to, I wanted to tell you I just got a story because, as you mentioned, Brian, I'm the editor of The Story project with the Course in Miracles group called circle of atonement. And I love this job. I love these stories that people send me, and I just got one from a man a few days ago who was struggling with forgiveness because he worked in Tower two in New York City, and he wasn't there the day the planes crashed into Cal one and tower two, but he had many friends who died in that horrific, horrific event, and since that moment, he has been consumed with rage and only wanted revenge, and he go in his story. He goes to into great detail about what revenge looks like to him. He pictures those terrorists. He puts them in a building where there's no escape, and they have to choose just what his friends had to choose, whether to jump from the 100 and second floor or to stay and be burned to death or to die from smoke inhalation. He says, This is what I want for them, those terrorists. I want them to feel what my friends felt. And he can't get beyond this. And it's been years, as you know, yeah, yeah. So he writes this story, and he says, I became a Course in Miracles student, and I realized, Oh, darn if I'm going to be a serious student, I have to learn how to forgive, because that's really a basic principle in A Course in Miracles, that forgiveness work that we can do here. And he wants so much to be a good Course in Miracles student. But oh, is he ready to forgive? He's not sure. Then he says, No, I'm not. Oh yes, I am. No, I'm not. Back and forth. And he kind of to give you, those of you who don't know anything about A Course in Miracles. This is one of the additions. Is the complete and annotated edition, and it's said to be authored by Jesus as channeled by a woman who was a psychotherapist and a non believer, but she received messages, and she wrote them all down in this incredible book. And so here, here my 911 guy is trying to forgive, and thinks I know this is what the course is leading me to do. But he said, and he finished the story with hoping the course will lead me to a brighter day. And I wrote him back and I said, that's fine, if you want to end it there. That's perfectly real and will resonate with a lot of people. But is there perhaps an Epilog you can write? And he wrote back and he said, Well, I'll give you a status update, which I meant to say I'm still working on it. And I loved what he wrote at the story is so strong all the way through, but his status update is that he kind of railed against Jesus's messages. I just can't do this. You know how damn difficult it is here on this earth to forgive. And Jesus smiles and says, Yes, but you can do it. And my 911 friend says, Okay. And then Jesus smiles and says, just try again. And that's the end when my author says, okay, okay, I'll keep trying. And I think for a lot of us, that's the best we can do. I mean miraculous forgiveness. The way I experienced it is rare. It's wonderful, but it's not easy, like my author recognized, especially when, when the events and the thoughts and attend intentions that went along with us, horrific events. Are so heinous, that's when it's really hard to see miraculous forgiveness. And when I think Jesus says to us, just keep trying. That's okay. I'll help you. If you're open to being helped, I'll help.

Brian Smith  35:22  
Yeah, I would like to interject something here. So I know in the book, you talk a lot about forgiveness, and we're going to talk more about that, but you talk about two types of forgiveness also, and you mentioned miraculous forgiveness. So explain to people the different types of forgiveness there are.

Sue Pearson  35:35  
Sure, well, miraculous forgiveness is when, in my case, I looked at my mother and forgave her instantly. There was nothing to forgive she even though, if she didn't know it in this earth realm, because we don't always know who we really are, but who we really are is a perfect, holy child of God, if you can see that and understand that, then you too know forgiveness is not even necessary. That's miraculous forgiveness, the other kinds of forgiveness that we experience in this realm, and I don't want to dis any of them, because they're attempts, and they're all worthy. But I think kind of the first one that we come to when terrible things happen to us is to say, Well, you did a you did a terrible thing, but I didn't, and I'm better than you are, and I can, I can deign to offer you forgiveness and hope that you will never do these horrible things again. That's all I can say, yeah. That's kind of an earthly forgiveness. But as you can see, it's not complete, because what's happened when you say, Yeah, I'm better than I didn't do that. You did. It's really an attack. We have not forgiven them. We've just said we'll give you a pass this. So that's one kind of forgiveness. It's okay. It's an attempt. The next kind of forgiveness, and these are not in any particular order, really, is when you decide that you're hurting so much because of this horrible thing somebody did to you, and you've lived with this hurt for so long, and it's just, oh my gosh, it's a burden you're carrying. And you realize, oh, if I just let go of this, if I surrender it, then I don't have to be angry anymore. That's a form of forgiveness, and that's okay, because it does help you cope. But look at it more closely, does it forgive the person who did this terrible thing? You still think of it as a terrible thing, and in this earth realm, yes, it was, this kind of leads us into an area that a lot of people have trouble with, and I had trouble with it, but I don't anymore that this earth realm is an illusion of our own creation. We, we kind of made it up. And so if I really understand that, then forgiveness becomes easier, because you can, you can actually really say, Oh, you did that in this earth realm, but you didn't do it in God's realm, which is kind of what happened to me with my mother. I realized, yeah, she did a lot of pretty Corella de Ville nasty things to her children, but that was in the earth realm, and I can well imagine that she had reasons from her own experience to do those things. I don't know what they were, but perhaps she was abused as a child. Perhaps she was neglected. I don't know the answer to that, and I don't need to know, but that the kind of forgiveness that says, Okay, I'm going to surrender this because I don't like this pain anymore, doesn't really release the other person. And I, I'm just here to say to you, that's okay. It's a it's a good step in. That direction of full and complete, miraculous forgiveness that not we all will get that always in this realm, many of us go to our death not forgiving, and I'm here to tell you that you still have a chance even later, because, as I learned, there is no doubt. There is just a transition to home. And I think we still have decisions to make there, but I think once, once you feel what home feels like. You don't want to be anywhere else, and that is a realm where you can say, oh, yeah, it didn't matter, because what you did was in the earth realm, and you're here now, and God never condemned you, so I'll never condemn you. So there might be a couple other forms of forgiveness, but I think I've gone through, yeah, most of the ones that are really common, right? And I hope you can see that even though it's the best we can do under the circumstances. It's not complete. And guess what? That's okay, because God does not require us to complete forgiveness before we're admitted to heaven. We get a free ticket. All of us. Nobody gets left behind, no matter what you've done. And you may say, well, well, now that's not fair. Some of us has done horrible things we need to atone for, and they need to feel that enough, when you're home, you'll understand it's it's okay. God's mercy is in God's recognition that forgiveness is not necessary. There is nothing to condemn.

Brian Smith  42:17  
Yeah, you mentioned, you mentioned A Course in Miracles. How long after this experience with your father and your mother did you discover the course?

Sue Pearson  42:29  
Great question, and a really important one in my mind, because this vision came to me in let's see. What was it 97 I was measured. My son was 10 years old. Yeah, I understand it was only in 2011 that I discovered A Course in Miracles. And what happened was a dear My best friend in life, who I'm now married to, but then wasn't we always discussed everything under the sun, and I told him about my mystical and spiritual deepening, and he was the one who suggested you might really get a lot from A Course in Miracles, because he had studied it too. So I picked up a copy of the book and I started reading, and it just made me gasp almost, because the things that are in this book, are the same things I experienced in that vision. I think how incredible and confirming to me the timing is that I came to all these spiritual knowings WITHOUT A Course in Miracles. So I want everybody to know you don't have to be a student of A Course in Miracles to deepen spiritually. In fact, in A Course in Miracles, it says, Hey, we're not the only path. If this doesn't resonate with you, great, find your own path. But it did resonate with me, and I so I became a really devoted student, and so did my best friend. You know, we study together, yeah, every day, and I all the time too. It's not like I had this one experience, and that's the end of it. That whole experience opened me to other experiences, and I can tell you about it. Yeah, would you

Brian Smith  44:51  
share maybe one or two of those with us? Yeah? Great.

Sue Pearson  44:56  
So these incredible visions do lead. To a kind of open mindedness that many of us haven't experienced before. But if we're opened in this way, we are open to other experiences. So I want to read from my book. This is from chapter two. It's it's pretty short. It's deepening through mystical moments. So here's one of my deepenings, and I call it juicy fruit gum. My mother hated the smell of juicy fruit chewing gum. It had a sickly sweet, fruity aroma. As a young girl, my sister Margie loved it, but not so much for the flavor or smell chewing it was a playful way to get revenge on our mother. Now in our 60s, Margie and I went to a spiritual retreat at a Catholic retreat center in Northern California. It was called women's spiritual spa, and it was meant to honor, bless and provide respite to women, it is always a sold out event at the retreat center. Every moment of this three day retreat felt like an embrace to us. We left feeling so well taken care of and serene. On the drive back to my house, my sister reminded me of something we like to do as children, when my mother was driving, Margie would open a big pack of juicy fruit gum and hand me half of the sticks. Mother couldn't see what we were up to in the back seat, but she soon found out each of us put every single one of those sticks of that sickly sweet gum in our mouths and chewed it into a big, soft wad with our mouths open and lips smacking, we sent clouds of juicy fruit gum smell towards The driver of the car. Our mother would groan and gag. We loved making her sick. It was our way of exacting some small revenge on a mother who was often domineering and harsh. But we all laughed about the smell and the gagging, even Mother. Mother had died some 25 years ago, and now her two grown daughters were remembering a silly moment from our childhood. Suddenly, the car I was driving these many years later was killed with that old, familiar smell of juicy fruit gum. I was astonished. I thought I might be imagining the aroma. Marty, do you smell something? Of course, it's the smell of juicy fruit gum. She said, Don't you find that amazing? I asked. Margie just grumbled on about our mother's meanness while I sent mom a prayer thanking her for joining us in the car this day for a loving little joke between us. Yeah, just one of those small moments that you know, if I myself, I would have said, Oh, I just made that up,

Brian Smith  48:40  
right? Exactly,

Sue Pearson  48:44  
she was experiencing it too. Yeah, there's another one, if I might please. Yeah, you know now that my father was my my hero, my knight in shining armor, my North Star. And when he died, I was so overwhelmed with grief, I couldn't speak his name. I mean, I couldn't physically get it out, because I just knew I would just collapse. I couldn't look at pictures of him. I I tried not to even think thoughts about him, because it just brought me to such a deep grief that I had never experienced before, not a happy place at all. So this happened shortly after my father passed on. It was a couple of weeks later and I was back home in Sacramento, and this chapter is chapter four. Bunch of stories in chapter four, but this one is about Holy encounters. A Course in Miracles encourages us to treat every meeting with anyone as a potentially holy encounter. When we accept this challenge, we see our brother or our sister as innocent children of God, holy, beautiful and deserving of salvation, we accept and embrace our oneness and we forgive him or her any false perceptions which we or they may have had. The awareness of holy encounters came to me after my father's death. It was in the presence of a homeless man that I experienced the beauty of perfect love. And this short story is titled homeless and holy, what happened was not only surprising, but it was also shocking. My beloved father had died just two weeks before this unexpected event. At the time, I was reeling from the joy of the shared death experience, but steeped in grief at having to let my father go to heaven. I missed him terribly. I was walking down a sidewalk near my home when I became aware of what looked to me like a homeless man. He had stringy, dirty, long hair and tattered clothes, he looked dispirited, shuffling along at a very slow walk and with his head bent and looking downward as he neared me. In that moment, everyone else around me faded and blurred. The scene before me was in sharp focus, the sad looking homeless man had my full attention. Then something miraculous happened. His head came up in slow motion as he focused on me, intently, his mouth and indeed, his whole face changed into a brilliant, radiant smile aimed only at me. He was beautiful beyond words. As he walked on, the smile slowly disappeared and the depressed homeless man slowly gazed back downward and he journeyed on. I was so shocked. I felt like this man was my father, even though he didn't look like him. I became frightened by this thought, realizing it would seem crazy to go up to this man and hug him and tell him how much I loved him. I had, at first perceived this man through my ego. He was dirty and homeless. With his amazing smile, he showed me who he really was, a beautiful, holy child of God. It may be that the beauty of his smile reminded me of the love my father had for me. Perhaps it was my father's spirit within this man on that street. It doesn't really matter. What matters is the love that came through it was pure and innocent, and fills me with awe to this day, as I recognize what holy looks like and feels like a gift from God.

Brian Smith  53:34  
Wow. Yeah, it's really interesting. That reminds me something I was thinking about this week, you know, CS Lewis wrote about, if we could see each other as we really are, you know, we would follow our needs and be tempted to worship each other. He said, even though even the most mundane, even the most dull, as I think he was, the word he used among us, you know, is this beautiful, magnificent being. And seeing, I think, through the spiritual eyes, that's that's what that was opened up to you.

Sue Pearson  54:08  
Yes, it was, well, I just love that other people, like CS Lewis and many others have also experienced this holiness that would bring us to us our knees in reverence, yeah, let me bow down and appreciate your beauty, your holiness, your innocence.

Brian Smith  54:34  
Well, you know, and you mentioned earlier, you know, you came to these revelations without the course. And I think, I think when we when we come across great spiritual teachings like CS Lewis or a course, or the Bhagavad Gita, or Hindu teachings, or whatever, it's all over the place, and he referred to it as the tau, that eternal truth. When we come across those things, it's more of a reminder. It's more of a remembrance than it is like a new a new learning. So I think we all kind of know it at some level, and it's just a matter of, like being reminded kind of, kind of being awakened out of a dream. And I know the Course talks a lot about this world. I think you weren't used the word illusion. I think the course refers to it as like a dream, like we fell asleep and we're having this, this experience is not really the ultimate reality.

Sue Pearson  55:26  
That was one factor in my vision of going part way to heaven with my dad that struck me so many things struck me, but when I returned to that bedroom in my father's condominium, the thought that came to me immediately was, Oh, that was more real than this, yeah, it was a glimpse into the truth. And something I read here just reminded me, because there's so many things that come out of these experiences, also, what I learned was our about our oneness. We're all connected. That doesn't mean we our own selves, don't exist, but we exist in a connected way, like being a thread in a tapestry. That tapestry is whole. Yeah, I think are, maybe who we are, and concept

Brian Smith  56:27  
like that we struggle with. I think that's why we have to use analogies. And so for people that are struggling with this idea, like, well, not that it doesn't matter, but it's not the ultimate level reality, I like to use the dreams, like I had a really vivid dream last night, like, so vivid that I thought, this is just like, when it was I have these terrible dreams. It was one of those terrible dreams. But I was like, this is just like one of my dreams. And I thought that while I was in the dreams, I'm at this different level of consciousness, and I I knew on some level, this wasn't really quite right. I knew it wasn't really quite quite real. And then when I wake, when you wake up in the morning, what did we always say? We always say, Oh, it was just a dream. But it felt like I could feel everything. And I was, I was actually consciously trying to say, Is this a dream or not? And I couldn't tell in the dream for sure whether it was, and that's how I think our level of consciousness when we're here, we we kind of remember home, and we know what's not really real, but because it seems so crazy, sometimes we'll even say this doesn't make any sense. Yeah,

Sue Pearson  57:31  
yeah, that's a great one. And I've had many dreams like that too, where I thought, Oh, is this dream is true. I wanted to have one more short story. Yeah, please. This is about guidance, because I have come to really believe in asking and receiving Holy guidance.

Now, there are other stories in this book that point to that, but this one is kind of fun. What's unexpected on some level, but expected on another level.

So this is in that chapter on holy encounters, I've also learned that a holy encounter can come in the middle of a conflict. It can be one person extending their light who breaks through the strife. This story is titled a shot at a miracle, a distressed pharmacist found his day turned right side up when a vaccination patient offered a miracle. I arrived at my appointment five minutes early, but had to wait another 40 minutes to get my shot. The pharmacist was not having a good day, likely after a long string of not good days, the workload was bearing down on him after a long stretch of being short handed. Now he had six people waiting for vaccinations and another line of people waiting for their prescriptions. It was going to be a long, frustrating day to make matters worse, one of the vaccination patients told him another pharmacy was sending patients to his store because they too were overworked and understell, this is just wrong. They can't be doing this to me and making my life so much harder, exclaimed the pharmacist. In dismay, he continued filling out his paperwork and preparing the vaccinations, but he was clearly upset. His eyes were downcast, and he muttered at patients as they showed up at his window without looking at them. He pushed a clipboard and paper in their direction and told them to fill. Out the form. I continued to wait quietly. I didn't want to add to the pharmacist troubles, so I asked the Holy Spirit, how can I help? I didn't know what to say, but I trusted some helpful words would come. Finally, the pharmacist called my name to come into a small room and get my shot. When I came through the door, I said, I bring you peace. I don't know why I said that. It just came out. What an odd thing to say. The farmers responded, I wish I said, No, really, I bring you peace. Just take a deep breath. We both did just that. I said, I hope you can let go of the stress when you go home. He said, other people are making my job harder and harder at the corporate level, they don't want me to go home. They don't even want me to take a day off. How am I supposed to lose this stress if I never get a break? They tell people they can get four vaccinations at once. That's not safe, but it's my liability. They're messing with not their own. I will only give one or two vaccinations per person. Do you think corporate cares about you? I listened intently. I know they don't care about me, but I care about you. You are doing such a tremendous public service, giving me shots and getting people the medicines they need. He said, lately, I've been questioning my career choice, since most people just don't care about what I do. Well, I care and I applaud you for all that you're doing. Thank you. He said, quietly, I got my vaccination. Barely felt this talk, blessings on the rest of your day, I offered as I left, as I walked out, I heard the next patient say to the pharmacist, with much concern in his voice, how are you feeling? He said in a gentle, upbeat boys, I'm better now. Miracles are miracles, not some small, some big. And how do you know, if you've had one, you find peace, and the ripple extends His peace was my peace. And the people waiting in line, and who knows how many after them, only encounters can extend to many others. Thank you, God for the gift of a miracle this day. Yeah, I

Brian Smith  1:02:52  
go ahead, when I, when I read that story in the book, I loved it so much because it, it's, it's so great on, on a couple different levels. I mean, we, we talk about angels and people are, you know, angels are are, are messengers from God. So angels are ones that bring, bring us God's message. And in that instance, by you being open, and by you saying, How can I help you, became an angel to that man, that man might go describe to someone else that an angel visited me today. So, you know, you got the guidance, which was great, but then your guidance actually led to a blessing in his life, that it's just, it's just a beautiful example of something that I think a lot of people take for granted. Wouldn't say, well, that's not a miracle. That's just soon being nice.

Sue Pearson  1:03:41  
Yeah, yeah, that's a perfect explanation, and one I'm glad to be able to write about and tell about, because so often we overlook these moments. Miracles are all around us all the time. So I would just encourage everybody not to just say oh, that was just soothing, nice or Oh, that was just a coincidence. In my way of thinking, there are no coincidences. And for a reason, noticing miracles is really fun. We all that day, all of us who heard this exchange with the pharmacist, including the pharmacist and the next patient and the next patient, we all went home feeling really good, right, right? So, blessings to all of us. Yeah, I wanted to kind of wrap this up by telling you that at the end of the book, there's a practical exercise for anybody. It's a guided meditation. I won't read it. I'll just tell you it's there. It helped me a lot, because I don't offer miraculous forgiveness to everybody. That I have grievances with. I'm human. I am not fully enlightened, but I did this forgiveness exercise in a guided meditation that really brought me some extraordinary peace. And it was, it was the act of imagining a great big stage with my husband, who we invited all these people who were in our lives to come and out on the stage with us and this giant, humongous audience there to see every single person in both of our lives coming out and to honor those people that played a part, and not just the people that offered goodness and cheer and love, No, it was also the people who brought me conflict and disturbance, and the man who fired me from a job I loved, the contractor who promised to build a beautiful playhouse for my grandchildren and took off with The money, a woman I had considered a friend who sued me. These people. I brought all these people, including my loved ones, on the stage, and just imagining them taking a bow for all their performances, brought me a measure of peace I didn't even expect. It wasn't quite miraculous forgiveness, but it was close, yeah, that even those people that I still have a twinge of grief, they get to take a bow to and say, Yeah, I played my part pretty well. I did a great job. Yeah, nobody liked me very much. I still had a great performance. Yes,

Brian Smith  1:07:13  
you've touched on so many important things here today. And one is, you know, we can, we can aspire to that miraculous forgiveness, but we're not necessarily going to get there, and that's okay, because we are we are human. We are in these bodies. We do have to deal with the reality that we find ourselves in, even if it's not the ultimate reality, and then we can aspire to that. But I find so many people want to hold on to that right to be angry. I have a I have a right to be angry. You can't take this away from me, and that's fine. You can hold on to that, and nobody can take it away from you. And I've heard people say, Well, you don't understand. I've been through, you know, so much more and I, and, you know, you mentioned Jesus, and you think, okay, Jesus, if anybody had a lot to forgive, it was, it was him, right? He's like a totally innocent person here trying to help people. And he's and he's murdered by his by his own people shouting for his death. So if anybody can say they went through a lot of suffering, it's him, and he was able to forgive ultimately. So that's our that's our goal.

Sue Pearson  1:08:26  
Yeah, just take my 911 guy for an example. He he has for so many years, thought revenge is my right. Who would I be without this revenge? I don't want to let these people off scot free. He did a horrible thing, but over this 20 or so years, he the revenge and the anger and idea of retribution has been so wearying for him, yeah, now he's saying, Maybe I want something different, maybe, maybe it's okay to let go of all this anger. It's hard, because I totally agree with you. There are people monstrous things have happened to people. Yeah, it's, it's, it's just so hard to let that go and and to kind of give people a a free ride, so to speak. But that's not really what you're doing, yeah? So just like in the 911 story and Jesus saying, just keep trying. Yeah, yeah,

Brian Smith  1:09:43  
yeah. Well, so thank you so much for being here today. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you and talking to you about about your memoir. We just, we just touched the surface. So I want to remind people, remind people the name of the book and where they can get it, and if people want to reach out. To you, if that's okay, and how they can reach out to you.

Sue Pearson  1:10:02  
Absolutely. I have an author website, Sue Pearson org, pretty easy to remember that the book is available on Amazon as a paperback or a Kindle edition. It's also available through Ingram, which is through Barnes and Noble. So you can get it through Barnes and Noble. There's some other platforms, digital to digital is one. I also have an audio book edition, which is available through audible, which is an Amazon platform. So there are all kinds of ways you can get the book and many, many more chapters in here that may resonate with you, so I wrote the book to hopefully encourage people to find that path that deepens them spiritually. To me, this is not about making money. This is about spiritual deepening and spreading the word. And I did, this is not to boast. I'm just absolutely astonished, but Amazon sent me an email a couple weeks ago and said you'll be getting royalties from US, UK, Canada, Denmark, Germany and Japan, and a few weeks later it shows up in my bank account six countries, yeah, so I am, I am humbled and feeling very blessed that this messages are reaching out into the world. That's what I wanted. That's apparently what's happening. So Brian, thank you for having me as a guest. You're such a gracious host to let your guests talk on and on and

Brian Smith  1:11:56  
on. My pleasure. Yeah, I love what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Once you enjoy the rest of your Day. Thank you. You too. Bye, bye. You

Unknown Speaker  1:12:04  
Oh.

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