The cycle of life is in full focus at my home this month. We lost a dear relative, the sister of my wife, who was more like her Mom than her sister. She was a wonderful person and will be sorely missed. We are anxiously expecting the birth of an eighth grandchild within the next few weeks. We could not be more excited! We feel the hand of God actively working in our lives.
Wellness is a holistic, proactive approach to health. It emphasizes maintaining and improving physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health through lifestyle and choices, which help us avoid illness and live as fully as possible. Many times, we mostly dwell on the physical, nutritional, and aesthetic aspects, and feel the emotional and spiritual parts of ourselves are not as important. Let’s discuss the latter today and how your spiritual life is critical to health as well.
As a physician and particularly an anesthesiologist, I have seen thousands of people transition into life through birth and from this physical life at the end of their journey. It is a blessing and an honor to be able to witness and participate with each person at these disparate times.
I have helped resuscitate so many people during emergencies that I can no longer keep track of the number. Over the years, I have spoken with many patients after a traumatic event. Many would ask me about their dreams, visions, and memories as they were teetering near death, before returning to consciousness hours, days, or weeks later. Many spoke of the “bright white light at the end of a tunnel”, and I never really thought much about it. I explained it as probably due to a lack of oxygen in the brain or some other medical phenomenon I couldn’t explain.
In 2024, I read an article about NDE’s (near-death experiences), which piqued my interest in the stories I had heard from my own patients. It caused me to read several books. The most impressive of the group are two books written by a former street preacher to the homeless and addicted in Austin, Texas. His name is John Burke, and the two books are Imagine Heaven and Imagine the God of Heaven. He interviewed over 1500 people during a 30-year period and recorded each of their stories and recollections.
Pastor Burke talked with people of all religious persuasions about their NDE’s. He interviewed people of all ages, religions, and even folks who were non-believers, atheists, or agnostics. Their experiences and descriptions in the books went well beyond the “light at the end of the tunnel”. Pastor Burke then compared their descriptions to various descriptions of heaven and the afterlife described in the Christian Bible and the writings from the Dead Sea scrolls, which were written around 300-68 BCE and were found in various caves from 1946 to 1956 in the Middle East.
The three main or major religions on earth are Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. What do they all have in common? They claim to serve the same God. Mankind… human beings, going back thousands of years, have looked for some higher being to help make sense of the universe. We have wanted, even needed, something greater than ourselves to worship, to cling to, and to help explain the fear, uncertainty, and even calamity life can cause. Spirituality or the search for where we are from and where we are going is as important to our mental and emotional well-being as the right food, exercise, and habits, it seems.
What is the reason the peace deal in the Middle East, which is being negotiated as we write, is called the Abraham Accords? The reason is that Abraham is the father of all three of these main religious disciplines. Abraham was Jewish and the father of the early Jewish tribes. Abraham was the father of Ishmael, whose mother was Hagar. Ishmael is the lineage to the Prophet Mohammed. Abraham’s son Isaac, with his mother Sara, is the heir who led to King David, and ultimately to Jesus 41 generations after Isaac.