Reviews, Interviews, News, Commentaries, Excerpts, My Top 5 Books, Wilson's Bookmarks, Book AwardsMary Neal Describes Her Visit to the Gates of Heaven
Photo by David AgnelloMary Neal Describes Her Visit to the Gates of Heaven
In 1999, orthopedic surgeon Mary Neal was kayaking on a river in southern Chile when she got trapped under a waterfall and apparently drowned. In the thirty minutes she was "dead," she says, she experienced some incredible things, which she finally described in her book Heaven and Back: A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again (Waterbrook).
The book has been on the New York Times best-seller list for over two years now. It is accompanied by two other near-heaven experience books: Todd Burbo's Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, which has been there since 2004, and Eben Alexander's Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster), which was published in October.
In the cover story in the current issue of Christianity Today(available to subscribers immediately; or click here to subscribe to get access), I try to understand why these experiences fascinate us so, and how we might understand them theologically. I begin that article by summarizing Mary Neal's experience. But I also wanted to hear her tell her own story, and ask her a few questions about it.
–Mark Galli, editor,Christianity Today
Let's get right to the point: What happened to you?
As background, my husband and I are avid outdoors people and very athletic. We've been kayaking for many, many, many years. We have kayaked on rivers throughout the United States, and we've kayaked internationally. So we decided to go to Chile to kayak with friends who are professionals—they run a raft and kayak company in the United States, and during the winter, they run trips in Chile for Americans. We decided to kayak a section of a river that's well-known for its waterfalls, and by that I mean drops of ten to fifteen feet. These are challenging for a kayaker, but they are not unreasonable, and they were certainly within our skill set.
We put in with four of these professionals and a few other Americans (though my husband couldn't go that day because of back problems) and went over a couple of drops. It's a fairly wide river with tremendous volume, tremendous flow. We decided to run this one smaller chute. The person who was kayaking ahead of me went toward it but got turned so that her boat was temporarily stuck. I was already in the current, so I was committed. I veered off to the left to avoid her and went over the main drop, which, as I said, had tremendous flow.
As I went over the top, I could see the bottom and that there was no clean exit . I assumed that I would hit the bottom, flip over, probably not be able to right myself, and then would pull the spray skirt off, push myself out of the boat, get tumbled around a bit, and spit out downstream. This is never an enjoyable experience, but it's certainly part of kayaking. It wouldn't have been the first time that it happened.
(And I might add that I grew up around the water. I grew up boating. I love the water. I'm a total water person. But I'd always feared a drowning death, and I always thought that was something that would just be terrifying and horrible.)
When I hit the bottom of the waterfall, the front of my boat became pinned in the rocks underwater. I and my boat were completely submerged in the water—probably eight or ten feet under. One of the guys who ultimately tried to find me actually kayaked right over me and didn't even know it.
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Paul Becke
Not everyone who calls me, 'Lord! Lord....!' Why would Jesus not care all the more about the heaviness of the burdens some of his children are forced to carry, so often from an early age, and make allowances for them? Remember the woman caught in adultery? And the woman at the well of Sychar. It seems sensible to assume, does it not, that any indulgence shown by Jesus towards them, must have been well-motivated, and that he would not have wished to condone serious sinfulness, least of all, to have it published in his Gospels. He was never, and never will be a 'one size fits all' judge. Only he knows the struggles we face, the grace he gives us, and the strength of our love as expressed in our endeavours to please him, even in our hardest trials.
Paul Becke
Jesus' power as a healer. It was precisely the people who had had everything in their upbringing and life stacked against them whom Jesus most passionately cared about. Indeed, the impression I have is that he felt immeasurably more in common with the rogues and vagabonds of that society than with most of its formally pious religious leaders. The shepherds, to whom the angels appeared at the Nativity, were regarded as a criminal class. I expect because poorly paid, and wont to steal the odd sheep. So, I believe Mary's extrapolation was proper. Although it might on the face of it seem a little presumptuous, our Christian instinct should assure us that she was right to think of Jesus in that way. As James tells us in his epistle, 'The devils believe, and tremble.' Love is proved by commitment and action; although the highest action is passive, the acceptance of suffering for Christ's sake, as Christ did so epically for his father's sake on Calvary.
Paul Becke
Clair, in his definitive description of the last Judgement in Matthew I alluded to, Jesus stated only one, single criterion - a criterion which will not be met by a life of vice in other regards, it's true - selfless, self-giving love, charity, extending help, practical whenever possible, to those in any kind of need. This primacy of love over formal belief or credence is reiterated by Jesus on more than one occasion. 'On love hangs the whole of the Law and the Prophets', was one. Anotehr; 'Go away', he said to a religious leader, 'and find out the meaning of the words, 'It is love I want, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts. The Good Samaritan is not the only instance in which Jesus holds up a non-believer, at least according to orthodox Judaism of the day, in that instance, as an exemplar of what God requires of us. Are we to suppose that the Centurion whose servant Jesus cured was a Christian? We are not told so, although he evidently believed in