MSI Press Blog

  Today's book excerpt comes from  An Afternoon's Dictation  by  Steven Greenebaum . This book has been in the Amazon top 100 among interfaith and ecumenical books on many occasions. PART TWO: DEALING WITH DEATH AND DYING CHAPTER SIX   For me, while the thought of a soul being with God forever was indeed warmly comforting, the idea of a soul dwelling in, or confined to, a gated heaven was not. I’d grown up and indeed lived most of my life surrounded by people who talked about heaven’s “pearly gates.” Heaven as a gated community? The image was perfect—perfectly horrible. Only the “anointed” need apply. And who was the guardian of the gates, checking off who would be admitted and who would be turned away? Peter, a white male Christian saint. No, thanks. I’ve never liked gated communities on Earth. I certainly wasn’t interested in one for our souls. So, what to do with, “You cannot live forever, but you can be with Me forever.”? If religion is but a language for sp...

Today's book excerpt comes from  An Afternoon's Dictation  by  Steven Greenebaum . This book has been in the Amazon top 100 among interfaith and ecumenical books on many occasions. PART TWO: DEALING WITH DEATH AND DYING CHAPTER FIVE   It wasn’t lost on me that the questions that most oppressed my mind and had me angrily demanding answers from God weren’t answered until halfway through the revelations that were placed before me. Still, what I desperately needed at that moment of crisis in my life was some kind of handle on death and dying. So, what I gravitated to first were the revelations about these two difficult subjects. I read them, reread them, and lived with them. In all honesty, being open to it required me to reorient my thinking about God as well as life and death—which is a lot to unpack! But it did comfort me and help me to begin to move ahead. Given how spent I felt, this was no small task. The mind is not the soul. Nor is the body. Sometimes, the mind...