Check It Out: They gave their lives; let’s not waste ours
By Joan Janzen
As we approach Remembrance Day, we acknowledge the influence veterans had on our individual lives. In a recent article, columnist Bill O’Reilly acknowledged that his concept of right and wrong was birthed long before he was born when his grandfather was part of the “Lost Battalion” in WWI. He was one of the 200 men out of the 550 in his regiment who made it back home. His father was also in the military as a naval officer supporting the invasion of Japan in WWII.
O’Reilly describes his upbringing as simple: he was expected to do the right thing, to be honest, respectful, peaceful and have no malice towards anyone. However, now he has observed that “there is little right-wrong accountability; almost everything is socially acceptable.” As a result, there’s a stark contrast between the past and the present.
“Under my grandfather’s and father’s life code, I did not witness much evil growing up,” he recalled. “But today, it’s literally in your face.” However, there was something else that his grandfather and father “literally faced,” which influenced their worldview. They faced death as they fought their battles.
On an episode of Full Measure, it was reported the army is short of recruits in America. According to an army survey, the main reason young people are avoiding a military career is “fear of death.” However, as wars increase all around us, more people have been forced to face this reality.
In the midst of this reality, a film was released at the end of October entitled “After Death.” It’s somewhat of a coincidence since its writer and director, Stephen Gray from Angel Studios, says they have been working on the project for seven years. If the name Angel Studios sounds familiar, it’s because they released the film “Sound of Freedom” earlier this year.
When interviewed by Randy Kay, Stephen Gray said he had two criteria when selecting people whose stories would be included in the film. “There had to be a lot of evidence surrounding their death,” he explained. Two of the producers of the film were skeptics, and he wanted to keep in mind the skeptics in the audience. Therefore, they wanted eyewitnesses, doctor’s notes, medical transcriptions, and investigations into what happened to corroborate the stories. Their stories are verified by medical professionals and some of the top doctors in the US.
“The other element was, we were trying to find people who potentially had a lot to lose in telling their story,” he explained. Many of the people in the film fit that description. The documentary-style productions features people with academic, medical and scientific credentials. They include professors, psychiatrists, doctors, surgeons, and pilots, some of whom lost everything but still felt it was worth telling their story.
Surgeon Dr. Mary Neil is one of those people. While being interviewed by CBN, a beaming and very much alive Dr. Neil relayed her personal after-death experience. “My husband and I are avid kayakers. We’ve done it for decades, all over the country and internationally,” she explained. On this particular occasion, they went to Chile and decided to paddle a river well known for its 10 to 15-foot waterfalls. On the final day of paddling, she paddled alone since her husband wasn’t feeling well. She was joined by a group of friends.
When they came to a more significant drop, she crested the waterfall, realizing it wouldn’t be a fun experience but one she had faced before. However, this time, what happened had never happened before.
“In my medical practice, I had certainly dealt with death with my patients,” she said. “But at that point in my life, I had not personally lost anyone. Like most people, I’d never thought about death until I had to, and I never thought about what would happen when I die.”
Dr. Neil hit the bottom, and the front of her boat became pinned while she and the boat were submerged under ten feet of water. “I am a surgeon, so I am very calm in high-stress situations. I didn’t panic; I set about trying to free myself, but the weight of the water was too great for me to do anything,” she said. “I thought about my options, which were very few, and I realized I would probably die.”
At that very moment, she had a very physical feeling of being held and comforted, assured that everything was going to be fine. “I was being held by Christ. And it took me a long time to actually say that out loud,” she confessed. “I never felt alive, then dead; I felt alive and then more alive.” She said one of the most beautiful things about her experience was the feeling of being completely known and purely loved.
She described herself as very pragmatic and was thinking she was having a hallucination. “I’m very good with time, and I knew I had been under water too long to still be alive,” she explained. “So I thought I had hit an air pocket. I could still feel the boat and my legs breaking, but I felt no pain. But the real me, the essence or spirit or whatever you want to call it, rose up and out of the river.”
She felt an incredible lightness and was greeted by people who were important in her life story, although she didn’t recognize any of them. She assumed they were relatives she had never met. “My experience radically transformed my understanding of life and death, my understanding of what it means to be here. We’re not meant to be here and just waste it away,” she reasoned.
“I am so hoping people see the film and bring their friends, even friends who are not faith-based. Because we’re all going to die, and this film does a really good job of making you think. I hope people leave this film feeling challenged in their own assumptions of what death means. I’m absolutely convinced if you get to the point where you really accept that there is a life after death, it propels you down a pathway of discovering meaning, purpose and joy, which is the life I believe we’re meant to live,” she concluded.
This Remembrance Day, as we honour those who gave their lives, I hope each of us discovers meaning, purpose and joy every day. They gave their lives; let’s not waste ours.