NPR Writer's "Transcendent Moment" with Dying Christian Patient Launches Quest to Explain "Presence" of God
"The air grew warmer and heavier, as if someone had moved into the circle (of lamplight) and was breathing on us...I felt an unseen caress, engulfed by a presence I could feel but not touch. I was paralyzed. ... After a minute, although it seemed longer, the presence melted away."
A self-confessed lapsed Christian, NPR religious reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty has written of a "transcendent moment" that occurred on June 10, 1995. That moment proved to be the "continental divide of her life" and changed her forever, she writes in her new book, Fingerprints of God.
It was on that date in 1995 that Hagerty was reportedly interviewing a terminally ill patient "whose sunny outlook and trust in Jesus seemed to have prolonged her life, inexplicably, for years." As reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer, as the two talked Hagerty felt the hair on the back of her neck "stand on end." (Photo by: George Sanchez/MCT Photo)
"The air grew warmer and heavier," said Hagerty, "as if someone had moved into the circle (of lamplight) and was breathing on us...I felt an unseen caress, engulfed by a presence I could feel but not touch. I was paralyzed. ... After a minute, although it seemed longer, the presence melted away.""
In her book, Hagerty also relates another story shared by Rev. Scott McDermott, former pastor of Washington Crossing United Methodist Church in Bucks County, PA.
According to the Inquirer report, "One day in 1996 McDermott—who has a doctorate in New Testament theology—struck up a conversation with a Pentecostal preacher from Toronto. When the man told McDermott he would pray for him, McDermott suddenly fell on his back with a vision of the ancient Holy Land, and saw himself running 'from Jericho to Jerusalem.' For 90 minutes McDermott lay on the floor, pumping his arms and legs until he saw himself arriving at the Temple. There he found Jesus waiting for him, he said, 'His arms outstretched.'"
Subsequently, McDermott agreed to submit to a brain scan study at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
To date, Hagerty is still reluctant to accept the notion of a God who "intervenes in human affairs," even though she does sense that "the instruments of brain science are picking up something beyond this material world," and admits she is "not comfortable with the idea of an absurd, meaningless universe."
Click on the link provided to read the results of McDermott's brain study, and the very interesting thalamus/spiritual/brain connection researchers found.
