The Destination

Think about the last time you heard someone say that it’s the journey, not the destination. When was the last time you heard someone on the television, in a podcast, on the radio or just in everyday conversation say those words? That it’s not the destination, it’s about the journey, to quote Emerson.

It is a sentence I have never believed.

Before I began to understand any of the concepts of my birth religion to any depth, I already knew that it was the destination. The journey, by the time I was in kindergarten and first grade, had already taken far too long. My experiences with my Creator, with angels and spirits, told me that I wanted to go back to the destination. What was wrong with that picture? Why was the journey already so slow, so long at ages five or six? Where was the return ticket Home?

Other kids my age might have been interested in the Halloween costumes, Christmas presents and Easter baskets. I was interested in the spirits of the men, women and children in the influenza cemetery behind the house where I grew up. They were interesting, even the many souls who had died as children and infants.

Those souls could, and did, tell me about the destination. Due to the Spanish Influenza plague of a hundred years ago those people had already gone Home. They weren’t hanging around earth like other spirits, like ghosts who hadn’t made it through the Tunnel of Light. They told me that they came back because I was here. There was someone in their town who could see them. I could hear them. They could…