Twenty years passed before I received another message or vision. The previous experience had left me shaken. Unsure of its true meaning I just assumed it was to give me confidence to be my own person. To be myself and to walk away from my previous Church with confidence.
After that first experience I had gone untreated, primarily due to pride and the stigma associated with mental illness. It was foolish and wrong. But it happened and in the autumn of 2017 I had another manic episode. I had a lot on my mind at the time which is where mania starts for me. A young and growing family, busy at work, my wife was ill. It was a lot to juggle and it started my mind racing again to the point where I needed to take time off work and receive hospitalization.
The hospitalization started at the emergency ward of my local hospital. It has a waiting room after which you are assigned a personal observation room. Entrance was swift. Symptoms that include a racing mind, combined with the inability to sleep tend to get you looked at quickly. But eventually I was left alone in an observation room for periods of time. I was left alone with my racing thoughts.
A vision, the second in my life, appeared. It was a vision of humanity bringing planets together by travelling to them one by one. The planets did not appear to harbor intelligent life however they did orbit stars separate from our own. A handful of planets in total. In the end the planets were seen to be embraced by humanity with love and the feeling the vision conjured was one of tremendous hope.
I do not believe the vision is our preordained future. It was not a prophecy. Instead I believe it is a vision of our potential. However it is my faith in humanity and my god that makes me believe this vision will come to pass. I believe in time humanity will travel to distant Worlds and treat those Worlds as bodies to be loved instead of just resources to be harvested.
But, I believe, we must learn to love our World and each other first. For only then will we have the courage to look outward instead of inward. And this, I believe, is how it was meant to be. For only when our own World is in order; when violence, poverty, and despair have been widely addressed and the end result is a multicultural, pluralistic and loving World of many nations, cultures, and creeds, will humanity have the fortitude to tackle star travel. Only when we have learned to love one another and our planet will we endeavor to export our love to distant stars.
The second vision, I believe, is a revelation that all these things are possible in time. Centuries? Millennia? Perhaps much longer than these timeframes, but I cannot possibly know. Nor is it important to me. For the joy must be found in the journey, not the final destination. Each of us must find love in our lives today. It is each of us establishing love in our current lives, free of intolerance, hatred, and prejudice, that sets the collective foundation for something wonderful in the future to come.
The second vision, I believe, is also an acknowledgement that we have not veered wildly off course. Yes we have real problems that need solving today: climate change, extremism, and poverty to name a few. But we also have a tremendous capacity for love. When that collective love is applied to those global problems I believe the possibilities become limitless.
Finally there is one thing the second vision is not. It is not a command. It is a statement of our potential but not a commandment from on high. I believe The Greatest Love is simply saying that the potential exists and if fulfilled it will be a natural extension of our love. They want us to maximize our potential in love for in so doing we become closer to Them. But it is humanity who must make the choice to reach for the stars when we are ready. And we need not do it for The Greatest Love. The occasions when They speak and expect our obedience are rare now, and this is not one of those times.
Instead we can do it for ourselves when we ourselves are ready. For all humankind.
