death and rebirth: you have to go to hell to get to heaven

Several things happened in my daily life recently, and in my dreams, to point me toward the topic of today's post.

In fact, often as not, God's messengers are not radiant and pretty. They are, well, grubby and not pretty.

There is a reason for this. Two reasons, actually.

The messengers themselves are being put through hell to get to heaven, as Kari Dangler summed it up this morning on the telephone, after I told her she is being put through God's purification fire, whether she likes it or not, and somebody had to tell her that, whether she likes it or not.

The second reason is, the people the messengers are sent need to hear what the messengers have to say, to give them a chance to move closer to God, or not. And, the messengers are grubby, and not pretty, to give those people a chance to get over themselves and see just how grubby and not pretty they also are.

Historically, it has not been easy for God's messengers, as the Bible amply demonstrates.

Currently, I have in my "orbit" five close friends being put through hell by God's angels. Kari is one of them. The other four get mention from time to time on this blog.

Each of them is struggling. Each of them is being stretched. Each of them is not happy with it. My observation of them is, the more highly they think of themselves, the harder it is for them to submit to the ... training. The harder it is for them to ... see themselves accurately. The harder it is for them to ... become obedient.

One of them told me yesterday, that he was briefly visited by the war angel Khamael earlier in the day. Khamael told him that he was going to have a really rough go of it. He, in fact, was having a really rough go of it already. He tried to brush the visit off. Then, he was visited by the archangel Michael, who told him the same thing, and that he will have as rough a go of it as the woman in Key West is having. Kari Dangler, whom he knows and has spoken with on the telephone. Then, his day got a lot rougher, which is saying something, because it already was horrible for him.

I told my friend the angels do this to some people out of great love, and I wonder why the angels don't do it to everyone? I said it is important to try not to react, and while sometimes a tantrum is appropriate, per Jesus in the temple with the money changers and merchants, it's best to not throw tantrums.

In the Gospels, John the Baptist said one greater than he would come, who would baptize in fire and spirit. When that one came to John the Baptist, to be baptized in water, John said this was that one. 

Nowhere in the Gospels do I see Jesus baptized anyone in water. He did just what John the Baptist said he would do. He challenged people ongoing. He told his disciples they would be stretched and some of them would be killed. He put them into fire, and then at Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to them and, using fire and spirit, grew them from children into adults, who could serve God.

The disciples, the twelve and the secret ones, died while still alive and became something else entirely. That is what Jesus meant by dying and being reborn. He himself experienced the fire and spirit baptism before he died physically, according to the Gospels.

Not a new philosophy, actually. Death and rebirth was in spiritual traditions before Jesus' time, and it was part of spiritual traditions after his time. The spirit part always was more popular than the fire part, though. A lot more popular, actually. 

I hated the fire part. I still don't like it. But if the angels had not provided it, they would have shortchanged me. Robbed me. That's what I keep telling my five friends, and anyone else who offers me the opportunity to say it to them.

Therefore, I will share this post today with all the important Key West and Florida Keys people I was told by the angels to drag into the Kari Dangler Lower Keys Medical Center and Key West homeless shelter dramas described in the past few posts at this blog.

Kari is still struggling. She told me this morning on the telephone that her stomach and bowel are aching. She is passing terrible-smelling gas. She has not pooped in several days. She did not vomit the past two days. She has not had solid food in a while. She has been able to drink some liquid yogurt. She drank no vodka since being run over from behind on her bicycle by a hit-and-run electric bicycle on the North Roosevelt Blvd sidewalk a while ago. She is sounding increasingly more clear-headed, and I hope that continues, for relapse is ever a threat.

All of that, and Kari's awful medical troubles and her mistreatment at the hospital and the homeless shelter, came on the heels of her telling me a while back, that she woke up before dawn that day in her hidey hole and saw a shooting star, and then a man she never saw before walked straight to where she lay and said she knew who he was and where he came from, and she thought he was from the shooting star and was an angel, and he said she had a purpose, she needed to change, and she needed to leave Key West, and she was terrified and shit in her pants, and he turned and walked back toward where he had come from.

I told Kari on the telephone last night, that what the man from the shooting star told her was happening in the time order he predicted, and whether or not she likes it, or likes hearing me say it, is not relevant. She needs to hear it from somebody. She seemed to take it in. She still seemed to be taking it in this morning, when she said she had to go through hell to get to heaven. She still has a ways to go in hell. As do my four friends. As do I. As does everyone, I imagine.

Once again, for readers who live in or near Key West, maybe 5 days before Hurricane Irma arrived in the fall of 2016, Kari told me she woke up after dawn in her hidey hole and saw two enormous hands and arms reach down through the clouds and nudge Irma slightly eastward. Kari had told me she started having visions when she was a child.

As Irma then closed in on Key West, she turned slightly eastward and spared Key West the direct, catastrophic hit keys 20 miles above and farther up US 1 experienced. The "dirty side" of Category 4 Irma would have devastated Key West and its lovely tree canopy in the older parts of town.

After forming off the west coast of Africa, Irma was steered straight at Key West by African shamans upset with the city having put a dog park on top of an African slave cemetery. That had made the news in Key West earlier in 2016. 

Angels of the Lord overrode the shamans and spared Key West Irma's dirty side, because Kari Dangler was trapped there. I can imagine interesting karma stemming from the way the city government and its police and hospital and homeless shelter treated Kari after Irma.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com