Posted by Roberta Grimes • October 04, 2025 • 6 Comments
Afterlife Research, Understanding Reality
The road is long, with many a winding turn,
That leads us to who knows where, who knows when.
But I’m strong, strong enough to carry him.
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.
So, on we go. His welfare is of my concern.
No burden is he to bear. We’ll get there.
For I know he would not encumber me.
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother!
If I’m laden at all, I’m laden with sadness
That everyone’s heart isn’t filled with the gladness
Of love for one another. It’s a long, long road
From which there is no return.
While we’re on the way to there, why not share?
– Bob Russell (1914-1970), Bobby Scott (1937-1990), from “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” (1969)
Even the most carefully loving followers of Jesus, trying prayerfully and with the greatest concern to live a deeply Christian life, can have trouble doing all the most loving things perfectly well. We all act impulsively sometimes, and we thereby can do other people inadvertent harm. Perhaps we don’t completely understand some situations, or we haven’t thought through all the possible results of every one of our actions. Or we might face situations where, no matter what we do, someone is going to be harmed, in any event. Or perhaps, at the very least, someone is bound to be severely inconvenienced?
And sometimes, it is our very eagerness to help that can cause other people the very worst tragedies. The easy and happy cure that we might spot for someone else’s pain might actually worsen his disease; or it even might turn him into a crazyman killer who is likely to murder someone else. Real life is so complicated! And, as some wag once said, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. These problems have been weighing heavily on my mind of late, especially since a couple of these sorts of problems which have been frequently in the recent news came near to affecting my own life pretty heavily when I was very young. And some people, whose lives may not have been personally affected by these two issues at all, nevertheless have their own strong opinions on these two matters in particular. All that I can do here is to share my personal experiences, and then suggest to you that, whatever your own strictly-held views might be, these issues are more complicated than you might wish them to be. I do think, therefore, that each of the issues that we will be discussing here today is a lot more complex than the politicians would have us believe that they are. In fact, my Thomas and I believe that the two issues that we will discuss here first really belong outside the political arena altogether.
ABORTION
I was born as what was back then called “a seven-month baby”. My parents’ wedding pictures actually contain a little family of three. In fact, both my mother and her sister seem to have been pretty carefree about birth control, since my seven-month-baby cousin was born only a month after I was born. I grew up happily and feeling very much loved, so I never gave any of this a thought until the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision which made abortion an easy alternative was handed down in 1973. I recall thereafter arguing in a law school class how badly flawed the Roe decision really was, for heaven’s sake, with arbitrary trimesters written into it, and so on. It was flagrantly and absurdly judge-made law, and it needed to be overturned, as eventually it was, just over fifty years later. Around the time of Roe’s original decision, though, with abortion then so much in the news, it occurred to me to thank my mother for her kindly not having aborted me. I thanked her for instead marrying my father and carrying me to term. And my own dear and much-beloved mother looked up at me from whatever she happened to be reading at the time, and she said to me, pretty coldly I thought, “What choice did I have?” My own mother said those actual words to me. TO ME! To her own beloved child!! I said nothing to her in return. What could I have said? But I realized then, in that horrible moment, and I was aware for the rest of her life, and now my own, that her culture had taught her that before I was born, I had been nothing more than a tumor of cells, a mere parasite on her body. And had she actually been given that terrible option to abort me, then yes, she probably would have aborted me. And then, I never would have come to be.
My Take on Abortion, from Love’s Perspective: We afterlife researchers know now for certain that I was already fully and completely myself when my parents’ egg and sperm first came together at my conception. Even before that moment, there was a great deal of forethought that had already gone into everything from the design and planning of every detail of the lifetime that I am living now, including my gender and the location and choice of parents for my precious planned lifetime to come. True, there is some suggestion nowadays that if there is a high likelihood that the mother will choose abortion, perhaps no planned occupant will be allocated to that fetus; but the jury is still out on that. There are too many psychics who have witnessed fetuses being whisked out of abortion rooms by literal angels who have come to take those children to the afterlife homes where they will be lovingly reared to afterlife adulthood. My Take is that unprotected sexual intercourse ALWAYS should be seen as the potential production of a living child. So, you must never have unprotected sex unless you are willing to devote those next nine months to a possible pregnancy!
But, what about rape? Well, no rape ever was the resulting infant’s fault, now, was it? One Miss USA contestant back in 2014 told us that she had been the product of a violent rape. Her mother had frankly explained to her why she didn’t have a present father, and had told her that having her as a precious child to love had been her motherly compensation for that awful assault. The girl, once grown, then devoted herself to advocating for victims of sexual assault.
TRANSGENDERISM
Throughout my childhood, I wanted to be a boy. This was long before transgenderism was ever a thing, and I was fortunate indeed that it was long before children were given in their schools the peculiar notion that they might change their genders, because if I ever had been told such a thing was possible, I would have signed up for that surgery in a heartbeat! As it was, I never told anyone about my problem, not a friend and not even either of my parents. I remember that I generally hung out a lot with the boys in grade school, and I also had shy crushes on a couple of girls. In the third grade, I grew rapidly in height, so I became the tallest child in my class. And when they did standardized testing, they foolishly let us know that I also tested to be the smartest child in our class, so then I was teased about that, and I had to beat up some of the boys. I was tough! But then, right about when I was turning fifteen, something wonderful happened. I entered full-blown puberty. I never had talked to anyone about my secret, desperate wish to be a boy, so the fact that my wish was lessening rapidly as I drifted toward feeling ever more female was no big deal to anyone but me. I turned sixteen, and then seventeen. Wow, the transformation in my feelings was amazing! By the time I was attending an all-girls’ college, I was through puberty, and I was happy to be an entirely heterosexual female. As it turned out, all that I ever had needed to straighten out completely was hormones!
My Take on Transgenderism, from Love’s Perspective: I grew up with a younger sister and a female cousin who were close to me in age, so whatever they were wearing and playing at and talking about while we were growing up, my cover was just to copy them. So I was mentally mostly a boy, while pretending to be a girl. Mostly, though, I lived a solitary childhood. I read and wrote and drew pictures of horses, and I rode and cared for my own horse. I just kept my private thoughts. It was not until decades after I grew up that I met my Thomas, my spirit guide, and he suggested to me a very sensible reason why I had wanted to be a boy before my female hormones kicked in. I lived seventeen incarnations with my beloved Thomas since I first met him, and our first meeting was right after the death and resurrection of Jesus. He assures me now that in every one of those lifetimes that I lived with him, I was always a man. We aren’t sure about my earlier lifetimes, but it’s possible that this is the first time I ever have been a woman. So, it’s no wonder it felt weird for me to be born into a female body this time around. I have been researching this whole transgender thing, and in fact I think it is likely that what happened to me – a switch in genders before this incarnation – is probably the usual reason why any child ever might feel “transgendered”. And if they do feel that way, then I am living proof that puberty is likely to cure the problem. So, I think that no child ever should be told that transgenderism even is a ‘thing”, for heaven’s sake! My Take is that if adults choose to lop off parts of their bodies, or to begin lifelong hormone therapies, then that is entirely up to them. But it is literally a criminal act to inflict such awful, aberrant ideas on children, when for their bodies’ natural hormones to kick in is very likely to entirely fix any gender confusion that they might have in childhood.
FREEING DANGEROUS CRIMINALS OUT OF KINDNESS TO THE CRIMINALS
Recently, a gruesome murder occurred in North Carolina that could so easily have been prevented. A sweet and innocent twenty-three-year-old refugee from Ukraine who had come to the United States in search of a better life was commuting home from work, when a monstrous serial criminal stood up from the train seat behind her and stabbed her in the neck, murdering her. The compounded facts that this girl had fled a country at war, only to be murdered here; and her entire killing was caught on camera; and on top of it all, her killer had a ten-year criminal history, was clearly mentally ill and a major threat to society, so he never should have been on the streets at all made this whole story big nationwide. We see Iryna Zarutska just casually step up onto that safe and wholesome commuter train and swing down into a seat, very busy at once with her phone at the end of just another work day in the land of the free. And then, because some judge had favored that criminal monster’s liberty over your precious life and my life and Iryna’s, we watch him coldly stab her to death and walk away.
My Take on Criminals’ Freedom, from Love’s Perspective: There have been a number of stories like this in the news lately, about lax and sloppy judges and prosecutors releasing repeated criminal offenders without requiring them even to post any bail at all. And, not very surprisingly, all too often, those released criminals have then killed or otherwise severely damaged some innocent person’s life not long after they were released. In this case, after Iryna Zarutska’s death, the North Carolina legislature thought better of this situation, and it passed some sensible legislation that should make it less likely in the future for such an appalling murder by a released career criminal to happen in that state. My Take is that when the choice is between showing love to criminals and showing love to innocent community members, it is imperative that those in positions of authority always must put the interests of the communities they have sworn to protect before the interests of known criminals!
So, now where are we? How can deeper and more thoughtful love solve these, and other problems of the kinds of love-based choices that we are daily being forced to make between people? For example:
As you can see from only these three examples, strictly following Jesus’s command that we love everyone perfectly requires considerably more thought and care than we might at first have thought that it did, because love must include us all, and even the helpless unborn. Jesus didn’t preach, but rather think of how very well He taught! Here is my favorite example of Jesus teaching love’s true commandment of perfect love, from the Gospel Book of John. 3 “The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, 4 they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now, in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?’ 6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. 7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them,‘He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. 10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?’ 11 She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now, on sin no more'” (JN 8:3-11).
And there you have it, my dear ones. for Jesus, love is something like a many-sided game of chess. Because everyone must be invited to play.
And the load Doesn’t weigh me down at all!
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother. He’s my brother!
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother!
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother!
– Bob Russell (1914-1970), Bobby Scott (1937-1990), from “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” (1969)
(Many photos are from Vecteezy.com)
Thank you! 🪴🕊️
Oh my dear, so much beloved Deb, you are very welcome!
Roberta, as I read this post I have to shake my head in wonder. You are looking at these subjects so deeply from the viewpoint of the ego illusion you sound like a materialist! What you are is Consciousness, not a body, and not dependent on any body. Your parents did not create you! The two parent bodies created an egoic form that you associate with just to experience this particular reality. If they hadn’t or if that body had been aborted you‘d simply be associated with some other form and experiencing this reality through it. By relating to this subject as Consciousness you wouldn’t have suffered through the negative emotions you felt or been burdened with what your mother said. With transgenderism it’s the same thing. Consciousness shows up in an egoic forms that wants to change sex. Sometimes these forms will settle naturally as you did and with others they will decide to change it. There doesn’t have to be any judgment about it. Thesa are just experiences in Consciousness of the infinite number available.
Your whole post seems to be rife with judgement based on the ego illusion. Do you really claim that those in authority can protect you? From what, death? There is the appearance of tragedy around us all the time, every day. Consciousness in the form of Iryna went through a certain experience then awoke from this egoic illusion to the truth of light and Love that underpins everything. Her assailant will one day go through the same thing, perhaps with a life review to awaken him to the fact he never was separate from his victim.
Love is understanding that all are one. If we’re supposed to have peace in this particular reality, and I’m not sure we are, then only this understanding could make it happen.
My dear Tom, I have read your comment here at least a half-dozen times, believing that of course you have made it sincerely and out of love, and trying to understand what really is the productive point that you are trying to make. If what you really mean to say here is true, dear, then of course there is no point to our planning earth-lives at all, is there? Or, planned lives or not, there is no point to our entering earth-bodies, since those bodies are material. There is nothing here to be learned, and no way here to learn anything, since the ego is only an illusion, and now that we know that, we can just go home. We cannot learn to love, because the process to learn it simply does not exist. Am I understanding what you are telling us correctly?
Dearest Roberta,
Your take on love and the imperfect fruit (which is a consequence human incarnation) raises some interesting feelings and ideas.
And some ideas are actually deep feelings given a voice by thought via the medium of language. Here is such an idea:
Were I to sojourn through this life just knowing that I am pure consciousness having some (albeit convincing) illusory experiences, I may dither, I may meander hither and thither. I might nod knowingly at the illusion and not get into difficulty trying to help, say, the pregnant woman get into a boat to escape from the rushing flood.
Knowing all to be a play and myself just consciousness acting on a glorified stage, I might walk on by the old man collapsing from the heat, and not bother to take him water and call the medics. Happily pondering the beauty and detachment of my innate awareness, I might not listen to a distraught guy talk about his suicidal thoughts after years of abusive parenting. I might instead think about the shopping while the guy droned on and on. Then I might wish him well and send him out the door. I mean, it’s his consciousness that needs to go through many often tragic lives until he realises his Oneness. Right? No need for me to get involved.
Consciousness Divine has it all in hand. I guess people can suffer through myriad agonising lives, until they becoming self aware and drop all ideas that cause suffering. Period. End of story. That’s all folks!
No need to feel WITH someone; No reason to help out and MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Right?
Wrong.
Many people all over our world move heaven and earth to help, heal and support people because they cannot stand idly by. They cannot blissfully stew in self satisfaction, basking in the splendid isolation of seeing through the illusion that everyone else is trapped in.
Jesus came to save people from ignorance, precisely because He loved them and wished to withdraw them from suffering. Jesus taught a faster, simpler way to become one with God.
Jesus wanted to shortcut the suffering & ignorance of many lifetimes. In short, He came, stood on the stage of this illusory world, and gifted His WAY to oneness with Consciousness Divine.
And using our Love we can grow love consciousness. Why, its very expression is helping and healing our world. We can enact Love. We deeply wish to do so. Hence we can nurture ideas; We can find better ways than abortion and trans puberty blockers. We can pressure politicians to protect innocent people against recidivist crime. Love soothes, heals, forgives, nourishes, raises up and frees us. We can use our egos and understanding of conditioning in the service of Consciousness Eternal.
What better way is there to use our precious time in this (illusory) troubled world?
Roberta,
Thanks for the thoughtful and thought-provoking post. We often explore the idea that Consciousness is the fabric of all that is. As Planck said: “we can’t get behind Consciouness.” We also discuss the afterlife and “the life between lives,” a concept I first read about 10 years ago. We make return trips to this plane of existence to learn and grow spiritually. If we adhere to the teachings of Jesus we also learn to love and forgive unconditionally and without end. If we further follow the example of Jesus we remediate our “material world” as best we can. We don’t ignore suffering with a laissez-faire attitude of: “Oh, they’ll be taken care of in the afterlife .” This dense world of matter (as we perceive it) is our training ground, laboratory, and classroom and we must use it wisely. Even so, we won’t always get tidy answers. My point is, we need to take this life in this plane in a way that fosters our learning and growth and enhances the lives of those with whom we share it.
Roberta, on the subject of abortion
we are in agreement. As a now retired medical provider, I was fortunate to practice in an environment that didn’t allow elective abortions of healthy pregnancies. It’s sad enough to care for patients who have had a spontaneous miscarriage in early pregnancy or even worse, a stillborn full-term infant. What I’m disappointed to see is the attempt by some lawmakers to criminalize unfortunate pregnancy outcomes in which no person is at fault.
Not being an expert in gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia issues I hesitate to say very much about transgenderism, but I must agree that the use of drugs and surgery prior to adulthood is fraught with risk. Allowing very young people to make irrevocable decisions is a recipe for disaster. Adults can be adults and do adult things. When they are adults.
Protecting society from mentally unstable criminals should be very high on the list of law enforcement priorities. While I’m opposed to capital punishment, I’m not opposed to appropriate and humane incarceration. Some folks are flawed, and we don’t have good treatments for them yet. Maybe someday. But until then, they need to be safely separated from society.