AWOKE in the river of my baptism with no way of knowing how I had got there. The water was warm and sweet. The banks above were now unreachable as they belonged to the living. For those born near rivers, those who know the sounds of streams and the currents of running water, they would understand more than any other what it felt like to be in this river, waist-deep in the waters where I had given my life to the Lord.

The current was tame and there lay before me a winding and unknowable path. Did I dare to travel on? I could stay in this water where I felt such blessings and such life in Christ's love. But that would only be part of it—I'd be one of those spirits, stagnant, doing nothing of value. Or I could move on. Time is as a river, flowing to infinity—no matter how hard we wish to go against its current, we cannot.

There, in the river of my afterlife, I heard the song. A symphony composed of hymns, known and unknown, sung by the angels of Genesis and Revelation. In this chorus there was no suffering, no loss in the light of love unending, undying. How could there be anything but unfettered rejoicing and jubilation?

When I was a boy my Grandma lay ill in her bed with not much life left. This woman, sweaty with fever, took my hand in hers as I cried at her bedside. “Don't you worry, little man,” she said. “Don't you fret. Just my body be dying, but my spirit’s moving on to the hallelujah shore.”

“Where is that?” I asked.

“Oh child, that's the shore by which Heaven resides where my spirit must go. When you die, all the peoples of Heaven will be waiting to greet you on the beaches of paradise, singing and laughing with Jesus. Shh!” 

She drew me in closer. “Why, even now, if we’re real quiet my soul can hear them singing.”

And she was right. I heard it too, my eyes wide with things I couldn't understand.

“I see you hear it too, boy, all the saints and angels that ever was, all the children that go before their mamas can grow ‘em proper, be there waiting to greet us, at the hallelujah shore and when I get there, grandson, I'll be waiting there for you, don't you worry.”

Her words stayed with me, and now in death their power was immense. A month after her funeral I was baptized.

T WAS a beautiful day in Mississippi.  The dogwood trees had been in bloom, and the world was a shower of petals dancing in the air and resting on the water. How exuberant was youth, how hopeful the child newly baptized! The preacher held out his hands, massive as the Bible, took me, and plunged my small frame into the water. For a moment as I was held under in its embrace, I fancied I heard them from the shore, singing. Then up the preacher raised me and the congregation cheered, and the sound of the hereafter was lost in the celebration of those alive.

Here I was again. What lay before me was the current of infinity, all other things of my world gone and left behind, all the rivers in life and the hereafter winding to this. I resolved to follow the flow of my life until it led me to the hallelujah shore. I took my first steps and joined the countless souls on their pilgrimage.

Waist-deep I walked, looking into the water. As I travailed, I saw the toys of my childhood resting in the mud: my rocking horse, my favorite slingshot. I continued catching glimpses, just beneath the surface of the waters. An engagement ring abandoned. The keys to my first house.

Were all the dearly-departed meant to relive their life’s journey as I did now?

After a while I came round a bend and knew what part of my life I had to pass. I was gripped in fear but pressed forward.

The water was full of dead faces of the men I had killed in Germany during the war. Their bodies taken by my gun, soaked in the water, were bloated. My feet touched the bullets I had fired, and those fired at me—sharp, stabbing—too much for a man to bear, to stand, to see the consequence of his actions, of all those I had extinguished fighting other men's wars.

HE SUN was setting and the night sky turned deep purple. On the water’s surface were reflected all the things I wish I'd done, the moments of failure, regret and fear, leaving my spirit weary. I became afraid, and did not know if I could continue.

The world I had lived in, the people I’d known, responsible for all those actions, filling the waters, causing the current,  I was treading through. Had this been the plan of Jesus? Had this been my purpose, or had I’d muddied my life's waters?

A fog rolled in covering the river. I could see nothing. This had been a time in my life filled with such doubts and uncertainty. I had not seen God. It was the kind of fog that holds things close and whispers uncertainty, the kind where truth is hidden from men—when all that has been so clear and without doubt vanishes.

I stood immobile, listening. The song of the hallelujah shore was faint.

The pitch black of night blotted my vision and still I did not move. I considered going back the way I had come, but then a light shone and the darkness receded, illuminated and generated by the Son of Man himself.

Jesus stood on the water before me. His feet were pierced and bleeding. At the sight of him I wept.

In his presence, I saw myself reflected, and I was filthy—from the many lies and blasphemies that stained my mouth. My heart had gushed lusts and anger. I wept before the man who I followed. His scars poured forth the power they held. He looked to the sky beyond our earthly sky and raised his hands, revealing to me the realm past the natural world.

I felt all that had ever been before time, before creation, and there was God—all was his. Christ looked at me, knelt and cupped the waters in his hands and poured them over my face, washing me clean. Even in my failure there was God's love. Behind every instant of life was his compassion, not as we see it, or as we think of it. It was alive, it was clear, any glimpse of beauty that we see on Earth is just a drop in the heavenly waters.

I walked on water with Christ as had Peter. How miraculous was his design— from my mother’s womb to the waters I now walked on. Every action of free will given by my savior rippled out and affected others, and they in turn—and on and on.

This notion left me with a regret—if only I had done more, if only I had been mindful...but how could I have known as a being within time, and could not see it as a multi-faceted thing? The Son of Man looked into my eyes.

“Why do you cry, my beloved?” He asked.

“I… I am not worthy of your sacrifice, Lord, of the grace that I have taken from you during my life.”

He smiled. “You have not taken anything that I have not freely given.”

Soon the river widened and I saw before me the ocean.

“I can't cross that,” I stuttered.

“You can, my son, just follow the path I lay before you.”

I hadn’t been the best man in life but I certainly hadn’t the worst. I'd tried harder than some, but sins are as easy as the breaths we take.

I felt doubt looking at the vast water and sank down faster than a stone.

All moments of my life dragged me further under this strange water. I felt all desire and will leave my spirit as oxygen from my lungs. No matter how hard I kicked or tried, I stayed in place. Was this to be my end? Then I saw him above, his light warmed the water, and I felt strength return. I stood once more. I was alone now, but his footprints remained on the water, and I followed them.

I left the river of my mortal life—all its waters pouring into this ocean of infinity. My feet walked upon the sea of time. It seemed an alive and overwhelming entity. There was a tear in the sky beyond our sky—smoldering, and echoing with pain. I knew without asking that this was where Lucifer had been cast from Heaven.

Far, far away, in whatever direction I looked, there were others making the same journey.

OMETHING moved beneath my feet. I saw them, the souls trapped in a living  watery grave.  Pain escaped from their lungs and rose up in bubbles, but there was no relief. They watched me, raising their arms in pleading agony. But what was I to do? There was no way for my soul to reach the depths they had sunk. They were held down by self-importance, by all the prejudice, all the self-appointed gods, all the men and women weighed down by the inability to let go and revive grace. It pained me, but I continued following the path Christ had laid.

I found my spirit walking through the Garden of Eden, marveling at its glories. From the ocean rose the tree of life, its roots drinking the water, its branches reaching out forever. Then the tree of knowledge—its fruits orbs of tangible understanding, pulsing with the wisdom that led to our fall from grace and the problem of pain. I thought how it might have been different.

Once through the garden, I beheld brilliant flames burning over the waters, white and all encompassing.

The martyr's fire.

All the Christians who had died in the Father's name, all who had suffered in the coliseums of Rome, or at the hands of persecution due to the missionaries' call. They who bore this suffering, this beautiful affliction on earth, now burned with righteousness through the puny flames of man and the false judgment of the wicked. The martyrs rejoiced, exalted by Heaven for their love and commitment to the Lord. They were the beacons for those who journeyed as I did now.

I could hear voices on the wind—the prayers of humanity, happy and thankful, others pleading for salvation. They gathered as clouds, forming a storm.

The winds blew and the waters grew choppy. The storm gathered in the distance and I knew it would reach me soon. I kept walking in the footprints of sacrifice and  sanctification.

The open waters were free for the hosts of hell to roam. The enemy had been made aware of my journey. And now they were upon me.

My feet felt heavy, and they stuck to the water like pitch tar. Evil moved before me. Never did it remove the footprints which I followed. The air reeked of sin— putrid corpses moved together as a school of fish might, and pursued after me, screaming. I ran. 

Off in the distance I saw him—the Devil.

At one time or another every soul has seen or felt his presence. My professor after the war had once said he'd seen him as a wolf while out hunting. My pastor had seen him while on a missionary trip, as an old woman with the sickening grin of sin, smiling away at the pain of man. I saw him when my father beat me. A bond, sacred, had been broken with a fist. Before my grandmother took me in, Mother told me that sometimes when Father drank too much, he had the devil in him. I always wondered how one man could hold so much hate.

And there he was.

“Come here, boy! You belong in Hell with me, son!"

At first it was just his head bobbing in the water, but he slowly rose. It was not just my father, but also a great serpent. Its body was as long as the fall of man, its face that of the heinous acts of man. An old face deformed and hideous, it swam crashing through the waves, a damned thing made up of bodies, naked and writhing.

It called my name over and over, calling me to take my place amongst its tormented host.

“Join your daddy, boy.” The voice tore and stung as mad as a wasp.

“God’s forsaken you, child, and left you in my hands. Ever wonder why he let your daddy hit you so?”

I kept walking, as best I could.

“Your mama couldn’t protect you, just as God can’t protect you from me. Because he don’t care what really happens to you. He just needs to love him, to pray and worship him, to feed his ego. In the end we all just sink  into the abyss, into the void.” 

Fear spread to my legs and my steps faltered.

“You’re weak boy, weak just like your mama."

I looked up and saw that some of the bodies were falling off the serpent. But before it could strike and swallow me whole—there came from above a sizzling bolt made up of wings and eyes. Angels! Not as from films and paintings of charming little folk. Angels as God created them—celestial beings, awesome and terrible to behold, whose brilliant colors and fire wielded the span of realities through the power of the Almighty.

I lowered my eyes back to the crimson prints that made up my pathway.

OT DARING to look back, I heard their celestial combat. When the storm finally over took me, I struggled in the tempest—winds tossed me, and the waves rose and crashed, but still I stayed above the water, my path still visible even in the pouring rain. At last the hands of evil let loose their grip, and on the wind I heard Satan scream in rage at my escape.

The storm  subsided.

I walked and walked and still nothing new revealed itself to me. Only the words of the enemy echoed around me.

Falling to my knees I looked to the sky and cried. There was a long silence, the placid calm of the waters clear as a living crystal.

I recalled my Grandmother—her kindness, safety, and strength. When I was scared, she held me and said, “We all be a child of God, and none of us is truly lost if only we stay on the path.”

My throat was parched, my mouth dry. I cupped my hands and drank of the waters and was restored. 

Up ahead, soft but distinct, it was her voice that pierced the silence. Her singular voice, singing something beautiful for me to follow, then joined by more voices. Songs of worship drifted and warmed everything, a balm from the depths of time to the tribulations of Judgment Day, a song of my birth and death, a melody from the river of man to the waters of life and what I now saw in full glorious view—the hallelujah shore!

I stood aware of what marvel lay before me—what the Devil’s lies had attempted to hide.

At last my bare feet touched the coast of Heaven. A congregation was there to welcome me, calling us spirits on the water.

I let out a cry of joy, for among them was my dear grandma, more joyful and beautiful than ever. At last I joined them, my spirit at peace in the light of life eternal, singing,

Hallelujah, hallelujah in Jesus’ name.