Anne Lastman.
The word dementia in all its connotations brings terror to the being but a human being is a spiritual being who has experienced a human life with all its joys and vicissitudes and has now reached the end of that human experience and has begun to withdraw from the human time in order to return to his natural home.
For some reason he (for ease of writing will use he) has been permitted to show his spiritual being whilst in his physical body. A beautiful and unique experience.
Because dementia is mysterious, we watch a loved one slowly withdraw from this world and we tend to see it a disaster, but instead, what is happening is a slow withdrawal so that those seeing this may believe that the body becomes empty when the spirit leaves. A being with a slow withdrawal, intermittent withdrawal, so as not to frighten those left behind is preparing those present for the separation and during this time his soul gathers its lifelong history to present it to his maker.
“Lord, this is the story of my physical experience, please accept my unworthy effort.” Whilst the spirit returns to its Creator and returns and reunites, the breath breathed into him, the human being slowly, very slowly looks happily and willingly for its true home. The Spirit returns to its maker the Holy Spirit, who gave him the life to do the task requested of him and is now reunited again with its source.
We humans don’t understand the works of the divine and are prone to see the negative in what we don’t understand and so we see the withdrawal as something of the ugly. Of punishment, of disaster of abandonment, but for the person who experiences this vision of its maker it’s a privilege to see when all seems lost indeed it’s not lost but a going home.
The person who ministers to and ministers well to the one returning home is a visible angel whether lifelong and intimate or temporary and just passing by to assist whilst the one withdrawing has started the separation. However, the reality is that when this happens the person has begun the final journey, has turned his feet towards home. The final moments of his last task. The return. His time on this earth as a human being has now been completed.
One may need to experience physical suffering to take that experience home, and so suffering for a long or short time is offered, whilst another may be asked to suffer in silence. A withdrawal into his own essence until all needed has been achieved. Another may be asked to suffer the sufferings of the time and era and take those scars of these sufferings back to the heavenly home.
As human beings we don’t really understand death. We understand the mechanics of the expiry, we understand the permanency of death, we may even understand it as a punishment for long ago sin, and indeed it is all of these, but we seem not to remember that the Spirit never dies, it remains eternal and it allows itself to go on this journey with all its pain, suffering, joys, and moments of pure love which echo that of the divine Lord. Whilst at the same time the spirit also has a different encounter via the means of the created being of wickedness. The spirit which rebelled and known as the father of rebellion. This spirit brings a soul to the Creator to show it to its maker that he has chosen to follow its own father in rebellion. This is also a lesson for all to be able to see what rebellion in the heavens was like. It’s a visible vision of rejection of its Father’s house for other lands and this spirit has sought other “Cains” to bring along with him.
Withdrawal from living life, taking with him a soul complete with all its earthly experience, makes visible the unseen world. The precious complete and loved experience of the heavenly home made visible in earthly realm, and shows further the lived experience of those whose rejected experience of life with all its nuances is freely permitted. Withdrawal can mean a return because of the work has been finished, accomplished, or it can mean an end to a dissolute life in order to lessen the pain of unfulfillment.
Slow withdrawal through dementia, from life, is not a rejection but a return having completed all. It may appear like a rejection but it’s not. It’s a gentle separation. It’s a withdrawal into its inner being where the spirit guides its child back to his home bringing with him all of life’s experiences. His own experiences unlike any other on earth so that the invisible may wander in awe at all the possibilities that man has been given.
What the earthly home has to offer to the visitor from the cloud of unseen witnesses and continue only till the gates of the beautiful garden, where the Father walks with the one sent, whose garment of skin, can now be shed for the garment made for him, a beautiful garment of pure light like his own.
A withdrawal into the inner self is a time of cleansing both for the one withdrawing and the ones observing and assisting in the withdrawal so that the traveller may go peacefully. Dementia, a word meaning “forgetting the how to live every day experience” and also word which means letting go and leaving behind the things which have been completed. Is not a word meaning terror, but a word meaning goodbye for now.
A withdrawal into the inner self means a farewell to the earthly experience which the Creator Father has permitted to happen. Withdrawal into the inner being says “I am ready to go home.” “It is finished”. Thank you for being my earthly and walking companion, my friend, on this life’s journey. We have journeyed well and now I must leave for home in the hope that we will meet again. So, thank you for helping me finish my task.
The scars etched into our soul we take home as scars with which we experienced pain and now able to take home and show the experience of pain and how we overcame that pain. No pain is permitted without the means to overcome it.
The scars remain forever as a sign that long ago we withdrew from the inner life of Creator and then the need to experience that separation and its after effects. The scars remain to show the offence against the spirit and the need to atone for that offence. The scars remain to say “I am sorry forgive me”
Dementia is not a punishment or abandonment or even rejection but a withdrawal from a previously given earthly life, in order to return to life intended from the beginning. A life with the invisible cloud witnesses as our real companions and our Creator Father.
