Growing Eyes

I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me,—to whom the sun was servant,—who had not gone into society in the village,—who had not been called on. I saw their park, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding's cranberry-meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. Their house was not obvious to vision; their trees grew through it. I do not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not. They seemed to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons and daughters. They are quite well. The farmer's cart-path, which leads directly through their hall, does not in the least put them out,—as the muddy bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies. They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their neighbor,—notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his team through the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Their coat of arms is simply a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines and oaks. Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no politics. There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,—as of a distant hive in May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industry was not as in knots and excrescences embayed… But I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably out of my mind even now while I speak and endeavor to recall them, and recollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort to recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their cohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I should move out of Concord. 

This is an extract from an essay by Henry David Thoreau entitled “Walking,” in which he plays with the idea of “cohabitancy,” the counterintuitive notion that two realms of reality can exist in the same space at the same time. 

It’s a curious and compelling fact that studies in theoretical physics suggest that there may indeed be unobservable, parallel universes as real as our own existing all around us, intermingled with us as parallel realities. “We’ve established that space, time, matter and energy engage in a behavioral repertoire unlike anything any of us have directly witnessed. And now, penetrating analysis of these and other related discoveries are leading us to what may be the next upheaval in understanding: the possibility that our universe is not the only universe” (Brian Greene in the Introduction to The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, p. 2). 

Greene goes on to state a more starling fact that studies in string theory indicate that our universe is directly influenced by events taking place in that alternate universe, the projection “of processes taking place on some distant surface that surrounds us” (The Hidden Reality, P. 8).

So…what if our world does share space with another unseen, parallel world? What if our universe is “directly influenced by events taking place in that alternate universe”? 

Bless my soul there is an unseen world all around us. Some call it “heaven.” 

We know very little about heaven, for little has been revealed. Perhaps that’s because there are no words to describe this world and no analogies for it in our experience. One thing does seem certain, however: heaven is not “up there” or “over yonder,” but all around us, another realm of reality, invisible but as real as ours! We could see it if we only had eyes to “see.” 

Read the story of Elisha and his disciple at Dothan (2 Kings 6). The disciple awakened in the morning, looked over the wall and discovered to his dismay that “an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city.” He ran to alert Elisha and cried out in despair, “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” “Don't be afraid,” Elisha replied. “There are more of us than there are of them.” (Or words to that effect.)

Then Elisha prayed, “Lord, open his eyes so he may see.” So the Lord opened the young man’s eyes and he “saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire…” He saw the invisible legions of heaven gathered for his protection, against which Syria’s forces were powerless. He had not seen them, but they had been there all along. 

So…keep your eyes open; help is all around you, invisible to normal sight, but as close as they can be. “The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands upon thousands” (Psalm 68:17). There are more of us than there are of them!

David Roper