Beyond Soul Growth. Lynn Sparrow Christy

taking on a project like this! Similarly, it is largely because Rachel Alvidrez of Edgar Cayce eGroups commissioned me to develop an Internet-based seminar on this topic that I first put on paper some of the material that forms the foundation of this book.

      The contribution of my longtime friend, Elaine Lukasik—to whom this book is dedicated—is difficult to adequately describe. It has been my good fortune to have a friend with the clarity of intuition that Elaine has demonstrated over the years. As a writer with a gap of more than twenty years between books, many were the times I despaired of ever completing another one. It was Elaine's unwavering insistence that all was well and that I was only gathering more experience and knowledge over those years of writing drought as well as her assurance that I would write “the book” that often kept me from abandoning the idea altogether.

      In that regard, I thank my husband Larry Christy for his continual support in all of the endeavors of my life. Easygoing and ready to flow with things as they unfold, Larry always knows how to encourage without nagging. He put application to his belief that it was important for me to write by cheerfully accepting disruptions to our routine, our meals, and our time together. In addition, Larry's reading of early chapter drafts served more than once to keep me going when I felt bogged down or discouraged.

      Few people besides Larry saw any portion of this book before publication, but to those few who did, I am grateful for feedback. I received some particularly helpful advice early on from my dear friend Mary Holden. I am also thankful for encouragement from my “Facebook friends” Anthony Brancale and John Greenhalgh, whose reading of some chapters constituted a small trial balloon concerning potential reader response from both inside and outside the Edgar Cayce community.

      Finally, I want especially to thank my editor Stephanie Pope. Her editing was not only skillful and meticulous, but was also done with a level of sensitivity to my original text that every writer hopes for, but few are fortunate enough to get. Thanks to Stephanie's professionalism, the last stages of birthing this work were almost painless.

      Prologue

      Beginning in early adulthood, I began to have recurring dreams about visiting theme parks. I distinctly remember the first one. Shortly after I had moved to Virginia following college, I had a dream about going to Kings Dominion, a theme park just north of Richmond. I had never been to Kings Dominion, nor did I have any plans to do so, but I couldn't help but notice the clear metaphor in the name. To one whose spiritual sensibilities were very much attuned to the ideal of God's kingdom manifesting “on earth as it is in heaven,” the symbology of “king's dominion” seemed obvious. It represented earth under divine rule, and I took the dream as a call to an awakened, Spirit-directed life.

      The theme park dreams continued over a span of more than three decades—in fact I still have this dream periodically today. Over the years, most people with whom I shared these dreams have jumped to the conclusion that the theme park image was a cautionary one—a warning about the unreality of this world. They saw it as a reminder that this world is just the arena of souls’ play, a wispy fantasy place that diverts our attention from our true domain until we get tired of make-believe and then return to the “real” world beyond this earthly plane. To them, the dreams meant “This life has no ultimate reality.”

      But that construction never fit with the “king's dominion” frame set by the very first dream in the series, nor did it account for the spiritual intensity that these dreams always awakened in me. No matter how the details of my theme park dreams may have varied over the years, two conditions are always present: First, I feel intensely alive and engaged with everything around me. I am struck with the beauty and wonder of it all, there is so much to see and do, and I feel exhilarated by the sheer number of possibilities. Second, time is always short. It is near closing time, and I often regret not having gotten there sooner. There is an urgency to do and experience as much as possible before time runs out. Right alongside my ecstatic joy in being there, I feel a deep ache over the shortness of time.

      For me, these dreams have embodied in both symbol and felt experience the intangible something that bubbles up within me when I hear the evolutionary call of Spirit in this world. The universe becomes a place of endless possibilities, a place that invites us all to delight in the wonders of the creative impetus that brings worlds into manifestation. From this perspective there is something new to discover around every bend. It can be a wild ride at times, when the best we can do is fasten our seatbelts and hold on for dear life. And it can be a place where we indulge appetites that are less than spiritually nutritious. But then it is also the place where the best of human ingenuity and problem solving can find a fertile field for expression and where visions of perfection can be molded into visible reality for others to experience and enjoy. And while it's true that if we look closely behind the scenes, we may find ourselves disillusioned by a mercenary taint on some of this world's most delightful offerings, there is also much innocent joy to be found, if that is what we look for. Perhaps most important of all, this world is a place that holds magic for each generation of children born into it, if only we will take care of it and pass it on to them in better shape than we find it in now.

      Just as I wrote these words, the day's mail arrived. As if to remind me to mention that this universe is alive and speaking to us, the delivery included a special offer for a “Fun Pass” to the Busch Gardens theme park.

      Introduction

      (Q) As created by God in the first, are souls perfect, and if so, why any need of development?

      (A) In this we find only the answer in this: The evolution of life as may be understood by the finite mind. In the first cause, or principle, all is perfect. In the creation of soul, we find the portion may become a living soul and equal with the Creator. To reach that position, when separated, must pass through all stages of development, that it may be one with the Creator.

      900-10

      Has creation a final goal? And if so, why was it not reached at once? Why was the consummation not realized from the beginning? To these questions there is but one answer: Because God is Life, and not merely Being.

      Friedrich Schelling^*

      I could never really accept the idea that this world is fundamentally fallen or broken and that the human beings who call it home are deluded dreamers at best or depraved sinners at worst. Yet everywhere I turned, that seemed to be the prevailing idea. In the churches of my childhood, I heard that God had created a paradise but that the disobedience of Adam and Eve had turned it into the vale of toil and woe which we now experience it to be. In the ostensibly more enlightened circles of my adulthood, I heard essentially the same story, but couched in New Age terminology: We are perfect, immortal beings who have fallen into the trap of earthly life and now must make our way back to our pristine state beyond materiality. As the story is most often told in both the orthodox and New Age worlds, in the beginning everything was just the way God intended it to be. But, unfortunately, we used our God-given free will to turn our backs on our maker. Where in the orthodox version our first parents disobeyed a key commandment and ate forbidden fruit, in the New Age version we started out in a state of perfection but found the allures of this world to be far more interesting than sitting around somewhere that was nowhere, just being one with God.

      The tragic upshot of this cosmic mistake was that we got ourselves stuck here in the earth. We'd only meant to visit this deceptively sparkling prison, but now we find ourselves inmates. With our own misguided choices we have consigned ourselves to the long, arduous path of undoing the bonds of incarceration here on earth. The good news in all of this (as the narrative often goes) comes in the reassurance that sooner or later we'll succeed. Then we'll be back “home,” and everything will be right again, just as it was before we messed things up. This story is not quite as condemnatory, perhaps, as the