Free A Voice In The Night by Brian Matthews Page A

Meteorologists now were reporting that the ceiling was dropping lower, but the turbulence incidents had ceased to affect aircraft, except for the reassuring light that was a transforming experience for all that went through it. He knew what it all meant and now he would tell the story.
    “Welcome again to Voices in The Night on the ABC Radio Network, originating from KOGO in San Diego. I’m Luke Trimble. Tonight we’ll try and shed some light on the experiences of thousands of people traveling by air in recent days, and the unexplained changes in our atmosphere.
    “These are a preview of what’s coming for all of us and it’s nothing less than the merging of the physical and spiritual worlds.” He paused, letting the last sentence just hang in the air for emphasis. The next sound was a pronounced thump, as the phone lines instantly jammed with hundreds of calls. Jake was already ahead of it, and gave the phone company engineers the go ahead to clear the lines and busy them out to protect the system from crashing.
    Luke spoke in a way that was later described as a voice of peace and certainty. It seemed to be the inspired word of a benevolence that was channeling through Luke. He was a messenger, the precursor of a change in the essence of being, when all would create their own, perfect level of reality.
    “We’ll be free of the burdens of illness, pain and aging, if we chose. Provided with every need and want, without effort or sacrifice.” Luke urged them to not be fearful, to embrace what was soon to be. He related the visit the night before and its wordless exchange of a vision of the new world. “The essence of this is individual choice of how we want to exist in the future. Do you want to be young forever or do you want to age only to a certain point? Would you make new choices later? All of this is yours to decide. You will be able to create your own perfect world, all the time, any time.
    “You can continue to do the work that’s important to you, or have all of your needs provided for without effort. You can exist in the physical world or as pure spirit and energy. Or anything in between. This, I know, is radically different from the accepted notions of an afterlife, a heaven on another level, distinct from our physical life. But this is, to me at least, a more comforting idea, the choices. I think this because I find the idea of usefulness to be central to happiness. I would want to continue to feel that I had a purpose, instead of existing in a kind of blissful state.
    “I think people need to struggle. It’s built into our nature through millions of years. How many times have you reached a goal or achieved something you’d worked hard for, only to find yourself a little let down?
    “I’m not saying that this is right for everybody. It’s just something to think about because the time of this merging is here, although it will be a gradual thing. A big question for people seems to be that of some kind of final judgement. But remember, he told us back a year ago now, that only the truly evil would be judged, that people are basically good, and our mistakes aren’t going to be punished. He is not vengeful. Those were his very words to me last night.”
    Luke went on for another hour, touching on many issues that the merging posed. He was not conscious at all of what he was saying. He felt oddly apart from himself, with the sensation that he could look back and observe, could even judge his own sincerity and credibility. He did not find it wanting. He had the distinct sense that it was not really he that was speaking. That he was a conduit for the visitor, a mere broadcast channel through which the future was being revealed.
    He wasn’t aware that, by now, more than two million people were listening on the nationwide network, many in groups, huddled around radios the way their parents had done during the war. The sky change had riveted the public’s attention and news reports had tracked the story