Copyright ©2010 by Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins All rights reserved.
1. Fig. 1. The cover photo is a compounded image: “Earth_from_space.jpg.”(Courtesy of Felix at www.coolhdwallpapers.com) and “Stack of books.jpg” by me.
2. All photo-editing has been done with one or the other of the two following software programs:
a) Micrografx Picture Publisher 10, CD-ROM (Dallas, TX: Micrografx, Inc., 2001). MPP10.
b) Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.01 , CD-ROM. (San Jose, CA: Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2001-2008). APE7.
3. All scanning has been done with Epson Perfection 1650 Photo color image scanner. Long Beach, CA: Epson America, Inc., 2001. EP1650.
4. All OCR (Optical Character Recognition) inclusions were done with TextBridge Pro 11, CD-ROM (Peabody, MA: ScanSoft, Inc., 2002). TBP11.
5. The word processing program used for doing the final draft of this writing was WordPerfect Office 4, CD-ROM. (Ottawa, ON, Canada: Corel Corporation, 2004). WP4. 1 &/ or previous versions of ( 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0).
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | iii
CONTENTS
Dedication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Acknowledgments.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Part I -The Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
About This Treatise .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
An Affirmation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
About My Writing Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
A Critique on Biblical Hebrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Part II-The Awakening .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
The Turning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
’From Fear to Faith’.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
‘From Foolishness to Discretion’.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
'And Then Perhaps to Wisdom [Understanding]'.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
’And Death is a Destination’ .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
‘A Going–A Growing’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Nature’s Electrical Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
'From Joy to Gratitude’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
‘From Loneliness to Love’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
‘A Sacred Pilgrimage’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
'Not At Some High Place Along The Way’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
‘From Foolishness to Discretion' - Extended . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
And In Awe of Nature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Winter Wonders and Mythical Dilemmas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
The Firmament of Heaven?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
More Winter Marvels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Obscurity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
‘From Health to Sickness’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
‘From Stage to Stage’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
An Interim Moment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
“I Am Saying You Are Free” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
The Next Twenty-Five Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
‘Or Strength to Weakness’.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
’And Often Back Again’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
‘And Back, We Pray, . . .‘. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
‘To Health Again’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
In Summation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Part III-Related Childhood Events .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
'From Innocence To Awareness’ .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
The Divine Presence, Source of Conscience ?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
‘From Offense to Forgiveness’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
A Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
‘From Pain to Compassion’ . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Part IV-The Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Credits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Ref. #011469 - 1961 to 1980 Floor Plan of Family Residence.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Ref. #021569 - OCR Excerpts from, Near-Death Experiences, by Elaine Landau.. . . . . . . 330
Ref. #022469 - About Contrails.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Ref. #041496 - A Copy of My Notification of Birth Registration Certificate.. . . . . . . . . . . 335
Elizabeth Hugate Hudgins - BEYOND THE WORD : An Awakening | v
To My Sons and Daughters 22 Fig. 2. A 1967 photo of James, David, Lisa, Anne--and in memory of deceased infant daughter Donna (11/1957 - 01/1958).
Birth is a Beginning
By Alvin I. Fine
Birth is a beginning, And death a destination; But life is a journey, A going--a growing
From stage to stage.
From childhood to maturity And youth to age.
From innocence to awareness And ignorance to knowing; From foolishness to discretion And then perhaps to wisdom.
From weakness to strength Or strength to weakness-And, often, back again. From health to sickness And back, we pray,
to health again.
From offense to forgiveness, From loneliness to love, From joy to gratitude,
From pain to compassion, And grief to understanding-From fear to faith.
From defeat to defeat to defeat-Until, looking backward or ahead, W e see that victory lies
Not at some high place along the way, But in having made the journey, Stage by stage-
A sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning, And death a destination; But life is a journey, A sacred pilgrimage Made stage by stage-From birth to death
To life everlasting.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
How do you say thanks to a person you’ve never met, but whose work you greatly appreciate? One way is to use it.
Alvin Fine’s poem is the most beautiful and soothing memorial prose I have ever heard. There is no portion of it that makes me feel morbid or gloomy. Because of both the eloquence and relevancy of the work, I am using some of Alvin’s verses as titles for my entries. For instance, the entry for January 14, 1969, on page 61 is entitled ‘From Fear to Faith.’
Inspiration for attempting this project has come from many persons. Some of them are living. Some of them, like Alvin Fine, are deceased. Other documented--but now deceased--persons whose shared thoughts have encouraged me to acknowledge my own views include: Socrates/ Plato, William Shakespeare, Rene` Descartes, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Clarence S. Darrow, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The following four ideas are of constant inspiration to me:
“This above all--to thine own self be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any. . . .” William Shakespeare3
“In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.” Rene` Descartes4
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men [people] are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Thomas Jefferson5
“So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself: nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt6
3 From Hamlet: Act. I., Scene III. (Between late 1500's and/or abt 1601).
4 From Principles of Philosophy (1644).
5 From The Declaration of Independence ( July 4, 1776).
6 From his first Inaugural Address ( March 4, 1933).