Youthful Recollections — Part Four
Finding the Inner Voice
The age of sixteen was a turning point in my life in many ways. It was at this age that I acquired an interest in spiritual studies, spiritual experiences, writing stories, songs, expanding social skills and checking out various out-of-the-ordinary books that Mormons normally do not read.
It was also this age that I began seriously collecting comics. At that time, I was the only one I knew of in Idaho who collected them and actually paid a premium price for old issues. Unfortunately, the main ones I collected, the ACG Group, never became premium collectors’ items and my friends raided all my old “Superman,” “Green Lantern,” “Flash,” etc., when I was away from home on an LDS mission.
As an interesting side note I bought two of the first issue of “The Fantastic Four.” I didn’t particularly like that comic, but I thought it may turn out to be a collector’s item and I was right. They now (2008) sell for $40,000 each in good condition. (It is up as high as $250,000 in 2024) If I still had my old Marvel and DC comics I would be rich. When I left home I secured the ACG comics in a locked box, but they turned out to not be worth much money today. All the others were raided by my friends or thrown out by my mom who thought comics poisoned the mind.
Even though the ACG comics didn’t turn into being major collector items they were very valuable to me in that I found the stories very stimulating and they largely inspired my interest in writing.
The ACG Comics were “Adventures into the Unknown,” “Forbidden Worlds,” “Unknown Worlds,” “Midnight Mystery” and “Herbie.” I recently gave my collection to my oldest boy, Joseph, who has shown an interest in collecting comics as well as possibly creating one.
For a long time, I had an interest in astronomy and around this age I got a telescope that magnified 240 times and spent many an evening looking at the moon, planets, stars and even the sun through a protective filter. Again, this was before many had telescopes and they were much more expensive than now. I didn’t know another soul in Idaho that had any interest in astronomy. I dreamed of having enough money to build a really big telescope, but was lucky to have one as good as I had.
Yes, around this magical age I developed many interests, but from my early childhood I had a sense that I was supposed to do something important, but didn’t know what it was. When I was about six, I was wondering what I was supposed to do with my life and when at a movie I heard a man say he was a scientist. The words struck me deeply even though I didn’t have a clue what a scientist was. After arriving home I asked my Mom was a scientist was. After she told me I said, “That is what I want to be, a scientist.”
My Mom then told me there were many different kinds of scientists, and that I needed to pick one branch. Then after reviewing the various types I decided I wanted to be an astronomer.
Then at the age of 13 when I had my accident and started reading books on rockets, I decided I wanted to become an Astronautical Engineer and eventually replace Warner von Braun and send people to the planets. This seemed more exciting than anything I could do as an astronomer.
Between the ages of 13-16 I studied everything I could find on rocket science and then branched out to other sciences. Then at age 16 I moved beyond physical science and became interested in social science and spiritual science.
My oldest sister, who was the only religious one in the family at the time, was thrilled when she learned I was going to church, and when visiting she gave me a nicely bound set of the scriptures.
She wisely appealed to my interests and said something like this.
“I understand you are interested in astronomy. The Book of Abraham has the story of an ancient astronomer who discovered the secrets of the universe and was shown a vision of creation. I think you would find this interesting.”
She did catch my interest and I read the Book of Abraham. It wasn’t what I expected, but I did find it interesting and then went on to read other scriptures. It was during this original search that I first contacted my Dweller as well as the Angel of the Presence — an experience I may write of someday — but not now. This experience completely changed me around spiritually and started my true spiritual quest for higher knowledge.
When I read the scriptures, I was amazed how interesting some of them were, yet how boring church was. It seemed like an amazing contrast to me and I felt like shaking those sleeping souls to get them to awake to what they had in their possession.
Unfortunately, the average church goer is just interested in superficial stuff and making sure he gets a foot into the door of heaven.
From that point on I began to consider that I may be of greatest use to the world as a writer. As a scientist there are a lot of limits on what one can accomplish, but a writer can influence many people, even generations to come. My problem from that time on was find the time study and write as I desired. The second problem was finding the most important things I could write about?
Earlier I talked about the service station owner I that I aggravated with my fast and furious driving? Maybe I paid some of the karmic debt I owed the guy because in the following experience
Around the age of 16 I started reading the scriptures for the first time and as I read I began to wonder why there are not miracles today, as there seemed to be in abundance in ancient times. The church I attended rambled on about miracles a lot, but I hadn’t ever actually seen one or met anyone who had faith to perform one.
Then one day I was walking home from school and passed by Mr Ashley’s home and noticed his daughter in the yard. She was a fellow student that had been stricken with an incurable disease, Multiple Sclerosis. I stopped a second and looked in her direction. I was saddened as I watched her hobble around in her yard on crutches, barely able to move from one location to another, and in my mind, I reflected back to how she was just a short period hence — healthy and vibrant with a whole life in front of her. Then a thought occurred to me.
“What is preventing me, even at this moment, from stretching forth my hand and commanding in the name of Jesus Christ for her to be healed, even as did the prophets of old?”
This was an exciting thought for me to have at that young age, but as it ran through my mind a great cloud of negativity descended upon me and another thought came:
“Don’t you know that no one of your age has this type of authority? The leaders in the church have told you that you have to have authority from the church to heal, and you do not have it. God would be displeased with you or maybe even curse you if you should attempt to use power that doesn’t belong to you.”
This thought brought me great disappointment and overwhelmed me with discouragement for a moment, but before I moved on, I looked again in the direction of my friend as she hobbled along to another location in the yard. Then another thought came to my mind from the still small voice. It said: “Whatsoever you ask in the name of Christ shall be done for you.”
This statement seemed to reflect the essence of what I had been reading in the scriptures and again I took courage and reconsidered that I could be an instrument of healing. But as soon as I reflected upon this, the voice of the negativity again spoke:
“Who do you think you are? You’re just a kid! Even the adults who are faithful in the church and are authorized by church leaders can’t do a miracle such as you are thinking. God will probably strike you dead for even trying to go against established rules. And besides, this girl is not even a member of the church and is not to be included in church blessings.”
This decree of darkness caused me to fear. Would I truly offend God by using this power that may not belong to me? No one in my family, church or angel from heaven had ever given me authority to do miracles. Perhaps I would anger God by going out of my bounds and put my very soul at risk.
As I thus reflected and stood in silence for a moment my attention went back again to the still small voice:
“Whatsoever you ask in the name of Christ shall be done for you.”
I considered this statement and asked myself:
“Do these words have any limitations to them? I am not being told that I can ask for a miracle only if I am an adult, or only if I have a position in the church, or even if I am perfect? The words of the soul that I had received merely told me that I could ask and it would be done.”
Then for a period of about a minute (which seemed like an hour) my mind went back and forth between the two polarities:
“Play it safe and do not attempt to heal. If God really wants her healed, He’ll do it without me. Put my soul at great risk and trust the words of the inner voice which may just be my imagination.”
Unknown to me at the time the real risk was trusting the outer voice rather than the Inner, but of this I had no knowledge and thus the point of tension in my mind was great.
After this long moment of reflection where my mind seemed to go back and forth between the two decisions about a hundred times I finally settled on the inner voice. I thought to myself that I did not have a good logical reason to doubt these inclusive words and if I need to put myself at risk to help a friend then so be it.
Upon making the decision to proceed I gazed upon my friend in the distance again who had her back turned to me. Fortunately, she had not noticed me staring at her. As I looked in her direction, I raised my right hand whispered these words: “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to be healed.”
Instantly, upon completing this sentence I felt a surge of divine energy going through the warp and woof of my being to the extent I almost collapsed on the ground. This was very unexpected, for I had never associated any energy transference with miracles, and my immediate thought was that perhaps God was in the midst of punishing me by dissolving my body and soul back to the nothingness from whence it came.
I used what little energy I had left to head toward home as fast as I could and did not notice whether the decree had any effect on my friend. For a while I was more concerned about my own well-being than anyone else’s, but after a while my state of being seemed to return to normal and I thought that perhaps God was just sending me a warning not to mess around where I do not belong.
I put the experience out of my mind until about two days later. I saw my friend at school walking with no crutches. I was curious about this and walked up to her and asked about her recovery.
She smiled and said that the doctor had told her that her disease went into remission — that it may not last, but she was feeling fine for now.
When she said this the truth then dawned on me. God was not trying to punish me. I had made the right decision after all. A true miracle had happened and the power which I had felt was some type of spiritual energy going through me into her. Evidently, I thought, this was just part of some natural process. I was just an instrument in the hands of one greater than me.
I left her presence realizing that perhaps the greatest miracle of all was the knowledge that I now possessed and that from that point on I should trust the highest I receive from within more than all the voices without.
The interesting thing is that at the time I had a beloved uncle who was dying of MS, but when I contemplated doing the same thing for him I felt restrained from doing so.
I later found out the reason for this. That is each illness is sent to us to teach us something and that the problem can be permanently removed when the lesson is learned. My Uncle had lessons to learn from his struggle that I was not supposed to remove from him.
I believe I was allowed to heal my friend more as a teaching lesson to me than anything else and it was the right thing to do because of the inward message to go ahead. Of all the sick people I have met I have only been impressed one other time to silently heal without the cooperation of the patient.
An interesting ending note here is that about 36 years after the healing of my high school friend my wife and I were dining in a restaurant and we were accosted by a middle-aged lady who said to me: “You’re Joe Dewey aren’t you?”
I looked up and the person looked a little familiar, but wasn’t positive who she was.”
She saw the puzzled look in my eyes and then identified herself. It was the same girl who had MS and was healed. I hadn’t seen her for over thirty years.
I asked her about her illness and if it had ever returned.
She responded that her husband had died but she has been in good health ever since her “remission.”
We visited a while and she returned to her table. Then I said to my wife, “Do you remember me telling you about that miraculous healing of my friend back in high school?”
She said she remembered.
“The lady we just talked to is her.”
“Haven’t you ever told her what happened?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve just never been impressed to do so.”
This and other experiences changed my focus as a teenager. However, the change was mostly in my inner self as my friends didn’t see much difference in my outer self. From that time on I sought for truth wherever I could find it whether it be in or out of the church. Within the next few years, I pretty much absorbed all available truth in the church, but found many sources elsewhere, but during my spiritual journey I always went back to receiving spiritual verification from within, just as I did with the healing of my friend.
“You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.” — Oprah Winfrey
June 27, 2008
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