Time Travel is Dangerous, but Necessary

By John Pearring

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032721.cfm
Ezekiel 37:21-28
John 11:45-46

You may think I’m kidding. I often joke around. Plus, the title of this reflection appears overtly prankish. I am not kidding. I believe we can travel backward in time. Yes, really. We don’t need a machine. Not even a cup of coffee, a credit card, or a helmet. We will need to take baggage with us. Hopefully, we’ll leave it back there.

The trick to Time Travel requires facing a trauma from our past head-on with the raw intensity of our presence. We can’t travel in time without actually going someplace. So, we must leave the comfort of our present to face the pain of our past. 

I’ve manufactured this entire discussion, by the way, from a talk I heard by John Eldridge. He gave a conference five or six years ago that mentioned the Time Travel technique. He didn’t call it Time Travel. He’s a professional, not a goofball. He did, however, offer a caveat which I should paraphrase. Don’t attempt Time Travel without a professional to contact if things go wrong. Plus, past life trips are truly successful only if you are a trusting believer.

(John Eldredge is author and president of Ransomed Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God and learn to live in God’s kingdom.)

The Time Travel I recommend isn’t for the faint of heart. Mundane, run-of-the-mill observations of history don’t constitute a fully engaged Time Travel experience. That kind of Time Travel is already part of your life. I’m talking serious stuff. You must dredge up one of your awful, recurring nightmare-like incidents from the past for an authentic reparative ride into history. A ride that will change your life, even affect your present. Yup. Change the past, and you change the present.

We all have traumatic events in our past, with more to come. Trauma is the byproduct of a sinful, broken world. Trauma is not OK. I’m not going to even hint that it might be. Trauma is a stupid, undesirable thing. Yet, the consequence of our willful existence involves people breaking things, being deceitful, causing pain, and doing bad stuff on purpose. Some argue the process of forming the will requires being stupid, mean, and selfish. I’m opposed to such thinking. I have been that person and will still be, but I object to its inevitability. Trauma isn’t just misplaced plants that look like weeds. You know, things that are just in the wrong place but are perfectly OK in their proper state. Trauma is the result of blatant evil. That’s why it’s no fun to review. We don’t say, “Let’s go visit past traumatic events!” or put them on our bucket list. 

Trauma is likely inevitable, though. I’ve never met a person who’s never been traumatized. That does not mean that traumatic experiences are required by God. Suffering, rather, is a consequence of things that have not come from God. It’s a fine line. Bad things happen to everybody, but the reasons they happen are seldom, if ever, good. God repairs all things, of course. It’s the conundrum of creation.

God hates sin. Evil cannot face God. Yet, just because God will descend into hell, be with us in our sin, and allow horrendous acts of will to harm entire nations, and even the planet, his presence does not mean that God condones or accepts even the most minor acts of nonsense. Instead, God urges us to repair trauma through two human exhortations of the will - our forgiveness and our repentance. Those two things effectively cancel evil’s superiority. Upon our act of forgiveness and/or repentance we allow God to repair the universe. So, revisiting traumas in our life, evils that are far back in the past, brings God with his needle and thread to stitch the world (and us) back together. Without our insistence and cooperation that God should and will repair the universe (and will do so whether we cooperate or not), the past will haunt us. We’ll end up twisting awfulness into good. Bad stuff is bad stuff, and we should pray that God mends everything, because if we can help fix the past, we should.

Traumas, then, are logical invitations to backward Time Travel, because only God can fix the past. We must go back to traumas that nag at us, attend to the ugliness of them, and deal with their painful consequences through forgiveness and repentance. It’s never too late. I’m certainly not suggesting that we revisit already reconciled past traumas. That’s not helpful. I’m only asking us to offer up the traumas still poking us in the gut, flaming our guilt, and squeezing us so hard that we still cry—as if the pain just happened.

Unattended trauma may end up killing us. All kinds of psychological and medical data exist to pinpoint potentially fatal glitches from emotional traumas hanging onto our souls. Glitches in both our psyche and our body will rot and ruin us through their hidden, but all-encompassing and gnawing grip. The good news? We can forgive and repent our pains into the place they belong. Time Travel allows us to do that for the difficult-to-eradicate evils of our past. Each time trip, then, will not be fun. 

How do we begin? Pick a traumatic event from your past. One that God suggests.

The trauma should be one that you’re constantly trying to suppress. If you have a huge one, don’t start with that. Pick one that bothers you, though. We don’t naturally desire to relive a trauma unless there’s something odd about our personality. That yucky, wish-it-never happened kind of trauma is what you need to do for real, purpose-driven Time Travel. Besides, mundane Time Travel is already available by watching decades-old sitcom reruns. Those are sentimental voyages, fantasy trips to a time that likely never existed. They’re fun. Hint: that’s not real Time Travel.

And don’t forget to take Jesus with you. I’m suggesting the inimitable one himself, the one who was back there with you in time. Yes, Jesus. Don’t cut Jesus out and take someone back with you who will rely upon your interpretation and replay of events. They’ll have to coax you, ask you questions, and even suggest possible developments that may or may not have happened. It’ll probably help, but it’s not accurate Time Travel. Accurate returns to our traumatic past are only effective with the one who was there with you. The one who loves you now and loved you back then. The one who was with everyone back when the trauma took place. That’s Jesus. He’s the only one who qualifies.

And the reason to do what I suggest, to revisit a horrible trauma? I believe it’s obvious. Since traumas can only be attended to if we trust God to go back and repair them with us, we strengthen our relationship to God. We need to trust God. Trusting God stands on real proof. We are right to be skeptical. We can say we believe God has our best interests in mind, but do we act like it? Do we put our trust in God being there with us in all the next steps we take? I don’t regularly do that. I want to. I sincerely desire that I will automatically trust in God’s goodness and accept the next onslaught, the next trauma, with full faith in God. I’m not there, yet. I need more Time Travel.

I can force myself to believe. You know how that goes. Life produces constant conflicts. They can build up. Every now and then we get tired of the attacks upon our life and our loved ones. We shudder at the capacity for evil. Eventually, every one of us shakes our fist at the sky. After a couple of swear words and an angry scowl, we eventually stop. That’s not really trusting, though, is it? Isn’t that just hard-fought discipline? We lose our minds, and then grab ourselves by the lapels and insist we not go nuts,

Discipline is good, mind you. It’s laudable synch of courage and patience. But, it’s not always trusting that God is right there, intervening where he knows I’ll need it. If we see God at work, repairing the consequences of trauma, we can trust him. Most of us need a lifetime of God’s interventions to take that trust with us through just one a day. Time Travel is just the trust ticket we need to punch. We can mount up a bunch of Godly interventions that help us to be more holy than disciplined. More trusting than just exercising excruciating patience.

There’s the rub. Unless you’re a friend of Jesus, a person yearning to be Holy with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and one who submits to the power of the Father’s total goodness, then you should be careful about revisiting trauma. Nothing I say here makes any real sense without the God relationship. I didn’t say we have to be perfect. I said more and more holy and trusting. Do we want to be Jesus’ friend, the Holy Spirit’s yearning one, and one who submits to the Father? The path and our walking on it are what matters. The destination comes much later.

Following are John Eldridge’s steps. I’ve botched them up so much that it’s probably not good to reference them to him, but he does deserve credit for the intentions behind the list.

First, pray for which traumatic past God wants us to revisit. Of course, that means we’re in communication enough with God to know what he’s suggesting. Be sure and get that communication channel procedure working. You know, like ham radio stuff. Know when to break in with “10-4” and “Backatcha” and “Breaker Breaker.” Form a language with God that properly clicks for you. Regular liturgical practice has formed you at Mass and other religious events. You have the tools to communicate with God from your faith life.

Second, set yourself in a quiet, holy place at home or in the mountains, or wherever. Bless that place. Maybe you’ve already had a priest, deacon, or a minister do that for you formally. Yes, it’s that important. The holy place is one where you are used to asking the angels and saints to join you in prayer. A place where you know the devil and his minions dare not go. Still, even in such a holy place, ask God repeatedly to purify that space as you pray there. Very important for Time Travel. Asteroids are real!

Third, ask Jesus to join you right from the beginning. Don’t take off on this journey until you’ve known Jesus' power and his love, but mostly his presence. 

The trip is all up to Jesus. Revisit as much of the trauma as you can. Be sure to identify as best you can all the participants. Perhaps you are the instigator of the trauma, and your victims are there. Or, you are the victim, and the perpetrators are there. Before you do anything else, place Jesus beside, inside, behind, or in front of each person, including yourself. The mind-blowing thing is that Jesus was there when it happened. With everyone. Now you can let Jesus take over. Let him tell you how much he loves everyone there, and how he has remained with each person since that traumatic event took place. 

Fourth, if you need to repent, do so. To each person, if practical. Confession is built for repentance. If you need to forgive, do that. Again, to every person, if practical. Forgive yourself, too. Repent for making your own life miserable, and forgive yourself.

This is probably not all you will need to do. You may need to make another trip. You may need to seek out professional psychiatric help. Whatever you do, don’t give up. In the more serious traumas take a believer with you. That’s the point of Church. Jesus wants two of us together. That’s why God formed us into a body of his sons and daughters. 

In fact, while going alone is probably helpful, God will engage you with fellow believers who can help you upon your return. Doing this alone will eventually call you to confess and to pour out your heart to someone. As Catholics, we get to do this for free in the confessional. Priests are not coin-operated. Eventually, the confessional seals the deal. 

If you have confessed these traumas, you may still be missing the joy of the washing of the sin. To face our traumas after confession’s assurance of healing might make sense. Your confessor may have even suggested more professional help. Time Travel can be just the thing.

Every visit will surely be traumatic in itself, but God is with you, and you can recognize God is with everyone else. You can know God has been attending to this all along. He was waiting for you to know he was there.

Time Travel is dangerous. No doubt about it. It is, however, necessary.