{"id":34711,"date":"2021-12-04T00:01:52","date_gmt":"2021-12-04T08:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=34711"},"modified":"2026-06-06T11:32:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T11:32:40","slug":"the-afterlife-is-fantastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/the-afterlife-is-fantastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking News: The Afterlife Is ‘Fantastic’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"the<\/a>
Jon was drawn to things celestial. In 2017, he made reservations for us to travel half way across the country to St. Joseph, Missouri, to witness that year’s total eclipse of the sun. Here he is, in a contemplative moment, on a grassy hillside in St. Joseph’s Heritage Park. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This just in — the afterlife is “fantastic.”<\/p>\n

That’s the news from Jon. And he should know, he’s been there in the afterlife, wherever that is, for almost ten months now.<\/p>\n

Mind you, I didn’t get this “fantastic” news directly from Jon. I got it from his niece, Lindsey, who got it from Jon, in a dream.<\/p>\n

It was one of those vivid dreams that stick with you and that you tell your friends about. Also your grieving, widowed Aunt Barbara.<\/p>\n

The Afterlife Is Fantastic<\/strong><\/h5>\n

In this dream, which Lindsey had a couple of weeks ago, Lindsey spotted her uncle at the family house in Southern California in the little town of Piru.<\/p>\n

“I asked him how the afterlife is and he said it’s fantastic and that he’s working in the newspaper business again there.”<\/p>\n

That sounded like Jon. That he would report that the afterlife is “fantastic” — not sublime, not serene, and above all not holy — sounds just like him.<\/p>\n

Also — that Jon would return to the newspaper business is telling.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of his life Jon was a thriller writer. Before that he was a software engineer.<\/p>\n

But before that he was a journalist.<\/p>\n

\"Jon-newhall-publisher-newhall-signal<\/a>
Jon began his journalism career at the family newspaper in Southern California. Typewriters and pencils were still the tools of the trade in 1968. Jon Newhall photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He worked on the family newspaper in Southern California, then he started Zodiac News Service, a crusading anti-Vietnam war, pro-civil rights, pro-marijuana underground publication with hundreds of subscribers all over the U.S.<\/p>\n

In the Sweet By and By<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Returning, in the sweet by and by, to his original calling sounds just like Jon. The real Jon. The Jon I fell for fifty years ago.<\/p>\n

Still, when it comes to the question, is there a Great Beyond, I am a skeptic. Do we get a celestial afterlife? I dunno.<\/p>\n

And that’s what makes Jon’s death so hard for me — my sense that my husband of forty-four years has has been extinguished. Evaporated. That he is no more. That he is nowhere.<\/p>\n

I know, I know — I’m a practicing Christian, and Christianity’s foundational teaching is that we do not die. Jesus assured his disciples that, “In my father’s house are many many mansions . . . I go to prepare a place for you.”<\/p>\n

That is the promise of Christianity — that there is an afterlife, one in which you might even get to work on a newspaper, just like you did when you were young and ambitious and full of big ideas.<\/p>\n

But I don’t know that.<\/p>\n

Messages From Heaven?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

As for those dreams and whether dreams can bring messages from heaven, I don’t know that either.<\/p>\n

The world’s great wisdom traditions say, yes, they can.<\/p>\n

Hebrew scripture tells of Jacob’s dream of angels walking up and down a ladder, from earth to heaven and heaven to earth.<\/p>\n

In Christian scripture, Joseph was warned in a dream to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Baby Jesus to escape the murderous King Herod.<\/p>\n

And, Buddhist and Hindu texts honor the dream state as a potential path to enlightenment.<\/p>\n

As I see it, traditional scriptures like these have rung true to people for thousands of years, vetted by generation upon generation of practicing Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. I take these accounts seriously.<\/a><\/p>\n

People You Know and Trust — What Do They Say?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I also take seriously the experience of the living, breathing people I know and trust.<\/p>\n

Lindsey is one of those people,<\/p>\n

But so is my neighbor up the street. She died just a few months ago. She had health challenges, so I imagine she had given some thought to what death might hold for her.<\/p>\n

Last summer, at a neighborhood party, she asked me how I was feeling about the loss of Jon.<\/p>\n

“It’s hard,” I told her. “It’s hard, because I don’t know where Jon is<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

“Ah,” she said, her face lighting up. “You never know. He could be someplace amazing<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Amazing? Fantastic?<\/p>\n

Could be.<\/p>\n

More stories from my rocky spiritual journey<\/a> can be found at “Quarantine Hair: I’ve Got Curls All Over My Head. How Did That Happen?”<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Also, “Lt. Col. Vindman and That Old, Old Question — Are We Born Selfish?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"the<\/a><\/div>\n
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This just in — the afterlife is “fantastic.” That’s the news from Jon. And he should know, he’s been in the afterlife since February. Read more.<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[34,2536,191,2074,2537,2538,82,2539,1999,2540,2541,2419],"class_list":["post-34711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","category-widowed","tag-dont-miss","tag-flight-to-egypt","tag-grief","tag-jon-newhall","tag-lindsey","tag-maggie","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-scripture","tag-st-joseph-mo","tag-the-afterlife","tag-the-sweet-by-and-by","tag-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34711"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49398,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34711\/revisions\/49398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}