The first past life I would like to share is the first that I remember. 

I was 6 years old.

It was confusing. 

I did not exactly know what had happened, but it was like no dream I had ever had, then or now. 

I am not sure if any of you have had a past life memory.

If you have had one, you may connect with this chapter. 

I have the safety of knowing that I am an adult, and this is in the past. 

I am going to put one foot into the shadow of my young self at the age of six and one foot in the shadow of this other life so that I can connect easier and share with you. 

This is simply a recounting of a past life as opposed to a new memory, so I think I will be fine with the emotions. 

My parents decided that we were going to bring religion into our life, and we started going to the little local church. The Sunday school was in the basement of the church and there were three to four parent teachers that were there usually teaching little Bible stories. We had just started going to the church, so everything was new.

We had been attending for a few Sundays, and I had been learning about different things in the class, and sometimes these things reminded me of different times and different places and my mind would drift, and I didn’t know why. I was kind of a quiet kid, and adults would often say that I was thoughtful. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I liked it. 

It was a typical Sunday morning. The sky was dark gray, the clouds were low. It was cold and I pulled my jacket around me as we walked up to the little church. 

I was about five or six years of age and was dressed in my Sunday clothes, with my hair was fixed nicely. As we arrived and walked down the stairs, I could hear the kids singing. I quickly sat down on the carpet to begin singing too.  When we were done, a parent teacher asked us to all gather around for story time. I love story time, so I was excited to begin.

As our teacher began her story, a word began to float around in my mind, which was Nazareth. It began to echo inside my head as she used it again.

It felt so familiar, like I could almost touch it. It felt like a place that I knew, and my mind just started to drift while I was in the classroom. The clap of the teachers hands brought me back to the classroom and I blinked my eyes as I looked around at the religious pictures. I wondered who these people were as my eyes kind of scanned.

Then the teacher stopped by one picture in particular and said that she wanted to introduce us to Jesus. I looked at the picture and I kind of tilted my head, and I thought that doesn’t fit, that doesn’t look like Jesus at all. I didn’t know where that came from, but this was a very strong feeling. 

I wonder why they’re teaching us this because it just didn’t feel right, and I cannot explain but my gut just had a big opinion. It was the first time that my gut ever had an opinion, and I couldn’t shake it off. I thought I have to talk to these teachers because I don’t think that they know that this is a problem. 

So, I decided I was going to be helpful, and I decided that I was just going to walk up to the tallest teacher, because she always seemed so nice to me, and I was going to tell her how I was feeling. 

The parent teacher had red flaming hair and as I stood at her feet, she looked like a tall redwood tree standing over me. I had to tilt my head back to look up into her face. When she looked down I let her know that some of the stuff that they were saying didn’t feel right to me, and in particular, I pointed at the picture of Jesus, and I let her know that it wasn’t him, and it just didn’t feel right to me, and I thought Jesus looked different.

I expected her to appreciate this, but as she looked down at me her face began to change, and it became a very mean face, and I realized she wasn’t happy. But I was confused. She grabbed my little arm, and she started pulling me across the classroom to the other teachers. She was hurting my arm, and she wouldn’t let go of it.

I wiggled, and I tried to get out of it like a kid would. But I couldn’t. Her hand was like a vice. The teachers began talking about me as if I wasn’t there, as if I was invisible, as I

stood underneath them in the circle. They were all in agreement that I was being very disruptive. I was lying, and they would not allow it. 

Suddenly my parents came into the door, the look on their faces was not happy faces. 

My dad had his hands on his hips and my mother was looking at me with those eyes that you never want to see from your mother. I thought this was not going as anticipated at all. The teacher talked to my parents and as we got ready to exit the building, they let my parents know that they were welcomed back, but they should not bring me along because I was going to confuse the other children. 

As we drove home in the car, I listened as my parents yelled at me. 

I was looking out the window thinking to myself. I am confused and I’m not sure what to do with all this confusion. When we got home, I was put into my bedroom and I was told that I could not come out until I would be willing to take back the lie and admit that it was a lie, and sort of repent, and say I would never lie again. I realized I was exiled in my bedroom to learn a lesson. I just wasn’t sure what lesson was because I had told the truth. 

I decided to lay on my bed to think about the confusion in my head. I covered my eyes with my arms and felt very sorry for myself as I cried. As I calmed down, I began to hear the word Nazareth and slowly I was becoming aware of the word spinning in my mind. Each time I thought of the word it seemed more and more important. It kept echoing “Nazareth”; it was surrounding me. 

Calling me. I just let go and let my mind drift to follow it. The word was just sort of dancing ahead of me as we went back in time, I became aware that I was in a different time and a different place in my mind. But I wasn’t asleep. 

Somehow, I was still aware of my bedroom, but as I focused on the memory it began playing in my head like it was a dream and briefly, I seemed to be able to be in two places at one time. But then my room began to fade away, and a

different place was coming into focus. As it became more and more clear I knew I was in a different place and time. The entire new place was very vivid. The colors were very bright, and everything was sharply focused. 

I felt like I was seeing things from a higher vantage point, maybe taller than me, because I was a short 6-year-old.  I looked around for anything that I recognized. There was dust everywhere and old houses, dirt roads, people wearing long robes, animals working pulling carts or carrying supplies. I heard the word Nazareth, and the sound flowed through my body causing a reaction like frequency. 

I didn’t know what Nazareth was or meant but it definitely was familiar. 

I stood and looked around, all the people seemed to be in a rush on this one road in front of me, but I can smell bread on the wind. It smelled so good, my stomach rumbled.

I looked down at my hands and they were no longer my little white 6-year soft hands and fingers, they had callouses and were much darker than mine. I turned my hands over and looked at both sides, my fingers were so dirty and a dark brown. My nails are black and cracked. I reached up to smell my hands and the stench choked me. 

This act caused me to start seeing through another person’s eyes. The eyes began to focus, and I realized that I was a

taller boy, about 7 yrs old. My vantage point is taller because he’s taller than me by about a head and I can look down on things differently.

I can see the tops of people’s heads, which I can never see because I’m shorter. I’m always looking up into everybody’s faces. 

As I become more comfortable this this situation I am looking down into the street at the crowd and I am aware that I can understand what he’s thinking. 

Two things pop up immediately. 

#1, in the front of his mind. He’s very hungry and thirsty. I can run my hands over his body, and he has bony ribs and hips. He’s very thin, maybe starving. He is thinking of finding food, first thing on his mind, but 

#2 in the back of his mind, he’s worried that someone will see him and catch him and beat him. I can see a few instances of horrible treatment in his memories and they look very painful. He’s also afraid that they’ll catch him and sell him into slavery, I guess that is common here. He’s hiding from everyone in the shadows. He has no protector. 

I completely fade into his life and I aware that I’m standing with my back against a wall in the shadows. I survey the crowd for bad people, and I hear some yelling Nazareth in the distance on the wind. I realize that the location where I am standing, this town is Nazareth. I’m standing in Nazareth. Nazareth is a place. I blink my eyes and am aware that my back is against a building built from dirt.

It is hot, it’s really hot. Very blue sky and powerful sun beating down. 

It’s windy and there’s sand flying around. I am shutting my eyes to protect them. 

I’m hungry, I’m so hungry, and I’m looking around for food. I’m aware of a wide ancient road kind of in front of me and the sounds of the street, the smell of horses, wagons rumbling by big heavy wagons filled with goods and people. It’s kind of busy. I don’t know if it’s a busy city, or a busy afternoon, but it’s a busy moment, but I’m just sort of mesmerized looking around and being aware. I am increasingly comfortable in this body. 

Suddenly I hear a ruckus off to my right, near the back of the building I’m standing by, that is kind of on the edge of town. I scramble along the dirt wall to the end of the building.

I carefully look around the corner with one eye at first. I am immediately hit with blowing sand. I have to squint and pullback. But my curiosity gets the best of me, and I am drawn again to look around the corner where there is the sound of a big crowd of people. 

I cautiously put my entire head around the corner and see a big wide culvert that goes across to the other side. It’s kind of flat on the bottom where people and horses can walk, and then it goes up on the other side. The noise grows louder, and I can see that there’s a man on the path at the top of the other side. He is coming towards town, and a large group of men are following him. 

As I see this man I cannot take my eyes off of him, he is mesmerizing. There’s something about him that I don’t understand as a child, but all the men are trying to keep up with him. They’re talking and chattering and trotting along beside him to keep up. He seems to be going somewhere. He has a long flowing robe that’s the color of sand; that’s kind of whipping behind him. 

I don’t recognize him, but I am really feeling that this man is of great importance. I stare at him and the crowd that is passing by, down in the culvert. The crowd is growing as I look further down. At the end there’s a big tree in the middle of the culvert. It’s a giant tree with big, outstretched branches like arms and a lot of shade. I see people under the tree and there’s more arriving. There seems to be an excitement with the crowd, they are pointing at him and they’re all waiting for this man to arrive.