Thunder

It is with a heavy heart that I write these words: Mary Elizabeth Thunder has gone home. A true Saint has left us. I met Thunder back in 2007 when I was managing Woodside Trails. What had formerly been a school for mostly young men in the foster care system, had now become a place where many young men and women came to regroup and see what was next for them in their lives. My friend Bebe Gaines brought Thunder over to meet Melissa, my wife at the time, and me. We hit it off immediately. We talked about the 15 or so young men who were living on the property at the time, most of them she knew better than I. They had been out to Thunder Ranch, a spiritual community founded by Thunder some twenty years before, out in the brush between Smithville and La Grange, Texas, to practice Ceremony. As we talked about “the boys” and the issues we were dealing with, I mentioned Jesus. Thunder exclaimed, with her beautiful childlike enthusiasm: “Oh, I love Jesus.” There was something different about the way she said it from the way I had heard others say it before. She said it as if she were talking about someone she was friends with, and knew intimately, and indeed she did. Jesus for her was not merely a faraway deity she believed in, He was someone she walked and talked with daily. Thunder and I became instant friends. We talked all afternoon, and as I retold her about my recent re-dedication to the life of a Minister, I told her my story of how I grew up, the things I had gone through, and how, for decades, I had run away from my prior ordination as a minister. I told her about the long journey of forgiveness of those who had hurt me as a child, and especially of my father, who had put us kids through an arduous upbringing. I explained that I had forgiven every single person who had harmed me over the years, but I had still held on to a resentment toward God for the things I had endured growing up. I explained that at some point in the recent past I had made up an empowering story, and in that story I was still in the Spirit World, before I was born, and God and I agreed that I would be born into that exact family and experience those exact experiences so I could more effectively be of service to those I would minister to, in the future, who had also gone through hell in their childhood. Thunder said: “Oh, that wasn’t a story you made up. That was a Vision.” Thunder told me much of her story as well, and I had a sense that I had finally met someone who “got” me. I had a spiritual sister who knew who I was. And so began my friendship with Mary Elizabeth Thunder. A couple of Read More …