Last week, I recounted the CMPE of a man named Ryan, in which he was writing a story about a stranger knocking at the door, when at that exact moment an uncannily similar stranger knocked at his door. I promised that this week I would relate the process that Ryan and I went through to arrive at an interpretation of this amazing coincidence. 

The first step was to gather as much information as I could about the events of the sign. I asked Ryan more about the story he was writing, and what it meant to him, and also more about his real-life encounter with the stranger. He wrote back in detail, giving me what I felt was enough to go on. 

The single most important piece of information was that he “had had something like an NDE [near-death experience] about two weeks earlier, in January, 1995,” and this experience was actually the inspiration for his story. “I was writing to play around with what it might mean,” he said. Here is how he described his experience:

My NDE-like experience started in a dream where I had received a visit from a stranger. That stranger turned out to be a sort of angel. I awoke suddenly from the dream, and in a state that I now know as ‘sleep paralysis’ I had my out of body experience. 

He then described how this experience inspired the story he was writing: 

I wanted to play on the theme of welcoming strangers and becoming unlikely friends. I wanted to create a safe space to tell my NDE-like story. ‘Fiction’ seemed safe. I thought it would be more interesting if the friendship was unlikely socially; that is, crossing boundaries of richer/poorer, black/white, disabled/able-bodied, legal/illegal. 

He also added, “In the story I wanted the stranger at the door to be an angel of sorts.” 

Based on all that I learned from him, I put together this list of parallels between the two events, his story of the stranger and the actual encounter with the stranger: 

1. Someone knocks on your door (you being either the narrator or yourself), wanting something (story: a listening ear; real-life: money/food).
2. It is a stranger.
3. The stranger is a black male.
4. He has alcohol on his breath.
5. He is physical disabled.
6. He has had an NDE.
7. Besides him being a stranger, the two of you are on different sides of several boundaries: richer/poorer, black/white, disabled/able-bodied, sober/intoxicated. 

To find out what the CMPE is about, my rule is that you first take the story told by the parallels, which is this: 

Someone knocks on Ryan’s door who is poles apart from him socially and physically, a stranger who is different from him in many ways, all of which make the stranger’s life in society ‘lower,’ or at least less functional, than his. 

Then you look for a situation in the person’s life that fits this story, a situation that is usually important and meaningful, as well as current and unresolved. The most obvious candidate is Ryan’s attempt to explore the meaning of his NDE through the story he was writing. Yet there is another candidate: the real-life stranger coming to Ryan’s door, asking for money, and him wondering how he should handle the encounter. I think this CMPE is about both situations. I think both come together in a single question: How can he work out the meaning of his NDE? The story is an attempt to work it out in fiction. The actual encounter was a chance to work it out in real life. 

Here is what I wrote Ryan about the interpretation: 

Let me explain how the interpretation process works. The parallels highlight certain aspects of the subject situation. (For instance, one of the parallels is “the two of you are on different sides of several boundaries,” which, of course, is at the heart of your attempts to work out the meaning of your NDE.) Then, the parallels confirm those aspects they highlight. That is what the parallels are about: confirmation. They basically say “There is something right about that.” The really important parallels, then, are the ones that confirm something meaty, something meaningful. A parallel that says there is something right about this man being disabled doesn’t tell us much, does it? But a parallel that says there is something right about the two of you being on different sides of several boundaries, that tells us a lot. That tells us the message of this CMPE. 

The essence of your NDE, as best as I could glean (though hearing more may have provided more meaning) is that “stranger becomes angel.” You said, “I had received a visit from a stranger. That stranger turned out to be a sort of angel.” What is a stranger? A stranger is someone separate from you, unknown to you, apart from you, someone who is “strange” to you: “Not of one’s own or a particular locality, environment, or kind.” Because of this social distance, strangers are greeted with an emotional distance. The stranger is the unknown and could be dangerous. He could be coming to take advantage of you. Better to keep some distance. 

But in your NDE the stranger turned out to be an angel. An angel is a holy being, a being of pure innocence and love, who comes to bless. Even though you have established no personal, social connection with an angel, you know it has been sent by God to minister to your needs, to serve you. You know you are safe in the angel’s hands. Therefore, the whole need for keeping your emotional distance from a stranger melts away if the stranger turns out to be an angel. Now there are no reasons for the usual boundaries to be up. They can collapse and disappear. 

So “stranger becomes angel” is really a theme of collapsing the usual boundaries, of going from separation to unity. I take it this was why you were playing with the meaning of your NDE by writing that story of crossing boundaries. In your story, a stranger shows up, one who is not just unknown but truly strange to you, truly different in many ways. Yet this stranger turns out to be an angel. Therefore, the multiple boundaries that were there at first-richer/poorer, black/white, healthy/disabled, intoxicated/sober-melt away. This is expressed as you getting high together on pot [a scene from Ryan's story] and the stranger revealing that he has had an NDE and encountered an angel. He has touched the realm of spirit. 

The CMPE, then, is acting to confirm all this. Yes, it is saying, the meaning of your NDE is one of crossing those boundaries, so that you unite with the stranger, with the person who seems so different from you, and discover that this person has something of the realm of spirit in him, that this person is an angel. 

So as far as event 1 goes, I think this CMPE is confirming that the story you wrote does indeed contain some essential truth about the real-life implications of your NDE. 

Now let’s look at event 2. I think we are supposed to take this idea-that your story contains the real-life implications of your NDE-and apply it to event 2. I think we can see this in two closely related ways. The first way is that you unite with this stranger, crossing all those boundaries, in the knowledge that this stranger is really an angel. I know your experience was that he wasn’t much of an angel. But perhaps your job was to see past that appearance and realize that underneath that was a deeper truth. 

Now for the second way: Notice that amidst all the things you and Jeffrey didn’t share-personal history, race, health, financial wellbeing-there is one thing you did share: You both had had an NDE. You both had touched the realm of spirit. You shared a unity, then, on the spiritual level, in spite of all your differences on the level of this world. That higher unity, then, becomes the basis for crossing all those boundaries, for taking down those walls…. 

My overall interpretation, in a nutshell, then, is this: 

“The way to live out the meaning of your NDE is to realize that strangers, those who seem alien, beneath you, and possibly threatening, are really angels, come to bless you. Despite all their outer differences from you, on a higher, spiritual level, there is something you and they share. There is a spiritual unity between you that is more important than the physical differences. This gives you a basis for crossing those boundaries, for establishing real connections, for setting aside your differences and “getting high together” (to use that scene as a larger metaphor). This may at times take the form of helping them with tangible needs (as you did with Jeffrey [the real-life stranger, who Ryan ended up buying a cart of groceries for]); that may be how you are blessed by them. It is helpful to explore this message in writing fiction, but of course you also need to take the next step and express it in real life.” 

I felt like this interpretation almost certainly captured it. It honored his NDE and the story he wrote, and applied them both to the real-life encounter with the stranger. I didn’t know, however, if Ryan would agree with it. I also was concerned about him really grasping the process I’d gone through to arrive at it. His response was very reassuring on both counts:

Thank you, Thank you. Your CMPE analysis is illuminating. Event 2, man at the door serves as confirmation for Event 1, the work of fiction, and in turn, serves as one meaningful form of interpretation for my NDE. I am deeply grateful. Not only have you sharpened my interpretation of the meaning of the event, you have given me a model, the CMPE model, for interpreting such events.

I am using the experience in my life now in a variety of ways. For example, last Tuesday morning I was teaching a yoga class at the Baltimore City Women’s Detention Center, and I told the story I told here. I had their rapt attention. The story helped bridge a gap socially, and gave us a sense of awe about our higher connection. One of the women shared her NDE story, and that added to the profound sense of connection we shared. 

For me, it was deeply gratifying to go through this process and at the end come out with an interpretation that Ryan really connected with, so that he no longer had to ask “What did it mean?”