Death has claimed another friend of mine, KL, which is a crushing loss to her family and friends. She went to the next room in the cosmos with dignity and strength. I am left to contemplate the mystery once again of what happens when we die.
No, I shall not entertain the notion of streets of gold where harp-strumming angels sing endless praise to an omnipotent God who is both deeply benevolent toward helpless falling sparrows, and deeply unresponsive about hungry, abused children of a race He supposedly created in His own image. My friend did not believe in the myth of Christianity, and I no longer do either. I do not need any renditions of Scripture verses or Come-to-Jesus sermons in an attempt to ‘bring me back to the flock.’ Thanks but no thanks. A few thousand years ago, Greeks clung just as tightly to their deities as the modern-day religions cling to theirs. Gods and Goddesses from that time are currently dismissed as pagan myths as soon as newer religions took their place. It all depends on what group is in power at the time, and Christianity is waning.
But Christian myth is deeply ingrained in me, much like the obedience my mother expected of me ever since I could focus my eyes. I spent my life trying to find God and be a good person to Earn My Eternal Reward, until realizing Biblical canon contradictions and blind-faith-dependency made me take a serious look at organized religion. Even now my thirty years in the trenches of Catholicism gives me a moment of knee-jerk guilt even as I place it aside. My doubts and objections to religion now allows me to acknowledge that I once tried to follow the dogma, but reason and logic overruled this patriarchal, overbearing practice that has corroded mankind’s legacy.
I am no longer religious, but I am spiritual. Maybe there is a Heaven, or Paradise or Nirvana or Elysian Fields or Valhalla or Tir Na Nog or Good Hunting Grounds or any of the many other descriptions about life beyond this one. There could be something to it, otherwise why would so many traditions be created from so many cultures across the years? Well, other than the wishful thinking of mortals?
I do not agree with the notion of Hell either. Hell is a boogeyman created to keep centuries of believers quaking in their shoes and tithing a percentage of their income for the benefit of upper-tier clergymen. Why would the creator of the universe need a place to throw away his miscreants who disobey him, anyway? What happened to “a merciful and just God”? What happened to forgiveness? Why would a loving God tell his freshly created Man and Woman about the Tree of Life and not to eat its fruit, and then walk away? A responsible parent does not show a toddler a full roll of toilet paper hanging in the bathroom and then just leave because that bathroom is going to be full of unrolled paper within minutes. You showed the item, You told a rule to a toddler, then You strolled away and allowed the inevitable to happen. It wasn’t Man’s downfall. It was God’s bad parenting. And THAT is precisely why I do not attend services anymore; the writers and editors and interpreters of the Bible are historically bad editors and the story does not make sense.
What is out there for us when we die? Perhaps people who are brought back to life really do return with stories that are true, about how we (the dying) will see a bright light after rushing through a dark passage, and we will see loved ones who have gone before them, only now the dead are young and vibrant and welcoming. Perhaps we will face some sort of Grand Introspection with a powerful presence, and we will be shown a highlight reel of sorts, wherein all our deeds both good and bad are reviewed. Maybe we will have a chance to have a do-over, or reincarnate into another form, or we can travel not back to Earth but to another existence in another galaxy or multiverse, and our souls continue to develop and learn and grow from experience upon a living plane of existence.
Maybe. Or maybe this is all we have, and we collapse into nothingness for eternity.
No. I don’t buy that. What about people who only come into existence here for a short time? Was that IT?! One brief flash and it’s over and done? What is the purpose of life, what is the purpose of our daily struggles and trials and triumphs? When I die, I will find out for certain one way or the other, but reason insists there must be more to life than that, there must be. And to follow through with that statement, there must be more to death.
What I personally know is that I do not want to “die peacefully in my sleep.” Absolutely not, when I die, I want to be fully conscious of my surroundings so I can spend my last split-second moment knowing just exactly what is happening and what the big ultimate mystery is all about. I realize I will not return to tell or write down the experience, but it is how I want to go. I have lived an Earth lifetime falling asleep and waking up later to realize oh, those images I saw were only from a dream. So if I die when asleep, I might not have that split-second moment. What happens when I die, will I be re-channeled into another life form, where at some point early on I will emerge from a fog and find myself a tiny child relating stories I did not realize I had been telling, the way it happened during my current life? At that time I was unable to finish those stories because in my now-conscious state, I was an unknowing infant who could not recall what had transpired only moments before.
Will I find out why my life played out the way it did? Did I meet my goals, or whatever I was supposed to do when I set out for this point in time and space? Could I find out why I always seemed to be close to realizing my goals, only to find myself once more frustrated by lost opportunity? My life has not sucked, but the astonishment I feel every time I hear or read about some butthead whose life appears effortless and still rewarding, ought to be addressed. If my life happened so I could learn from disappointment or humility or personal realization, then that would be good to know, I just want to KNOW.
IS there such thing as reincarnation? Will we get the chance to try life all over again? Will we bring along a kernel of our past life’s truths? Or will we have to start all over again, ignorant of all the lessons we learned in that life we just left behind and if so, what was the point of going through all that struggle?
Will I have a wonderful reunion with my Mama and Papa and brother and sister and other loved ones? Will I get to finally have some sort of ‘closure’ from losing them? Will I meet my other relatives who because I was a late-age baby, I only heard about and never knew in person? Will I be able to talk with them? Will I be imbued with all the knowledge of the ages, like the answers to all the mysteries I have wondered over the years – Why Did (Noun) (Verb) (Object)? Is there life out there in space, and are they deliberately avoiding us here on Earth? Not that I blame them.
Every human being who ever lived and was able to think, has pondered the mystery of Death, and I am no different. I enjoy this world and do not want to leave it any earlier than necessary, but when I do go I want to be aware and ready to ask Why? Where? How? When? Who? Like a reporter who asks despite no longer having a beat to cover.
KL will know by now. Maybe she will send me a hint, like the considerate, spiritual person she was. Farewell, KL. Be at one with the cosmos.
a clatter of goats 