I have been thinking about death a lot this week. The reasons are obvious: a friend’s
mother died suddenly and it is the second anniversary of the death of my
friend, Martha. Plus turning 64
years old a few weeks ago added to those “questioning moments” that we all get
as we get older. Is there life
after death? What is dying
like? Do our souls get a second
(or third or fourth) chance?
Bottom line, what’s it all about?
What is the meaning of life and the meaning of death or is it a fool’s
errand to try and put meaning on either one?
Growing up, we were indoctrinated into the “afterlife”
theory, all good kids go to heaven if they have first, wisely, confessed all
their sins. With sin on your soul,
you would have to spend time in purgatory where you would do small labor, like
baling hay or washing clothes in a river, until you accumulated enough toiling hours
to make up for all those sins. Then you could get into heaven. (Or, if you had
connections still on earth, those connections could pray for you a lot and
shorten your time even more.) However, if it was a really bad sin,
like murder or stealing someone’s wife or bike, then you would go straight to
hell, do not pass purgatory, do not collect indulgences. Obviously, the power of the
confessional was huge: confess and be saved. Don’t confess and possibly be damned. You had to time it right, of
course. If you did the Really Bad
Thing, then you better get yourself to confession ASAP or risk death and
damnation because who knows when you might get hit by that bus.
But I digress….
What if there really is an “afterlife” but not in that “Catholic god and
devil” way? What if, when we die,
our spirit/soul has a little resting time before either moving on or being
retired? It would be like the Green Room that people hang out in before going
on a TV show. There would be good snacks, wine, beer and water (no hard
alcohol), unlimited streaming movies, nice comfy couches and reclining
chairs. Maybe George Carlin would
be on hand to make you laugh and Julia Child would be happy to cook you up a
little omelet. (Unless they had moved on to other bodies, of course.) That wouldn’t be too bad. When your spirit/soul had rested
sufficiently and the next phase of your life was about to unfold, you would
exit the Green Room and carry on with your new life, facing whatever destiny
was in store for you.
What if you are a “bad soul?” What if your spirit/soul is not destined to carry on? Or maybe that’s when you definitely get
transferred to a new life, in order to keep trying to get better. And when you have finally reached the
pinnacle of how good you will ever be, the apex of the perfect spirit/soul, do
you get to retire? Does your spirit/soul enter some kind of “Soul Hall of
Fame?”
When I think of people I know who have died too quickly,
Martha is the one who comes to mind.
Martha was a smart, funny, kind, wise, slightly flawed (of course) human
and to think that her spirit/soul wasn’t put to use again is a sad
thought. Anyone would be blessed
to have Martha’s cumulative experience guiding him or her through life, even if
unaware of that experience. I
wonder, did she wait in the Green Room for a while and laugh at George Carlin’s
humor and discuss the perfect grilled cheese sandwich with Julia Child? Was she ready and willing to take on
another corporeal body? I think the answer would be “yes.” Martha, probably like so many souls,
was no doubt eager to see what the next phase would be, what her new destiny
entailed.
But maybe I am 100% wrong and when we die, that’s it.
Nothing else. That would seem so short sighted, simply discarding spirits/souls
that could be of great assistance to future human beings. But we will never
know, will we? And we will
continue to ponder all this until we die and even then, who knows what we will be
conscious of.
More to follow, I am certainly not done with this subject.
No comments:
Post a Comment