Most people believe in an afterlife. In human history only a very small minority have believed that this life is all there is, the whole shebang.
For the rest of us, ideas about this future state vary widely. It might surprise you to know that only a minority of Christians today have ideas about the afterlife that most early Christians would recognize.
As you might imagine, in the last several years, Susan and I have given more than a little thought to questions about the afterlife. Cancer focuses the mind that way. It drove me to dig deep into the traditions that we hold dear. That give meaning to our lives. The Faith that sustains us. What wisdom about death and life after death would we find there?
I intend to write a series of posts about what I found. My hope is to encourage you to think deeply about these questions. For death comes to us all.
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Of course peering into the future is of necessity looking through a dark glass, to use an old biblical image. But this doesn’t mean we can say nothing about the matter. We’ve been given signposts, maps even, to guide our way. Signposts don’t tell us everything but they tell us something. Maps are very useful in pointing the way and giving the general lay of the land. But the map maker can’t document every detail. Those details await our arrival. My tradition teaches me that once upon a time the Master Map Maker sent us His right hand guy, the guy who had overseen the entire map making process. That guy was sent to show us how and where to walk. “Follow me,” He said. “Live like me.” But here’s the hard part, “die like me.” That was very confusing and unpopular at the time. Still is. Expectations were shattered. “You are suppose to show us how to live, how to overcome life’s obstacles along the way, obstacles like these nasty Romans, not die!” Everyone doubted. “This can’t be the way. Following a crucified Jew!” But then came the really surprising part, “live again like me.” That’s when everything changed. The worlds largest and most influential map reading family, warts and all, was and is the result.
A few months ago I wrote about the importance of sitting a spell. And taking time to notice. Being attentive. I suggested a slower pace could do some good. Why? We rush through life. Most of us. Partly because of the demands of modernity. The Fast-Life. And sometimes the unwholesome demands others place upon us. That we place upon ourselves. Maybe we are just running toward a desired future. Or from a disappointing past. Speed seems necessary.
Often the quickness is exhilarating. I’ve been there. Bada boom. Bada bing. Knock it out. Get it done. Get respect. Other times? Honestly. Simply overwhelming. Too much to process effectively. Hurry up and hold on! is about the best we can do.
Overwhelming speed blurs awareness of our surroundings. Important signs go rushing by. The guide posts along the way. Pivot points, even. “Was I suppose to turn there? Or turn around here?”
Stop and smell the peppermint mountain laurel, goes the old cliche. Can you even see the laurel at this speed?
You don’t see a blurry object. You don’t draw near. Meditate on its beauty. Watch it unfold. Take it in.
Our minds, said the poet, were meant to be the mothers of immortal song. Inspired by the fine delight, the strong spur, the flaming breath. We were meant to experience, take in, God’s beauty, wisdom and love. And let it gestate. Nine days. Nine months. Nine years. We yearn for the encounter, actually. Even those who don’t yet know the true source of that yearning.
“Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this; I want the one rapture of an inspiration.”
Sweet Fire
And yet, it won’t be fully Christian (my neck of the woods) unless we share this inspiration, in loving community, just like my Three-and-One God. Unless we in-spire. In-spirit. In-dwell one another. By creatively breathing out after we have breathed in. It won’t be Christlike. This creative breath takes the form of the timely word, the healing touch, the helpful deed. But all too often our impressive salt-flat speediness, which may have broken records, leaves our mission dry and lifeless.
Question? Was anyone or any vital thing sacrificed at the altar of our record breaking achievement? If not. Then, by all means, let us carry on. If yes. Stop. Look. Seek forgiveness. And possibly pivot.
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Perhaps some of you are saying: “Look, friend, all your encouragement about slowing down, opening to beauty, sucking the marrow out of life, may work on the Appalachian trail, or waltzing around Walden Pond, while retired! but it’s not where I live or can live.”
Some of you may be thinking that, right? Well. It is true. I recently arrived at my “Walden Pond” and the waltzing is wonderfully in-spiriting. I’m very grateful for this slower pace. And the natural beauty. But I need to emphasize the word “recently.”
Until most recently, there were seven years of physical pressures. Psychological pressures. And by grace, character forming pressures. Over 140 chemo-immuno-therapy treatments and doctors visits for and with my wife. Three major surgeries, for and with my sweetie.
Psychological pain. Hers: “But, I don’t fit the profile. I’ve taken care of myself. My girls! My husband! My granddaughter!” His: “But, I finally found my girl! My love! My wife!”
My doubts. Not about the distant future. But about the interim. Did I pray hard enough. Did I do enough to help my wife prepare? Did I say everything she needed to hear from her husband. Did I touch her, kiss her enough? Did I hear her when she cried? As her “drug delivery system” in her final days was it precisely what she needed? Oh God help me!
Loss!
Responsibilities. Given Susan’s two daughters from a previous marriage, the disposition of the Estate was not simple. And finally selling our home. And moving.
In the middle of all that, God graciously met us & led us.
I apologize if this seems like a self serving troll for sympathy. But I’m trying to make a larger point. We don’t need Walden Pond. God will meet us where we are. If we are desperate enough. If we yearn for it. But we must make God’s good gift of time serve us, and our deepest needs.
In three upcoming posts I want to share with you three signs, three tender mercies that give witness to God’s direct presence in my life. A life rather busy until recently. Sound like presumptuous, hotline to heaven talk? I hope not. I don’t have one of those. What I do have is a valuable experience. Because my wife and I took the time. And God, our Sweet Fire, led, refined, inspired along the way.
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A few weeks ago I found a path to a wonderful point just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. I decided to sit a spell. The Fast-Life most people live could take a break at this point and do some good. They might breathe in, breathe out. And more.
I prefer to fill the mind when I meditate. To begin with, nothing complicated. Just simple & true. A little something to chew on. And be nourished by. A verse. A lyric. A sacred theme. A remembered prayer. Bring it in. Relax it out. And maybe more.
Today a sacred text about a promised future came to mind.
the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Youthful exuberance on the right. “Wait for the leaves, little guy.”
Some masters of meditation, Buddhists, Brahmin, and Taoists, teach us to go beyond thought and image, beyond the senses and the rational mind to meditate most deeply, and achieve higher consciousness. I’m not a meditation master but, respectfully, I have a different view.
For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals,…
Ah yes, that’s what I am, a master of mortality. Yet as I see His mountains. And feel His wind. And maybe, just maybe hear His voice. And, God help me, dare to think His immortal thoughts, thoughts about the promise of recovery, restoration, reunion, new creation, I burst into song too!
To do otherwise would be to miss the point. This beautiful, wonderful point.
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A first principle of spirituality is this: we become like what we worship. Worshiping the Creator (not the creation) is how we become genuinely human. The Jewish-Christian story says we are created in God’s image. And are to be His image bearers. His angled mirrors. Reflecting who He is to the world. That’s a high calling. You seek significance? Believe this and you’ve found it. I believe at our best we are points of reflected light. (Not the source of light.) And together we may become luminous.
So it pays to sit a spell. Alone sometimes. Like here at Meditation Point. And also together, in sacred space. To worship. And recharge for the journey. Then more.
I think that is the divine path to enlightenment. The Way.
A master of meditation, Gautama Buddha, and his followers, made a significant undeniable contribution to world culture. But about this point they got it wrong. They do not believe the God of gods is the Creator. Or for that matter that creation is good. To them all existence—birth, decay, sickness, and death—is suffering. Nirvana, freedom from suffering, can only be achieved by a cessation of selfish craving. Which to them meant all craving. Achieving Nirvana required a thousand life times or more. Chained as we are to the wheel of rebirth. Awareness of the restless suffering, impermanence and emptiness of human existence starts you on the path to spiritual liberation. (If you are a Buddhist.) Because of these Truths, Buddha and his followers seek Un-Creation. The ending of the self. Like a drop of water falling into the sea. It turns out Lord Buddha is also a master of extinction.
My religious tradition tells a different story. God through Christ, His Son, is destined to restore creation, putting an end to the suffering of His people, this planet, this Cosmos. Enlightened persons won’t dissolve into a glistening sea of universal sameness. No. God will make creation new again in all of its glorious, richly differentiated, kaleidoscopic, unity. (Suggestion: if you expect to wrap your brain around that last sentence it helps to be Trinitarian: which is to say, at the center of everything is Unity and Diversity coexisting, the One and the Many, Group and Individual equally valued, One God, Three Persons in Loving Community. At the heart of everything. Before there was any created thing. It helps.)
Our part in this story? We begin by thinking God’s thoughts after Him. For amazingly He may be known, not fully but truly, here and now. It begins with what we see and feel and hear and taste and smell. If we are attentive. If we sit a spell.
Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that have been made.
That is the point of Meditation Point. To know our Creator. Worship. Recharge. And then, to make Him known. By, among other things, alleviating suffering where we can. A down payment of future reality.
Yes, Gautama Buddha, real suffering exists. I know it. More today than yesterday. Birds of prey swoop down into the valley below. Red in beak and claw. And the good creation groans. But the wind whispers that a new day on earth is coming when a great song will be sung, by an unlikely choir, and the trees young and old will clap wildly, as old hostilities and fears dissipate, and the wolf lies down with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6-9).
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A day earlier the fifty mile per hour winds streaming across the valleys and hollers of Allegheny county would have pushed me off my perch. But today the wind was gentle. And the fresh green smell of spring lifted up from the valley below. You could almost taste it. Leaf and blade and bud and blossom cast a Spirit spell as I sat, saw, felt, breathed, remembered, listened, and worshiped.
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