I have been to four funerals since December, four more than I would have like to have attended. It has got me thinking about the afterlife. I must warn the reader that there are no answers here. I have not figured out who goes where, where where is or even what where is. Leo Tolstoy spent a great deal of time railing against the church for deceiving people through the ages and scaring them into believing it's doctrines and, at the same time, paying money so that the hierarchy can get rich and against governments for threatening people with force to get them to do as the government wants. I'm simplifying things here, but he believed that the Kingdom of God is within each of us and each of us has the power within us to change the world and to bring to fruition the things Christ taught us.
All of the great religions of the world, of which I am aware, believe in some type of life after death. Some believe that we are reincarnated and that we keep going until we achieve a state of perfection. Some, like my Roman Catholic tradition, believe that we go to heaven (the good place) or hell (the bad place). Some say hell is a place of torture, others believe it is going out of existence so that we are in the same state as before we were born. But, wait. How do we know we weren't in existence before we were born? Maybe we were in another dimension, or another incarnation.
I was tempted to do a Google search for the afterlife, but then I thought how foolish that would be. I would get a zillion posts with two zillion opinions. I know, I don't believe, I know that it all has somehow to do with love. I don't know how it all works, but I think that we will end up all loving one another, but how? If we don't love one another here on earth, how will we, all of a sudden, become such great people after we die? Don't know. But, I believe Tolstoy is right. We have the power within us, each of us, to love, and to love not only those close to us, but to love every one of our neighbors in the world. It's not easy though. I can like people, but to truly love them is harder. Not that there is anything wrong with the people (except congress people this week), but there is something lacking in me. I have to change myself. Maybe then I can realize that the Kingdom of God is really within me and that I can help to make it come into being here on earth.
This is profound and I haven't even begun to write all that I think on this subject. It is difficult because we don't know what lies beyond this life and, let's face it, no matter how religious we are, or how much we say we accept that our reward will be in heaven, we don't really look forward to going anyplace. We don't want to die. We are afraid of what may be out there, oh we of little faith.
To be continued.
2 comments:
Very profound, there was a South Park episode that included "orientation in hell"; people were saying "I don't belong here I am a Catholic, or Baptist, or Jewish" and the character says "I am sorry people the correct answer is Methodist." That one makes me laugh every time, does God consider a "right" religion?
In "The Kingdom of God is Within You," Leo Tolstoy points out that if everyone followed the teaching of Christ, we wouldn't need the word "church." That word implies a division. If all of us loved and cared for one another totally, what would be the need of a church or priests or ministers telling us what we should do. It's interesting. You should read it. It's available as a free download wherever free books are downloaded.
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