After Life?
Many faiths contemplate a life following the one we know now. Will we have an existence beyond this life? Will there be a place for us beyond this known world? Will we like it there? Will we be rewarded there – and if so, for what? Will we be punished there – or will our enemies be? Will we have enemies in the life that follows this one? Some traditions map this after-life onto a different place, currently unknown to us; others map it onto this very world we know, but understand it as hidden, or unseen, or discernible only to the most spiritually sensitive. And some think of it as a pause point – maybe a kind of pitstop or service station – on our way to our next life in this world. Whatever our conception is of what happens after death, it's useful to notice what ideas or beliefs we hold, and consider whether and how they may be helping us in this one current life we are most certain of.
Recently I have found myself repeatedly in conversation with age-mate friends whose parents are still alive to offer them love (and also sometimes trouble). Though I am glad for them, of course, that they still have this vibrant connection with their folks – and yes, even the frustrations and worries are, in some fashion, blessed evidence that they are still present to one another – it is a reminder to me that I have been without my parents for decades now. My dad died when I was 25 years old – that is 36 years ago, so he has been gone now a decade longer than I knew him in this life. My mom passed when I was 32, which means we are fast approaching (in three years) that same unsettling moment. It can be jarring to take such measurements, though when I think on why it is, it occurs to me that this has more to do with my own mortality than theirs. Though I miss them still daily – or indeed, perhaps, because I do, thinking often of something they would appreciate or find hilarious – I know they are still very much with me. Indeed, I am made of them, more directly than any other substance I can point to in this world, though I am also made of the substance of this world, which includes all the people, animals, plants, things, and energies of this world and the universe beyond it. Science teaches us that all matter, all energy, is conserved. There is no place to go for it than to the well of what has already ever existed. We are inextricably interwoven. We, as Joni Mitchell has taught us, are stardust.
My Universalist tradition teaches me that all of us will know salvation – that whatever befalls one of us ultimately befalls us all. It has always seemed to me that a loving God would not cast any of their children, no matter how depraved, into eternal flame – that none of us is beyond redemption, even in this life. But the older I get, the more I find that it is this life with which I am tasked to make peace, and that it always and forever includes all those who have ever lived. They are with us. In us. All around us, in every moment.
In this season of Samhain, Hallowe’en, Día de Muertos, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day, when we understand the veil between the dead and the living to be at its thinnest, may we discern the spirits of the dead among us. Si los Muertos nos hablan, tal vez podamos escuchar. May we hear their love, their concern, and their blessed teaching. And may we know ourselves and our neighbors never to be beyond the reach of Divine love and mercy.