Afterlife

I realize that in my posts, I've been focusing very much on the physical nature of death--the grave, the coffin, the nasty little gelatinous tumor that killed my father. It all leads straight into the conversation that makes us most uncomfortable, the conversation that has divided families and started wars, because it is about the very nature of God. When you lose someone you love, though, it's impossible not to go there. My younger brother sent me an email this morning after reading yesterday's post that truly struck a chord:

"The fact that the brain is home to "the things that make us most human"--sometimes hard to wrap one's mind around, and it seems like most people never do, unless something like this happens (Dad's illness). It's hard for me to comprehend an afterlife, but equally hard for me to drop the idea of a soul. I've started reading the Bhagavad-Gita again lately. I guess if I were to embrace a religious idea about death, it would be more in tune with the mystical Hindu or Buddhist idea of Nirvana--the soul somehow uniting with a universal Soul, like a "drop of water mingling with the ocean" (the Soul being identified with God, but a very different concept of God from the biblical one). Not really comprehensible to my puny little brain, but then again, who would expect it to be comprehensible?"

This really resonated with me. For my brother and I, this is a far cry from the Mormon teachings of our youth, which paint a very hopeful and appealing picture of mortal beings who, after death, retain every ounce of individuality, retain all their knowledge and memories, and are even reunited with their own physical bodies. I've been leaning more and more towards Quakerism lately, and the Quaker idea of God and the soul is very similar to the one that Quinn described in his email. It's this notion that we are all part of God, that his kingdom is here on earth and not separate from this life.

A common teaching tool for Quaker children is to break a glass onto a hard surface and watch the pieces scatter, an example of how hidden pieces of God are lurking all over the earth. I like to think of my father as one more piece of a scattered God returning to home base, the way that little robotic Roomba vacuum automatically senses when its low on batteries and docks itself at its recharger in the laundry room.

Honestly, I'm most comfortable admitting that I know nothing of the mysteries of the universe. I have to believe that, like the pewter chalice we found on my father's grave, there is peace in the mystery.

Something less heavy tomorrow? Maybe.