The bigger picture
I read somewhere recently, I can’t remember where (maybe the widow board), that suicide became a sin as the result of a somewhat too-successful campaign by the Church regarding the wonders, joy, and eternal peace of heaven. If you were living in a rat-infested hovel, working 20 hours a day to pay the feudal lord his due while you and your 6 children starved, it probably wouldn’t take much to say, “I’m for that,” and make your exit. And many did, which is why they had to put a prohibition on doing so, threatening people with no less than eternal damnation.
Is it true? I don’t know, but I find it both plausible and understandable. (Sadly, this “sin” has become so ingrained in the modern psyche as to provide yet another torment to survivors of suicide who have more than enough to deal with; nice.) I know I have struggled with the idea of this life, with all its difficulty and pain, and questioned the point thereof, if there is this home of love and peace that we all come from and return to. If there’s a “there” there, then why the hell am I here? What’s with all the freakin’ mystery?
I have directed more than a few angry comments A’s way, saying, “Sure—its easy for you. You understand it all now, and you are free of the pain of this world, but I’m stuck here, with nothing but my ignorance to slowly drive me mad.” I don’t hold back; if he’s enjoying perfect bliss now, he can take it.
But I don’t believe in heaven, per se. No harps, no streets paved with gold. Nor do I believe in God, not a god denoted by a proper noun, not one that can be named or defined or spoken for or even entirely understood, like the god described in any or all of the literature by those who would gladly define (and confine) my universe for me, and in doing so, make it much smaller and less miraculous than it really is. I do believe that we go on, but haven’t got the slightest inkling as to how that works, and I don’t pretend to. Nor do I believe anyone who claims they absolutely have it all figured out. Everyone has had their glimpse, but none of us sees the entire picture from this earthly vantage point, nor can we always interpret what it is that we do see. I cannot deny the validity of anyone’s spiritual experience just because it differs from mine, and I believe that however we approach it and whatever we name it, we are all attempting to observe and understand the same thing.
Even so, I’ve gotten it into my head that whatever comes next is infinitely better than what is now. Part of that is cultural, I suppose. You cannot escape the imagery of heaven in any culture that has ever bothered to imagine one. Plus I’ve read a lot of books on the subject of life after death, and each one provides a vision for consideration, a vision that is so appealing that it tends to stick with you, even if it doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. And then there are my two friends who have died and come back, and they tell me that they were surrounded by love, the love of those who passed before them, and the love of those they left behind. Which sounds pretty good to me. They didn’t have much in the way of specifics; they didn’t get that far before the electrical shocks brought them back.
It was this line of thought that led me to an epiphany the other night: If what comes next is a true continuation of our lives (not these lives we’re living now, precisely, but the lives our souls have been living for eternity), as I suppose it is, then it doesn’t make sense to expect that whatever is next is necessarily a reward for surviving this life any more than it is to think that our forties are a reward for surviving our thirties. In both cases, it is just the natural progression, and I can no more predict what my next life will be like than I can predict what my forties will bring me. Who knows? I may not even see my forties. I don’t know that I’ll see next week. It doesn’t really matter, because in any case, I will inexorably move through the seasons of my life, either here in the world or in the greater universe, though I think the former is a subset of latter, a stretch of road between mile marker “Birth” and mile marker “Death” on an infinite map. It seems nonsensical, then, to constantly feel cheated of an afterlife that my continuing drawing of breath denies me, when it is beyond dispute that I will get there eventually.
That is not to say that I won’t feel cheated in this life, because I certainly do feel that way, especially when it comes to my A dying and leaving me behind; however, I guess I have found my way to place where I don’t have to be jealous of him, and his new life. Whoa—that kind of sneaked up on me. Jealous? It occurs to me only now that that’s what this is about: I am jealous of A, and of all the dead, because I believe they know things I don’t know, understand things that baffle me, see farther than I can even imagine, and have adventures I cannot conceive of, all in surpassing peace and love, while I’m here on earth fighting off depression, grappling with The Man, being cut off in traffic, putting up with jerks, and in constant contention with this wreck of a body I carry my soul around in. I am jealous of what I imagine is his pain-free life. And most of all, I am jealous that he is as close to me as a thought, whereas I have to live life apparently without him, and man, does that hurt. Who wouldn’t be jealous? We speak of our yearning to join our loved ones, but do we ever admit to being jealous of them? I never did, until now.
That was an epiphany on top of an epiphany. (Maybe there’s some validity to this journaling business after all!) In any case, how I feel now is that this pair of the insights stands to provide me with some peace, and the ability (at least for the time being) to let go of this constant comparison of this life I’m living to one I imagine I will be living once I die, a comparison that has only bred dissatisfaction, frustration, and impatience, the same qualities we observe in children who so desperately want to grow up and do what the big kids do and know what the grown-ups know, even if they understand that they will get there in time without much effort on their own part. I’ve never outgrown that, I guess. Does anyone?