Made for Eternity

And so I returned home from church today to a once again empty void deck. The elaborate drapery, the countless white-topped round tables and even more countless chairs, the musicians- not a single trace. Only the remaining mobile restroom cubicle remained to remind any passer-by of the fancy wake that mourned the passing of the friendly uncle I knew from a few floors above. I was left to wonder, now that the rites and rituals and elaborate funeral (that I heard was partially designed to impress my neighbour’s visiting relative from China) are over, and the friendly uncle’s body is gone forever, and life seems to move on as it always has- can life really move on for those who have been affected by his passing, including me?

For when the uncle was alive, we spoke with him and enjoyed his company. When the uncle had passed on, relatives and friends kept the body with them a few days more, taking comfort in its mere presence. And now that all of that has been done… would close friends and family not still be yearning for something more? Some reassurance, some hope, that all the vivid experiences, fond memories, common dreams that those who knew this uncle shared, have not all been so suddenly summed up into one bittersweet word- ‘history’?

Perhaps the family and friends did obtain some closure from the endless music and rituals of respect that were dedicated to the dear uncle. Perhaps time will dilute and eventually dissolve the waves or floods of old memories. But they don’t erase the fact that this uncle, a lifeless, still form in the coffin at his wake, had once lived.

This stone-cold body was once occupied by a living, driving energy that had infused his whole being with the ability to learn, to love, to live. I tried to imagine how such a spark of personality, a unique individuality, could have vanished with the mere ceasing of natural, scientific bodily functions. I attempted to convince myself that this was all there is to life, that one lived with a physiologically functioning body, and then simply ceased to be…

… And I couldn’t.

I realized the thought that human life could be this transient, this fragile, was ridiculous, and even offensive, to my sensibilities. One cannot experience the touch of a loved one, a fellow human being, and then naively, cruelly explain away the apparent disappearance of this wonderful soul that had once been a part of this world.

I realized that it makes so much more sense to see that human souls, after occupying transient bodies, move on to another place for all of eternity. And it is so comforting to rest in the faith that these souls don’t just get recycled, losing everything that they were made to be, personality and all. They don’t just disappear ‘poof’ like in magic tricks- we all know magic tricks are illusions anyway. If the right choice had been made in the transient space we call earth, our souls move on into an eternity spent with a God who loves us, who created us to be who we were meant to be- not stressed-out souls trying to fight for some measly recognition, not bodily creatures with no vitality of our own, but souls made in the image of God, with our own free-will, and designed for an eternity spent with the One who calls us His own.