“When death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,”
—Mary Oliver
Who wants to die? Few hands raised.
Who is going to die? All hands raise.
What do we do with this inevitable death?
Recently, I attended a youth Sunday school lesson where the usual Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints plan of salvation was taught—blackboard diagram and all. We got into the typical details that I wish we would avoid. Specifics that likely bore youth and leave them more confused than comforted and enlightened: three degrees of glory; spirit prison and paradise and who goes there; and degrees of glory within the top tier—the celestial kingdom—and whatcha ya gotta do to earn that glory—get married in a Latter-Day Saint temple and keep all the covenants you make there.
God only knows where that leaves me. Jane, my wife, is sealed to her first husband who passed away 10 months after they were married. She and I birthed two boys who are automatically sealed to Bart and her. Our adopted daughter is just hanging out there since we couldn’t bring ourselves to seal her to a man she had never met. How would a child or teen even process that? Of course, if Jane were a man and I a woman, then she (He) could have been sealed to both the first and second spouse. Sounds a lot like polygamy, which I find few women approve of. Does a loving and fair God approve of it? I doubt it, but I digress.
The older I get, the less satisfying and motivating I find my faith’s detailed approach to death and life ever after. I find it hard to believe that there are hard and fast fences between kingdoms in the next life. Or that there are really “kingdoms” at all. You live long enough and you start to see the nuance of things. Shades, continuums, and spectrums. Not black and white delinations and stark demarcations.
As a parent, would you consign one of your children to being stuck forever in a less-than-ideal stasis life because they missed the mark by one one-hundredth of a percentage point? God is better than that. Otherwise, why even believe in a God?
Some authoritative sources say that we will all go where we feel most comfortable in the next life. But that cuts both ways. The fact is, most humans are rarely comfortable being stuck in a state of no possible growth or change. We dislike change and yet are constantly seeking things which are new, different, and better. Let’s give that point to the side that believes in evolution. And kudos to Joseph Smith for his inspired elucidation of our and God’s spiritual evolution from intelligences to mere mortals to whatever wildly creative and godly things there are to come.
Others say that those who are stuck in a particular heavenly kingdom or heaven or hell are getting their just desserts. Again, what good parent has permanent punishment and justice as their highest aim? No, discipline is administered, or natural consequences flow, to invite illumination, attitude adjustment, and flourishing. Revenge is not the same as justice. And in that justice view, where is room for grace?
Still others cite the scripture that says God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and God’s ways are not our ways. Yes, and that too, cuts both ways. God is larger in love than we can imagine, yet it is we who too often narrow God down to fit our perceptions and prescriptions of what is just and likely. Frederick William Faber, in 1854, penned words that make this scripture glow:
But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
Was there ever a kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at His feet?
– There’s a Wideness In God’s Mercy
——
Years ago, I was in a bike accident on my way home from work at an intersection near the mouth of Emigration Canyon. I was balancing on my pedals, waiting for the light to change. When it did, I charged forward. I heard the driver to my right yell, “Stop!” Reflexively, I slammed on my brakes, causing me to somersault over my handlebars. I had barely landed on my butt when a flash of green and whoosh of air sped past me less than a foot away. Dazed, I limped out of the intersection. Someone checked on me. A couple of minutes later, the guy who almost hit me had circled back and apologized.
My bike seat was scraped and my hind end sore, but I rode home with overwhelming gratitude and elation that I was alive and could still pedal my bike. That euphoria lasted for several weeks. My life—all of life—became so much more precious because it was almost taken from me. I long to recapture that profound connection with what is real and matters. My brush with death made me more attentive to life. The poet Mary Oliver often helps bring my attention back to this place.
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”
——
While I’m still in this contrarian mood—or rather, trying to prove contraries—I’m also not a big fan of all the emphasis many Christian churches—even mine to an extent—put on the “end times/last days/second coming” and the afterlife to follow. Because of my deeper dives into Jewish, Christian, and Restored Church history, I’ve become cautious about what doctrines and beliefs I attribute to the divine. Words recounting Jesus’s life and words attributed to Jesus in the gospels hold the most weight with me. While not perfectly noted or of perfect provenance there’s something beautifully contrary about them that resonates with millions of people many thousands of years later. Better yet, I have repeatedly found that when I’m able to clumsily apply Jesus’s basic teachings, miracles happen. His teachings challenge me and bring me joy and curiosity. They move me to live now in reciprocity with all of creation. They help me heal the wounds I’ve inflicted on others and myself.
And so while I occasionally go to the temple, my “covenant path” remains firmly rooted in the here and now. Just as the weekly sacrament communion prayer points me to the present: “O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it; that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given them, that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen.”
I figure if I seek to witness by how I live Christ’s two great commandments of love—loving God by loving ourselves and others—then I’ll be okay now and with whatever tomorrow and the next life brings. That gives me plenty to bend my attention to. As the parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates, loving our neighbor as ourselves is doing the hard work of loving those whom we are least inclined to love. The positive outcomes of these foundational commandments appear to hold true for anyone, whether or not they believe in God or Jesus. According to the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25, whoever attends to the “least of these” in this life are in relationship with God now and will be relationship with God in the next.
——
Recently, I signed forms to have my body donated to the University of Utah for research. I will likely be used as a cadaver for medical students to practice on. When they are done with it, my body will be cremated and returned to a family member. I informed Jane, my kids, and their wives about this via our group text so everyone would be on the same page as to my intentions. I am the only member left of the LDS church of our little nuclear family. All were active at one time. And I think I’m the only one who believes there is a God and an afterlife. A brief conversation ensued and this is what I said in response to my daughter not being thrilled about discussing such things on a Monday morning. I love and appreciate this one wild and precious family.
“I still hope for and even expect to see you all again and have more adventures. I don’t believe death can kill love. Love and thoughts are energy, and energy is just a different form of matter. Neither can be destroyed, only reconfigured and repurposed. Whatever our consciousness is, I believe it continues. If I’m wrong, well, none of us will ever find out. Sure seems like a good bet to me. In the meantime, I live like this is all I have. That the time I spend with you, whom I love most, is all I may ever get. I so love life. And the older I grow, the more I value and appreciate being in the here and now in this curious and beautiful world. But I also know I need to begin to say my goodbyes.”
