Life After Death?

Rev. Amy Russell - 2009-11-01

“When I reach my journey's end, who will sing one song for me?”

This line from an old folk song was sung by the UU minister at the memorial service for my brother-in-law that I attended two weekends ago in Philadelphia.

When you attend the memorial service of someone you love, you are grieving their loss, certainly. But you are also grieving all of your losses, and even your own death. There is some question in the back of your mind, as you listen to everyone speak of this person that they loved, “Who will sing one song for me?” The questions about our own finitude are often foremost when we grieve the loss of others. And dealing with our own grief allows us to examine how we feel about death itself and how we live our lives with the understanding that we can’t have life without the fact of death inserting itself in everything we do.

Forest Church, who recently died of cancer, shared his thoughts about his impending death in his book, Love and Death. He says, “Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die.” So the way we live our lives is in a way responding to the knowledge of our own death. We would live our lives completely differently if we did not know that our lives are finite. And it is in losing someone we love that we are reminded that our lives are truly short and we must make the most of them.

Those who are aware of their impending death tend to live their lives in a fully intentional way. The writer Anne Lamott says, “To live as if we are dying gives us a chance to experience some real presence. Time is so full for people who are dying in a conscious way, full in the way that life is for children. “ Being aware of our finitude gives us a fuller appreciation for life today.

Thoughts about death bring up that big question of what happens to us after we die. In our Western culture, Judeo-Christian views have shaped much of what some of us were taught. Many of us were taught that if we’re good and please God, we go to heaven, and the rest go to hell. Our Universalist heritage teaches that a loving God takes every soul back into loving and eternal relationship. That there is no hell, no punishment.

Deepak Chopra, an Indian doctor, grew up as a Hindu and describes a very different viewpoint about life after death. The spiritual picture that was painted for him growing up described the universe as a spiritual, not a physical entity. Hinduism says that we are spiritual entities who have been given the gift of life in order to grow spiritually. Death is simply another phase of life, a sacred phase of life that we enter through the doorway called death. In Hinduism, since the universe is essentially One, you can experience a series of lives in which you are striving to understand the oneness of the universe so that you can eventually give up the endless cycles of life and death and enter nirvana in which you finally understand and embrace that Oneness. Once in nirvana, you can put down the burden of life in physical form.

The aspect of death being sacred, not being a fearful unknown terminus, is a religious idea echoed in many faith traditions. The Native Americans believe in the natural cycle of life and death as a part of the spiritual journey that continues into death. Buddhists also believe in reincarnation and honor death as the doorway out of one life, into another.

Michael Dowd, who came to speak to us about evolution, and his partner, Connie Barlow, have a unique view of death from a naturalist point of view. They say:
-Death is natural and creative at every level of reality.
-Death is no less sacred than life

Dowd’s and Barlow’s view of death is based both on their knowledge of science and their spiritual view of life. They say that in order for life to be precious, there must be death. In fact, in order for life to go on, there must be death. The way of nature is to create and then to destroy. In a litany written by Connie Barlow, this viewpoint is evident:
Without the death of stars there could be no planets and no life. Without the death of creatures there would be no evolution. Without the death of elders there would be no room for children…. Without the death of plants and animals there would be no food…. Without death, time would not be precious.

“Time would not be precious.” When we face death in our lives, either the death of someone we love, or our own death, we are all of a sudden faced with the preciousness of each moment we have. We savor the time we spend with our loved ones, we take time to walk in the woods communing with the trees whose branches seem to come alive with beauty as never before, the music we hear takes on special meaning. Every moment becomes a gift when we know that we share so few of them.

And often facing death means dealing with what we believe about what happens after we die. As people of science, many UU’s believe that when a body dies, that is the end of life. And many feel that while we don’t know what happens after death, we have a strong feeling that there is something that lives on. Some energy leaves the body and joins the Oneness of the universe. Some people who have had near-death experiences report similar experiences of going down a tunnel, seeing a bright light, and a feeling of strong unconditional love.

But whatever we believe about death, we can know that there is an eternal quality to life in what lives on in people who remember us.

Forrest Church talks about the experience of looking death in the eyes. He says:
After death our bodies may be resurrected. Our souls may transmigrate or become part of the heavenly pleroma. We may join our loved ones in heaven. Or we may return the constituent parts of our being to the earth from which it came and rest in eternal peace. About life after death, no one knows. But about this we surely know: there is love after death.

Church talks about living in such a way that when we die, that what we live behind is a bright light shining within those who knew us. That we live a purposeful life, not to get to heaven, not to “impress” and influence people, but to make a difference in the world with each person that we meet.

We have been taught in our Western culture to fear death and to try to escape it by any means. Our whole medical culture finds every means to prevent death even when a person is suffering. It’s only been in recent years that people have been given the option of signing a “Do Not Resuscitate” order. Finally people who have terminal disease or chronic threatening illness can choose to ask not to have life saving means used when they have determined that their quality of life is no longer worth living for. Sometimes death is the best choice for people to make. I applaud those health care workers who help patients to make these difficult decisions wisely, not pushing someone to live who can no longer life comfortably.

Talking about death with someone facing it, is one of the most difficult and most healing things one can do for a person facing death. I remember when I was a chaplain in a hospital during my seminary training and I was called to the bedside of a man who had had brain surgery that day. He had woken in the night and asked for a chaplain. I was on call that night and received a call to come in. I dressed hurriedly and rushed into the hospital. When I arrived and sat down with the patient, he apologized for bothering me but said that he just needed someone to talk to that night. He told me that he had faced death that day during his surgery. He said that while he was under anaesthesia, he had seen a vision of a huge chasm and knew that it was death he was facing. He was very frightened at first. He stared down at the chasm, thinking that this was the end and how would he be able to leave this life and those he loved. His greatest fear was the thought of leaving his wife and how she would go on.

In his dream or imaginings, he then saw that the chasm had another side to it. That beyond the chasm there was another surface. And he imagined that beyond this deep chasm, perhaps there was another life. And a great peace filled him. That he would be okay. That somehow, in some way, he would go on. And that death wasn’t frightening. But what was worrying him the most was that he didn’t think he could share this experience with his wife. He didn’t want his wife to worry about him choosing death over life. But this experience had changed his whole attitude toward death. He wanted to know if he should share it.

I was hesitant at first to share my own experience with him. Sometimes it’s helpful to share one’s own experience and sometimes it just focuses the attention away from the patient. But I decided that there was a reason that I had been the one called that night and that my experience could be helpful to him. I told him that when my husband had been told his cancer was terminal, that we had spent much time sharing our own fears about what was happening with each other. I remember that my husband, Scott, after struggling with the knowledge of his own death had shared something with me that had helped me. He said that he now saw death as an extension of life. He said life is like one side of one’s hand, and death is just another side. He felt that death was going to be another adventure as life had been. We talked about how I would go on without him.

I told the patient that those talks were the most precious gift I had been given by my husband before his death. That he had not always been able to share his feelings but in sharing that he was no longer afraid of his death enabled me to know that I could go on. I treasure those memories like no other.

The man thanked me. The next day I got another call to go to his room. His wife was there and she came up to me and thanked me for helping him to share with her. I felt so gratified that something that had helped me could help others.

“Nothing is ever really lost, nor can be lost.” Walt Whitman tells us. Death can take the body, but something remains just as the seeds are planted in the fertilizer of the dead plants. Something remains. The love we give to others remains. The energy of our spirits remains somewhere in the universe. The body we leave behind returns to the earth to create new life. As Carrie Newcomer puts it, “Leaves don’t drop, they just let go.” Death is just as sacred as life and allows us to understand the preciousness of each moment of life.

Let me end with a prayer written by Forrest Church (from Love and Death):
Let us awaken to the blessing of acceptance,
Expressed in a simple, saving mantra:
Want what we have; do what we can; be who we are.

Rather than let wishful thinking or regret
Displace the gratitude for all that is ours, here and now.
To savor and to save.
Let us want what we have-
Praying for health, if we are blessed with health,
For friendship, if we are blessed with friends,
For family, if we are blessed with family.
For work, if we are blessed with tasks that await our doing,
And if our lives are dark, may we remember to want nothing more than the loving affection of those whose hearts are broken by our pain.
Let us do what we can-
Not dream impossible dreams or climb every mountain,
But dream one possible dream and climb one splendid mountain,
That our life may be blessed with attainable meaning.
And let us be who we are-
Embrace our God-given nature and talents,
Answer the call that is ours, not another’s,
Thereby enhancing our little world and the greater world we share.
That is my prayer.
Amen.