My thoughts are still with the victims of the Boston bombing. I am touched by the outpouring of care and sympathy I see on Facebook. I am once more reminded too of how fragile and fleeting life can be.
I often think about eternal life these days. Maybe because I am fast advancing in years. Maybe because the God I pray to talks a lot about eternal life and the resurrection. Sometimes my thoughts stray to the possibility that there is no life after death. I can live with that thought. I was blissfully happy in my unknowing and non-existence before I was born; I will be equally happy in my unknowing and non-existence after I die.
But I have placed my bet on life going on even after death. I am intrigued and spend time thinking what life after death might be. Is it anything like the presences I experience with my Facebook friends. I love Facebook because it puts me in touch with many people I care about and love, people whose presence in my live I value. I get to know what they are about these days. I have the opportunity to greet them on special occasions, complete with reminders and suggestions. There are even friends who have passed away but who are still somehow present to me through their Facebook pages. People still comment or like their postings from the past. There are those whose pages have been taken over by their immediate loved ones and still have current postings.
Is heaven or the afterlife anything like a Facebook experience? I am present to others and they are present to me in some sort of disembodied way? That after my physical body is gone, friends and family can still encounter me through my presence in virtual space. In the afterlife, will there be something similar to Facebook so that I can still experience the presence of those I left in this mortal life? Or will I start meeting and making new friends in the afterlife? Will I finally meet all the famous people who have inspired me in life but never had the chance to meet? How will my consciousness remain when the body that hosts is gone?
In deep prayer, after I have closed my eyes and shut out all the noise, what ever remains in a foretaste of what the afterlife is. If I see nothing but the darkness and the silence, that is probably what is in store for me in the afterlife. If, in the silence and the darkness, my mind and my heart starts flooding with all the wonderful memories and lovely people who have come into my life, I shall have has a foretaste of eternal life.
Lord, please be there at the end of my earthly journey.
‘This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’
John 6:35-40