Father, they are your gift to me.
I wish that where I am they also may be with me,
that they may see my glory that you gave me,
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
~ John 17:24
Men are unique in all of known creation because we have awareness and consciousness. I am aware who and what I am. I am aware that I am aware of my awareness. This is what prompted Descartes to say, “I think, therefore I am.”
Beyond my awareness and consciousness, I can also understand and explain what is unfolding and happening around me. I have the intelligence to know what, how and why things are happening around me and in me. And beyond my consciousness and intelligence, I also have the capacity to choose and change what is happening around me. I have the freedom and the will to choose.
My surroundings change constantly. My body changes every day. In fact, science tells me that my body changes completely every five years or so. Within that period, every cell in my body shall have been changed into a totally new one; and my entire body shall have become completely different from the one I had five years ago. And yet, I remain the same person – the same awareness and consciousness that carries the memory to all the years of my life, the same intelligence through which I have acquired over the years increasing knowledge but retaining everything that I have learned before, the same freedom and will to choose that have made me the person that I am through the choices I have made.
My body will change and will pass away. But the person that I am, the consciousness and intelligence that I am, the will and freedom that I am shall remain and persist. And here is the deeper mystery: I will live forever. And something else, or perhaps Someone else, tells me that I am and have been and will be loved forever.