Death....

[laurence strong]

Well I would like to think that there is an afterlife..Who would not? But what I do know from personal experience is that coming to the door is rather unremarkable...you concentrate on whets going on around you at the time. In my case #68 was called instead of #69 and I had to make the walk back to this plane of existence. Not that I really minded as I had things I wanted to do still.

[Annelie]

I believe in after life. Believe we came from a source of energy and after we leave our body this
energy carries on.

Perhaps we go to another plane or some would like to think reborn on this earth
until we have learned all we are somehow supposed to?

Also like to think that when I pray to those who have gone before are listening to my prayers.

Guess we will find out when the time is right?

[Reb]

I'm a practicing Christian of the confessional Lutheran variety. I expect to go to live for ever - but thankfully not in the fashion in which life currently manifests itself.

If you ignore all the baby christians who spend but five minutes a day with their Bibles shouting "amen" every time a charlatan opens his mouth you'll find it looks like this:

Things were meant to be right. We were much better in all categories orignally.

We screwed it up. Its called the Fall.

God - manifested in the person of Christ, came a visiting to take our weight and tell us that in the long run, we're cool. He sorted it out for us and all we have to do is believe.

He will return, probably in the not too distant future, and the curtain goes up. For believers that will be a good thing.

Upon this happening we will return to having proper bodies (that actually work) and the world, universe, heaven, whatever, will be the way it ought it to be - the way most of us sense it should be.

Note that being a believer is a question of Him reaching out to you, not the opposite as propagated by TV preachers who typically associate salvation and healing with large checks from YOUR account and much work on your part.

End of Theology Lesson.

And a postscript:

I believe all that but to my great shame, don't care much for life. The cool stuff I'm apt to do I've already done. Now I exist to help various friends and family while I try to keep from dying of boredom. Can't push the smite button - against the rules, and besides, its fun sometimes to be here. But not often. Death? Looks like a friend most of the time - except when I realize I may not be able to face it with a sword in my hand, in the way of the warrior. I'd always hoped for that - now it looks more like old age or boredom will take the rebel down...

You can believe what I believe and I hope you do (at least the theology part!) - only because I wish you the best. Ignore the part about my personal dissatisfaction - I need worlds to conquer and battles to fight because I'm a shallow man. The rest is, well, gospel!

I write these words as my son in law lies in an emergency room - very ill indeed. I take comfort in the fact that he is a Christian - and much smarter than me. Doesn't need that Viking bullshit but does what is right when he can and regrets it when he can't. He actually enjoys the part about taking care of family and friends. But me? I just live out Kurbiashi's haiku and view it all as duty. Yet When I think of his ass being very much on the line, death doesn't seem like such a good friend.

A complicated world ladies and gentlemen. I leave you with this thought - consider how very difficult it is to consider absolute extinction, annilihlation. Like Annelie said - we are part of the energy of the universe - we may change, but we're here for the long run. May God grant that the long run is a good one for you all.

God bless and cheers
Reb

[phylo_roadking]

I rmember reading several years back about a a minister here in Northern Ireland who had a VERY interesting story to tell at a funeral....

When the deceased was on his last breaths at his nursing home, the staff phoned for the minister who got there as fast as he could - but just too late. The staff at the nursing home told him that the deceased had been a truly TERRIBLE patient in his last months. Wouldn't do as he was told, was rowdy, and even in his last hours was constantly trying to get out of bed and them constantly having to put him back!

In the pulpit a couple of days later, the minster held up...a row of medals. Months before, when the old man had been told he was dying, he'd made a pact with the minster, a longtime friend, that when his time came his friend would be there to help him stand and dress so that he met Death face on - on his feet.

And, added the minster - THAT was true "dignity", true "humanity" - dignity wasn't sitting around composed and pleasant waiting for the end, and being a nice pleasant person to all, accepting of your fate, causing noone any problems - it was Dylan Thomas' "raging against the dying of the light" - going out of this world the way you come in - kicking and screaming, or in this case the old man dying as he had fought - on his feet. Mankind had spent millions of years getting upright on two legs, and his old friend had fully intended being a "man" at the point of ending.

[Annelie]

Reb,

Sorry to hear about your son-in-law, but since he is in the emergency room have hope that he will get better.
My thoughts are with you, and a prayer.

Yes, life is complicated and just when I think I have a handle on it.....I find out how wrong I am.

Bless you and your family

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Yes Reb, I am truly sorry to hear about your son-in-law. I hope that he will get better. Annelie said everything I could say.

Life is much too complicated.

Be Well,
David

[Reb]

Thanks Annelie and David for your kind words.

I'm thanking God now - everybody is alive. My son in law stopped breathing while driving the family up from FL. At 60 mph that can be radical but they all walked - my wife was able to grab the wheel. A trucker pulled over and got him to a hospital and they put him back together and are calling it an "obscure viral attack" which means they don't have a clue. But certainly a reminder that Dr. D is always lookin' over our shoulders...

Truly, all's well that ends well. A long day.

cheers
Reb

[phylo_roadking]

Reb, that's excellent

[Annelie]

Reb,

That is fanastic. Must be everyones lucky day or someone is looking out for you all.

Keep the faith.

[Reb]

I think it all happened so I'd have something to contribute to David's thread on death.

and thank you my friends!
Reb

[haen2]

At age 81, (almost 82) , it will stare me in the face sooner or later. probably sooner.
I choose to believe that it is only a step on the next rung of the eternal ladder, but of course I am not sure.
That's why we call it "faith".
I have always prided myself on an excellent relationship with my maker, no matter which church I would attend at times, if any at all; and I mosttimes have believed that he answers my prayers. Sadly enough (for me) sometimes the answer is NO.
I've seen people dying in peace who were not religious, and I've seen people dying screaming who were supposedly very religious. I've had an "enemy" dying in my lap, and cried louder for him than I ever cried for anybody else.
I pray that when the time comes I will have the strength to face it with dignity. ( and b.t.w. I LOVE that story of the guy who wanted to die on his feet, with his medals on.)
Perhaps I will be drinking beer from the skulls of my slain enemies, in Walhalla afterall

Hugo N.

[phylo_roadking]

Haen...if you make it - don't let them get away with serving Lite beer to real warriors!

[Richard Hargreaves]

Whilst I don't see the grim reaper standing outside my door, I did do some tallying up and at 3-4 years per book, I've worked out that I can't write all the things I want to before time catches up on me. What the hell, I'll give it a go.

[Rolf Steiner]

Odd you should ask Commissar, as I have the sad duty tomorrow of attending the funeral of a very dear friend (and incidentally, chronic world war II obsessive, tho not a frequenter of this site), who just lost out to lung cancer. Death at the moment appears to me a somewhat incomprehensible - I was in the pub with the poor bloke around March or something and he didn't seem to be doing so badly then - but also somewhat harsh and unforgiving eventuality that you can't bull*8t your way around. If there's a positive side, it's put that person somewhere they can no longer suffer, and I kind of believe I'll see him again some day, some how, without wanting to come over all silly like. I will say this tho, and I never used to be one to get preachy about these things, but if you're over 35 and still smoking, you might really want to have a think about it. Not my place to tell people how to live, but there you go.

[Reb]

Rolf

There is little more irritating than an ex-smoker but I became one. How I miss it... But the health implications were simply becoming too obvious and the older one gets the slower one heals - internally as well as externally.

I shall build a statue of the guy who invents a safe, or better yet, good for you, cigarrette!

cheers
Reb