“Of death and resurrection.”

H,

I do not contemplate death as much as I used to. I am more aware of mortal dangers, to be sure, and less reckless with the time and effort of living but I am less concerned with final chapters. I no longer believe there are final chapters.

I do not know when it shifted; this idea that life is temporal. I professed to Christian beliefs in my teenage years, but I did not take it all the way to an actual belief in resurrection. There was a vague sense of avoiding hell, but I had a stronger fear of nothingness, of the abyss and some theory I had about non-being. I figured this non-being was probably the real thing that was going to happen. The rest, the things I professed, were the drugs I used: the opium, the heroin, the painkiller, and the intoxicant. It was how I coped.

Not anymore. I have made this complete turn into believing that the absurdity of life is answered by the eternity offered in Christ. We have a conclusion to the story that is really a start. All the things I found fuzzy; I now see crystal clear. It has come slowly but it has come surely.

Death no longer has the former fear. Life has become the real priority. Eternity does not make what we do matter less. It makes it matter more. All things have weight. All things have resolution. Everything will make sense in the end. This is the gift of the eternal life; we will have the time to look through everything and explore the vastness of utter reality. It is not just the resurrection of the human being, but the coming to life of all being everywhere.