The family has suffered the loss of several dear ones in the past year or so — our father (who art in heaven, if he has his way), our brother-in-law Russ, our sister Barb, and a cousin, Rachel, who died very young, at 20 years, leaving behind a baby.
These losses have occasioned much sorrow and reflection, not least regarding the prospects of an afterlife.
Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" shows both imagination and skepticism. (To protest their puritanism, the artist stripped his critics naked.)
I grew up with the Catholic idea of resurrection and was nurtured on it, attending mass and reading the lives of the saints, including all the bloody virgins and martyrs who went to their end with the full assurance of an everlasting reward.
Then a secular and may I say secular humanist education intervened. I traveled mentally from the precincts of Catholic parochial school education to the elysian fields of the university, where, as they say, the mind is wont to roam, even romp. Just as my dad predicted, but in a different way, I lost my faith. No one preached against Christianity, but of course I read all the great authors — English, American, and German — that were part of my double major in English and German literature. And most of these figures, especially the moderns, were skeptical. They looked, inquired, prayed, protested — and heard a resounding nothing from the heavens.
I’ve not been a practicing Catholic or Christian since the days of my university education, and now more than ever, as I age, I see fewer and fewer reasons to resume such belief.
In fact, at Rachel’s funeral, just a week ago, as the priests prattled on about resurrection and recited the gospel story of Jesus, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, the disjunction between what was available to see and what was hoped yawned like a chasm.
Yes, the story says that Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth!” and he came forth from the tomb.
“Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?” as Hemingway might have put it. (Yes, he was one of my atheistical heroes during my undergrad years and then, later, years of teaching literature and language.)
But not to get entangled with that myth too much, the funny thing is that Lazarus was resurrected in the here and now, while the faithful are asked to wait for the last day.
Yes, Lazarus, Jesus’s pal, got immediate gratification, while the rest of us are asked to hang around, moldering forever, till the last day, whenever that might be.
And without much evidence of any kind, the faithful, evidently, buy this.
Both Rachel’s grieving mother and her sister assured me, when I embraced them, that Rachel “is in a better place now.”
Oh, my. A far, far better place than you and I have dwelled in?
Will heaven be a place without drugs, say, or sex, say, or any other of the immediate gratifications that might have proved Rachel’s downfall — and that of how many countless others?
I have my doubts. If it’s the same on earth as it is in heaven, we won’t be able to wait in heaven, either, when heaven comes at last. We can wait forever, hang around for eternity, in the hope of this afterlife. (Of course, we’ll be moldering as we wait — in a bitter place, the grave — or our ashes will be dispersed.) But when heaven comes, there will be our dear departed ones waiting for us, ready to hand out the pleasures that we enjoyed on earth — the drugs or booze of our choice, the sexual delectations, the pizza rolls, the Gummy Bears, the Red Bulls, you name it, that we might need to stay awake forever.
Let’s not scoff at the Muslims and their promise of virgins in the afterlife for their lunatic martyrs. Not until we give us similar naive hopes and learn to dwell in the present, which is all we have, both heaven and hell. And learn to accept life on its own terms. And get on with it.
