Imbolc Waning Bridgit Moon
The most optimistic page in the newspaper? The obituaries. Every day and especially on Sundays I see evidence of the hopefulness and optimism of Minnesota citizens. I imagine it’s the same everywhere. With no evidence for an afterlife at all, let alone a particular one, person after person greets their mother and father, relaxes in the arms of their Lord and Savior Jesus, are welcomed by God the Father or pass over to their next adventure. The range of metaphysical perspectives may be narrow, usually encompassing some version of the Christian afterlife or the less well understood world of late 19th century spiritualism, the passing over folks, but the confidence and clarity braces me every time I read it.
I’ve not done a comprehensive study of obituaries, let alone a cross cultural one (though it would be fascinating), but it seems likely each place has its own, culturally specific brand of confidence about the unseen world. In ancient Rome a favorite epitaph mentioned here before: I was not. I was. I am not. I don’t care. represents a very different take on the after death experience, one more in tune with my own existentialist one, though I’m not as nihilistic. I do care, at least now, about my death, though, with my Roman fellow travelers, I’m pretty sure that after death I won’t care either.
This kind of optimism has ancient roots. Certain Neanderthal remains have been found with ochre painted on the body, indicating some thoughts about life after the grave. Just what that thought was, of course, we have no idea, but burying a body and decorating it moves well beyond the animal world’s relative disregard for their dead; relative because elephants do have mourning rituals*.
The new atheists like to lampoon all this as magical thinking or evidence that the human race has not yet grown up, but there are ways of looking at it. To my mind it is a poetic, metaphoric way of declaring that the person’s memory will live on among there descendants and friends. It also a means of consolation in the face of a forever event, perhaps the first one the family has experienced. Since there is no evidence, it is possible that one of the many perspectives has got it right.
Long ago I made a pact, a version of Pascal’s wager, with the afterlife. I will live my life in as straightforward and useful a way as I can, being true to my own understanding of the world. With Camus I stand with those who would make the trip toward the great river of death easier for all. If, as I suspect, death is a personal extinction event, then the wager ends. If there is a supernatural being who cares about living entities and their future, then the minor or even major screw ups in my life will be forgiven since their/its perspective will embrace all things, giving a context to any individual life that even the most forgiving friend cannot. Either way, I’m ok. Continue reading Post ID 9532