We may not want to but we all have to face death: both of ourselves and of our loved ones.
There’s simply no way to avoid it.
This week, my dear friend and colleague Maureen Cooke, Minister of The Church of Enlightenment in Port Macquarie, quietly transitioned.
She was 95 and had given her life unwaveringly to the unwanted, the hurt, the destitute, the outcast and the uncared for.
She demonstrated the true purpose of human life; and will surely be honoured in the after-life for her selfless service in this one.
Even the most primitive people of early human evolution believed in an after-life.
John McGraw, an American neuro-scientist, has just published a new Book titled: Brain & Belief: An Exploration of the Human Soul
In it he writes:
“Some anthropologists estimate the concept of the soul to be 30,000 years old. The excavations of caves used as prehistoric dwellings reveal that the Cro-Magnon, some of the earliest of our species, buried their dead with ritual objects and coated the corpses in red ocher paint.
As Mircea Eliade notes in ‘A History of Religious Ideas’:
“Belief in survival after death seems to be demonstrated, from the earliest times, by the use of red ocher as a ritual substitute for blood, hence as a symbol of life.”
Like the ancient Egyptians, the Cro-Magnon buried deeply personal objects with the dead for usage in the afterlife. In these burials corpses were often set in a fetal position that also suggests rebirth.
If this interpretation is correct, it marks the notion of the soul as tremendously ancient. If the idea of a soul existed in early human communities as long ago as 30,000 thousand years, then as these communities explored and peopled diverse sections of the globe, the seed idea of a soul would come to be found in mythologies the world over….”
And, of course, the concept of a soul existed in all societies, everywhere.
Thousands of burial mounds include an extraordinary array of everyday household things as well as personal items and even precious and much loved possessions that people felt the departed would like to take with them and thought might be helpful in the “life ahead”…..
Probably no native people’s ever believed that death was the end of anything except that particular life of that particular expression of Spirit.
Humans always understood – from the very beginning of awareness – that their current life was simply that: their current life.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Just as we get over whatever happened on Monday and get on with Tuesday, make the most of Spring and then look forward to summer, celebrate our 10th birthday whilst we eagerly look forward to our 11th, 15th and 21st…..
We simply move on.
And we do so because that’s life.
And we expect it to continue.
And it does.
Always.
In all ways.
When a small child ran up to me at a funeral I directed and asked me “Where are we taking Nanna’s coffin?” I was unsure how to answer so I replied that we were going to place her grandmother in the ground “to keep warm”.
The child looked shocked.
“But I saw Nanna go out the front door with Poppy!” she whispered.
“I saw him waiting for her all the time you were talking”.
(Poppy had died shortly before…..).
So I took the child’s hand and we took the ‘empty’ coffin over to the gravesite to ‘pop it into the ground so there was a place people could come to later to remember Nanna……’.
If you or a friend are facing the death of a loved one, remember that we can’t die because we don’t “have” a life: we are LIFE itself.
Assure the person whose current life is closing that it’s okay to move on.
All will be well for them and those they leave behind.
Take this time to verbally (yep, out loud) thank them for their place in your life, maybe bringing you up, maybe caring for you, etc, etc.
Take the time to say “goodbye” gently, truthfully, lovingly, honestly……. it will benefit you BOTH!!!
(If this message has come whilst you are facing saying ‘goodbye’ and you’d like to talk at any time, simply message me and we can arrange a time that suits us both: 0414 524 601).
Blessings,
Peace Be Within You!
Les