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Faith in the Present
When you were younger, you asked where we go when we die. I gave you the answer I thought you were ready for at the time. You're older now. You have found a young man who seems to have religious faith and I respect that. I saw a prayer you wrote and respect that, too. Faith can be beautiful if it maintains a healthy skepticism. My only fear is that you might be hurt if you place too much faith in beliefs because they can be fragile and unreliable.
Since you're experiencing faith for the first time, I wanted to share thoughts that I didn't share when you were younger. You're in charge of your own religious life so don't let it be directed by me, a lover, or even a religious leader.
I don't believe in eternal destiny assigned for reward or punishment. I believe we have souls that appear to be unique among all humans like a fingerprint that can’t be duplicated. But a soul that never ceases to exist? I'm convinced all things come to an end.
We have our physical selves as well as dreams and memories. We have emotions that can be so wonderful you’d swear the soul and eternity are possibilities. But I believe that when we die, we cease to exist. That’s all there is except for the words we’ve shared and love that lives on in the memories and lives of others.
That’s why the present is so important. Heaven is now. Hell is now. What we do in the temporal present is all there is. Leave nothing undone.
The times I find my whole being carried away with passion for this life is my heaven. When I’m everything to another human, I enter heaven for a moment. Sometimes, making love with the right person at just the right time feels like heaven.
Your smile looks like the edge of heaven to me. That's why I love you so much.
Since you're experiencing faith for the first time, I wanted to share thoughts that I didn't share when you were younger. You're in charge of your own religious life so don't let it be directed by me, a lover, or even a religious leader.
I don't believe in eternal destiny assigned for reward or punishment. I believe we have souls that appear to be unique among all humans like a fingerprint that can’t be duplicated. But a soul that never ceases to exist? I'm convinced all things come to an end.
We have our physical selves as well as dreams and memories. We have emotions that can be so wonderful you’d swear the soul and eternity are possibilities. But I believe that when we die, we cease to exist. That’s all there is except for the words we’ve shared and love that lives on in the memories and lives of others.
That’s why the present is so important. Heaven is now. Hell is now. What we do in the temporal present is all there is. Leave nothing undone.
The times I find my whole being carried away with passion for this life is my heaven. When I’m everything to another human, I enter heaven for a moment. Sometimes, making love with the right person at just the right time feels like heaven.
Your smile looks like the edge of heaven to me. That's why I love you so much.
Published 16th May 2023
Author's Note
Going through Mother's writing, I was reminded of this note she wrote to me when I had a little brush with religious faith in the fall of 2022. Her words are comforting now in her absence.
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We either go to heaven or hell or limbo if we have to complete something before we move on. Keep on writing.
An honest letter. I would prefer such honesty in parents to those who would put up a 'holy holy holy' front but do things their professed faith did not teach. (Had a few in my family, notably a father-son set of Salvation Army bandleaders who, according to my grandmother, were rather unholy men in the ways they treated their 1st wives and those of their own children who were not favourites.) As to your mother's views (I'm imagining conversing with her), I'd 'agree to differ' on some points, I believe in an afterlife for various reasons but do agree that the present life IS for doing positive things for yourself and others as well (I beware of being "too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use"). Keep writing, I also say.
18th May 2023 5:01pm
Appreciate your thoughts. I would like there to be an afterlife but am not hopeful. The pleasures of this life continuing without the pain sounds very good to me.
