We die so many times in our lives. Every time we get hurt, physically or emotionally. Every time we hurt someone else. Any form of suffering is an experience of death. It's ironic that we fear it, when in the meantime we are actually living the reality of it over and over.
There is nothing that doesn't have some death in it. Love always does; I get tired of taking care of my children, but I've got at least ten more years of it to go. Marriage does; I'm preparing for adjusting to more sharing and compromising soon. Death and rebirth is the way of nature and of our bodies, down to their very cells. It is the way of our core.
To extrapolate Jesus's sayings about being "born again" into a black-and-white perspective of "you suck and need God for permanent fixing" is a misunderstanding. You do get to be born again - and again, and again, throughout your life. Our souls are like caterpillars, who shed their entire skin four or five times before they even make it to the chrysalis stage. As life unfolds we lose and gain perspectives, we learn more empathy and compassion, we get better with boundaries and self-love - these are all components of spiritual transformation. Granted, some people don't seem to change much, which is maybe why we need words and analogies to inspire us. There does seem to be a component of choice required for our growth to happen, but it is a mysterious process not dependent on religion.
The realm of purgatory, and sometimes hell, and sometimes heaven, is here. Hell is being trapped in the Ohio home of a crazed-animal-human for ten years being raped and having him force miscarriages on you. Purgatory is my dental hygienist's life starting a year ago, when a four-wheeling accident destroyed her husband's brain and personality, and sentenced him to a permanent nursing care facility down the street from her and their two daughters. One of my hells was holding my newborn Ella in my arms watching her face turn blue from lack of oxygen during a bout of whooping cough, asking her to stay with us, knowing it was partly my fault for delaying vaccinations in her older brothers.
This life is the hard part. If there weren't also heaven moments, we'd all be suicidal. But there are - like getting a call today from one of my best friends who was proposed to under a waterfall in Hawaii, and checking my Instagram feed and seeing three successive photos of couples I love looking happy and healthy together. Life is worth living.
There is nothing that doesn't have some death in it. Love always does; I get tired of taking care of my children, but I've got at least ten more years of it to go. Marriage does; I'm preparing for adjusting to more sharing and compromising soon. Death and rebirth is the way of nature and of our bodies, down to their very cells. It is the way of our core.
To extrapolate Jesus's sayings about being "born again" into a black-and-white perspective of "you suck and need God for permanent fixing" is a misunderstanding. You do get to be born again - and again, and again, throughout your life. Our souls are like caterpillars, who shed their entire skin four or five times before they even make it to the chrysalis stage. As life unfolds we lose and gain perspectives, we learn more empathy and compassion, we get better with boundaries and self-love - these are all components of spiritual transformation. Granted, some people don't seem to change much, which is maybe why we need words and analogies to inspire us. There does seem to be a component of choice required for our growth to happen, but it is a mysterious process not dependent on religion.
The realm of purgatory, and sometimes hell, and sometimes heaven, is here. Hell is being trapped in the Ohio home of a crazed-animal-human for ten years being raped and having him force miscarriages on you. Purgatory is my dental hygienist's life starting a year ago, when a four-wheeling accident destroyed her husband's brain and personality, and sentenced him to a permanent nursing care facility down the street from her and their two daughters. One of my hells was holding my newborn Ella in my arms watching her face turn blue from lack of oxygen during a bout of whooping cough, asking her to stay with us, knowing it was partly my fault for delaying vaccinations in her older brothers.
This life is the hard part. If there weren't also heaven moments, we'd all be suicidal. But there are - like getting a call today from one of my best friends who was proposed to under a waterfall in Hawaii, and checking my Instagram feed and seeing three successive photos of couples I love looking happy and healthy together. Life is worth living.
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