On Dying and Religion
Jul. 10th, 2015 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grimrose_eilwynnI have faced death twice.
The first time, I was about nine. I was walking outside in the summertime wearing a pair of shorts, on my way to a friend's house. I walked out my front door and down my walkway, and I saw something small curled up on the end of the walkway. I stopped, puzzled, and stared at it. Then I ran inside and got my Dad.
"Dad!" I said. "There's something curled up outside. It looks like a piece of poop."
For some reason, this seemed to alarm my father. He hurried outside to see what it was.
It later turned out to have been a rattlesnake. A baby, actually. If I'd come any closer, it probably would have bitten me. The babies don't know not to put all their venom into you when they bite (it kills them too) and if it had bitten me, I'd probably have been dead instantly.
So that time I faced death without realizing it.
The second time, I was very well aware I could die. I was in the local choir in high school. We went on a camping trip to the nearby river, which was set deep into the woods. There was whitewater rafting at the river, which is basically paddling in a raft across river rapids, and I decided to try it.
Our raft leader was an aggressive, peppy blonde woman with a ponytail. With her standing up straight in the back, shouting where to go, we paddled our way across the choppy river. Then our raft leader led us straight toward a whirlpool, exclaiming that it "sounded like fun!" The minute we hit the whirlpool, the raft tipped straight over and tossed us right into the foamy white river rapids. (The only one who didn't fall out was the raft leader. Typical.)
This was dangerous enough. But I'd gotten tangled up with another boy -- I'd been tossed into him when the raft had tipped over. We were caught underneath the fast moving water, tangled up in each other and struggling to free ourselves.
At last, I managed to push free and made it to the surface, gasping for air. The raft leader saw me and pulled me back up into the raft. I later realized the river had been moving so fast it had literally ripped some of my clothes away from me.
That time, if the river had slammed me into a rock or if I had drowned caught by the limbs of the boy, I could definitely have died.
I have often wondered what death would be like. For someone who's been suicidal, this is of absolute necessity. It's impossible for a suicidal person to avoid thinking about death.
I had a dream once. In the dream, I was floating in a... substance. It was sort of like white, sort of like silver, sort of like light. It's impossible to describe. Floating before me were people. There was a long line of people, and they were all smiling and holding hands. I remember distinctly a little old Black man holding the hand of a small blonde girl -- the two bridged the gaps between age, race, and gender easily.
I knew somehow that these people were dead, and that they were also happy. For them, there was no contradiction. These had been their living forms, but they were not their ultimate, natural forms -- these people were putting an illusion up before me, of how they felt, to try to comfort me in a way I could understand.
All of a sudden, a warm presence wrapped around me from behind. It felt sort of like a hug. I couldn't see or really even feel the presence, but I knew it was there. Let me try to explain to you what I mean.
I used to have sleepovers with my Nana, my grandmother. We would lie next to each other in the big sofa bed in the living room late at night, in the dark, and watch cartoons together. I couldn't see my grandmother next to me, but I knew she was there, and I felt safe and protected. It was like that.
And when that presence hugged me, I suddenly felt like everything was going to be okay. Somehow, I felt, that this presence was God.
That's when I woke up. It took me a few seconds to realize there were tears on my cheeks. I was crying.
I'm not sure if the dream really did come from God, but I'd like to think that it did. God didn't tell me anything specific, anything particularly great. Just that the dead are happy and everything's going to be okay. But that's all I ever needed to hear. Ever since the time of that dream, I have never doubted the existence of God.
I'm not a particularly religious person. I don't go to Church every Sunday. I have my own private beliefs about how the universe works, and I'm perfectly fine with them. But I do believe certain things. For example:
That the universe has a creator, and that creator exists around and beyond the universe. For lack of a better name, I call this gender-less, bodiless presence "God."
That by studying science, we become closer to knowing God's creations and miracles.
That when we die, a collective energy leaves us.
That this collective energy will eventually find its way back into the space beyond the universe, with God.
That our energy lives in the earth and air for a while, and thus goes through multiple existences in different bodies. That we remember subconsciously what we learn throughout our lives.
That we are punished for our bad deeds -- whatever we do to others, will eventually find its way back to us. Maybe not in this life, but sometime, eventually, it will always find its way back to us. So be careful what you do and how you treat people.
I put my faith, as always, in God.
The first time, I was about nine. I was walking outside in the summertime wearing a pair of shorts, on my way to a friend's house. I walked out my front door and down my walkway, and I saw something small curled up on the end of the walkway. I stopped, puzzled, and stared at it. Then I ran inside and got my Dad.
"Dad!" I said. "There's something curled up outside. It looks like a piece of poop."
For some reason, this seemed to alarm my father. He hurried outside to see what it was.
It later turned out to have been a rattlesnake. A baby, actually. If I'd come any closer, it probably would have bitten me. The babies don't know not to put all their venom into you when they bite (it kills them too) and if it had bitten me, I'd probably have been dead instantly.
So that time I faced death without realizing it.
The second time, I was very well aware I could die. I was in the local choir in high school. We went on a camping trip to the nearby river, which was set deep into the woods. There was whitewater rafting at the river, which is basically paddling in a raft across river rapids, and I decided to try it.
Our raft leader was an aggressive, peppy blonde woman with a ponytail. With her standing up straight in the back, shouting where to go, we paddled our way across the choppy river. Then our raft leader led us straight toward a whirlpool, exclaiming that it "sounded like fun!" The minute we hit the whirlpool, the raft tipped straight over and tossed us right into the foamy white river rapids. (The only one who didn't fall out was the raft leader. Typical.)
This was dangerous enough. But I'd gotten tangled up with another boy -- I'd been tossed into him when the raft had tipped over. We were caught underneath the fast moving water, tangled up in each other and struggling to free ourselves.
At last, I managed to push free and made it to the surface, gasping for air. The raft leader saw me and pulled me back up into the raft. I later realized the river had been moving so fast it had literally ripped some of my clothes away from me.
That time, if the river had slammed me into a rock or if I had drowned caught by the limbs of the boy, I could definitely have died.
I have often wondered what death would be like. For someone who's been suicidal, this is of absolute necessity. It's impossible for a suicidal person to avoid thinking about death.
I had a dream once. In the dream, I was floating in a... substance. It was sort of like white, sort of like silver, sort of like light. It's impossible to describe. Floating before me were people. There was a long line of people, and they were all smiling and holding hands. I remember distinctly a little old Black man holding the hand of a small blonde girl -- the two bridged the gaps between age, race, and gender easily.
I knew somehow that these people were dead, and that they were also happy. For them, there was no contradiction. These had been their living forms, but they were not their ultimate, natural forms -- these people were putting an illusion up before me, of how they felt, to try to comfort me in a way I could understand.
All of a sudden, a warm presence wrapped around me from behind. It felt sort of like a hug. I couldn't see or really even feel the presence, but I knew it was there. Let me try to explain to you what I mean.
I used to have sleepovers with my Nana, my grandmother. We would lie next to each other in the big sofa bed in the living room late at night, in the dark, and watch cartoons together. I couldn't see my grandmother next to me, but I knew she was there, and I felt safe and protected. It was like that.
And when that presence hugged me, I suddenly felt like everything was going to be okay. Somehow, I felt, that this presence was God.
That's when I woke up. It took me a few seconds to realize there were tears on my cheeks. I was crying.
I'm not sure if the dream really did come from God, but I'd like to think that it did. God didn't tell me anything specific, anything particularly great. Just that the dead are happy and everything's going to be okay. But that's all I ever needed to hear. Ever since the time of that dream, I have never doubted the existence of God.
I'm not a particularly religious person. I don't go to Church every Sunday. I have my own private beliefs about how the universe works, and I'm perfectly fine with them. But I do believe certain things. For example:
That the universe has a creator, and that creator exists around and beyond the universe. For lack of a better name, I call this gender-less, bodiless presence "God."
That by studying science, we become closer to knowing God's creations and miracles.
That when we die, a collective energy leaves us.
That this collective energy will eventually find its way back into the space beyond the universe, with God.
That our energy lives in the earth and air for a while, and thus goes through multiple existences in different bodies. That we remember subconsciously what we learn throughout our lives.
That we are punished for our bad deeds -- whatever we do to others, will eventually find its way back to us. Maybe not in this life, but sometime, eventually, it will always find its way back to us. So be careful what you do and how you treat people.
I put my faith, as always, in God.
