More On Life And Death Perspectives

SUN., MAY 19, 1996, 3:42 AM
FARM, STUDY

Here you are, o son, coming earlier than We expected, but it is important, to both of Us to have time for this Teaching this morning. It is quiet, and the temperature is pleasant. My thoughts should flow easily onto these familiar pages.

The three perspectives on which I commented in My current “Update” are the ones that include and promise continuing spiritual life after bodily death. It is somewhat different in each, but each assumes that spirit is the reality of life, not physical functioning. I’ll come back and comment more on these, as you would expect, but, first, I have some positive reflections on the other two.

The humanistic perspective poses no continuation of spirit life. Some with this as a dominant perspective would deny spirit as a factor in life at all. You remember Bob Kaplan’s insistence that what you identified as spirit should be seen as psychological or emotional. These are sufficient. There is no need for a concept of spirit. Others, however, would accept spirit as a dimension of human life, but, finally, would see this as a function of the brain and various secretions of the body. Thus, when the brain dies and secretions cease there is no more spirit. Spirit dies with the body.

Remember that I once told you that your Mother’s spirit was leaving her body while her brain was “acting up”, in the depressive state she was in. And, more recently, I said that Don’s spirit could not overcome the depressive condition his brain produced. The humanist would agree with these observations but insist that it was all a matter of chemistry. There is no spirit to survive when the body is finally completely dead.

Yet humans do love, do show compassion, do exhibit integrity, do exhibit selfless behavior… Honor is important, and, thus, death with honor is accepted as a good. Human dignity also is important, and so the humanist may reject measures that would prolong bodily life but at the expense of dignity. (The judgment comes in deciding how temporary or how long-lasting the indignities of treatment will be.)

This perspective also champions immortality, but only that which you create in what you do and are, as you live life, the only one you’ll have. This is obviously important to Me. The great Easter celebration in the Christian tradition is a yearly remembrance of how I, as Jesus, lived and how and why I died, a sacrifice for you. On Pentecost Sunday you recall and celebrate My official coming into the earth scene, energizing the Church, as Christ’s Body. The remembrance of those who die is an important aspect of this whole, continuing process.

The ecological perspective does not see the human as being of greater value than other forms of life. I see such an attitude fitting in with the spiritual premise that the last shall be first, and that a major human responsibility is stewardship of the web of life, even at the expense of some human lives. In this perspective death is natural and expected, a failure to adapt to… something… internally or externally. As you know I am coming to value this more than the more humanistic drive to sustain all human life, no matter what the cost.

This perspective also favors the dead body becoming, again, part of the earth, with little approval of your culture’s humanistic dominant practice of preserving the body in casket and vault.

You American Christians have accepted, too much, this notion of preserving the body. As Jesus I was resurrected before My Body could be “prepared” for burial. Let that stand as a symbol.