If we were given the following three possibilities and asked which we hope will arrive in the future, which would we choose:
1/ the world ends and the faithful alone are saved;
2/ the world as we know it continues but new knowledge and gradual implementations, overcome our current breakdowns;
3/ the world doesn’t end, but the current hierarchies, the political and economic realms ruled by wealth and power, do?
I never would have chosen the first alternative, but for the past few years my appreciation for the world in which I have been given life has risen above any sense that my individual being is what I need to protect and nurture.
It seems that many spiritual traditions emphasize the importance of an eternal soul which at the very least gives us an opportunity to graduate from this individual lifetime less damaged than we arrived; and which may even be in existential jeopardy if we don’t awaken to the precious opportunity given us in this very lifetime.
Since this vision of having been given a potential window into eternity has been so abused; accidents of birth and environment made central to winnowing the saved from the condemned: I no longer believe salvation awaits me if I act in a prescribed way.
It’s not as if I don’t care what happens to us when we die. I have lost too many family, friends and loved ones for me to feel indifferent to what awaits us when our present lives end–whatever balance we may have struck between confusion and learning to love those we shared our journeys with.
But today a U-tube video invoked a new level of hope in me: