Eternal Life, Part 3
…the direct intuitive realization that although I am not God, I am not other than God either, fans out in all directions. Although I am not you, I am not other than you either. Although I am not the earth, I am not other than the earth, either. James Finley, reflecting on a teaching of Romano Guardini[1]
There are a couple of legitimate factors making eternal life difficult to imagine. First, our physical senses cannot detect our interconnectedness with the life and lives around us in space. As our awareness drifts farther from our immediate environment, we become less able to see how anything or anyone relates to us, even tangentially. Second, our educational training does not teach the interconnectedness of the present moment with everything past and future. Because we believe everything occurs in sequential time, we perceive life as a series of largely unrelated, often random events. These perceptual deficiencies make it difficult to grasp the innate wholeness that underlies life. If we could visualize that wholeness, we would understand our life-experience as a unified and inseparable part of a much larger and eternal life-experience. In the words of 20th century priest Romano Guardini, from today’s epigraph: Although I am not God, I am not other than God either.
For example, when I reflect on family vacations, I do not judge them as bad or good, successful or unsuccessful based on any single occurrence. They all had pleasant and unpleasant moments. But when seen as a holistic experience instead of a series of unrelated events occurring over a period of time, they were all great! We grew closer, saw new places, and experienced life in new and unique ways. Were I to judge a vacation on its specifics, like the time our car broke down on the drive home, instead of its bigger-picture gestalt, I would fail to perceive the larger experience. In a similar way, we routinely divide our life into pieces, blinding ourselves to the intricate tapestry it weaves.
And this is where our limited and misleading perception fails us when it comes to imagining eternal life. Because we see our lives unfolding randomly in time, we imagine eternal life as an unnatural existence where time continues endlessly, but our life-situation is static. Our bodies no longer deteriorate or succumb to illness, our emotions remain pleasant, and our relationships function as we desire. Which raises the question, “Where in my life would I want to continue unchanged as time marches endlessly forward?” There is no such time, however, because every stage of life is a mix of good and bad, ease and difficulty, contentment and discontent. Our bewilderment is not due to what happens to us but in failing to see how everything fits together for a greater good. When we divide life into separate parts we miss the beauty, wonder, and eternality of the unbroken whole.
In one of my least favorite Bible passages, the writer of Matthew gives an account of the lineage of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17). Beginning with Abraham, forty-two generations are listed as leading to the birth of Jesus. It is brutal reading, which I usually skip, but it shows that Jesus was descended from David, as was prophesied of the Messiah. More importantly, it shows that Jesus was not an entity to himself. Rather, Jesus was part of a larger Life existing long before his birth. That larger Life continues to manifest, as it always will, not in time but in self-perpetuating essence. If we only see Jesus as an individual who lived and died 2000 years ago, we miss our part in the larger Life in which he lived. Alternatively, when we see the life of Jesus as a continuation of the lives preceding his, we begin to understand our life as a continuation of his life, and the lives to come as eternal continuations of ours. Our essential nature is transmitted to the lives of everyone we touch, serve, and care for, as well as through the countless lives those lives touch.
Although we are not the lives preceding and following ours, we are not other than those lives either. There is but One Life, and we belong to it as surely as every part of everyday belongs to the amazing and eternal entirety of what we mistakenly consider our life.
This is the 32nd in a series of Life Notes on Time and Eternity. The opinions expressed are mine. To engage with me or to explore contemplative spiritual direction, contact me at ghildenbrand@sunflower.com.
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Taize-style Contemplative Service: Reflective readings, music, and silence; Friday, December 1, First United Methodist Church (FUMC), 946 Vermont, Lawrence, KS, 6:00 pm.
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Mass on the World: A contemplative celebration of the winter solstice. Saturday, December 16 at 7:30 am; FUMC Celebration Center, 867 Hwy 40, Lawrence, KS.
Longest Night Service: An opportunity to reflect on loss; Thursday, December 21 at 7:00 pm; FUMC Celebration Center, 867 Hwy 40, Lawrence, KS.
[1] Daily Meditations, August 22, 2018; www.cac.org, accessed November 28, 2023.
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