Immortals

Greg’s passing has prompted me to think about life—how short it is for some of us, and long for others. I found myself thinking in very earthly terms… how long will I live? Will I have a quick end, or will I suffer? I then began thinking about eternity, and wondering what it will be like. All these questions made me turn to the bookshelf and begin perusing through some of the books we were given by friends when our son passed away. One book that I picked up off the shelf is Erwin Lutzer’s One Minute After you Die: A Preview of Life's Final Destination.

I was especially captivated by a quote he included from C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory, in reference to Heaven and Hell.

“All day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities it is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”

Immortals… until reading this quote I don’t think I’d ever thought of people in this way. Now, I can’t stop thinking about it. All day long, as I met and spoke with all the people I work with, teach, and love, it was if they all had a radiance I’d never seen until now. I began to think more about them and their eternal lives than about my own. All of a sudden, their journey was important to me. Earlier today I was lamenting to a dear friend how confused I am by death and suffering, yet while I spoke, my thoughts were on her… this immortal sitting across from me, and the fact that we will know one another for all eternity. That everything she must walk through in life is preparation for what the Lord has prepared her to do in the Kingdom of Heaven.