Afterwards

What is Self?

Who am I?

When my body no longer supports who I am, what’s left?

The soul and the heart are supposed to be the most important parts of the me in each of us. But what does it look like? Is it liking my body which has ranged from extremely overweight, to flabby, to tight and fit with veins popping out all over the place in my old age? You who know me would recognize me one way or the other by my face, my hair, my sound, I guess. But, when death appears and we tie up the knot that we are no longer a physical event on this earth, who would know us and how?

Mother Teresa confirms in her heart that it’s the pure me that matters, something that won’t have a body, or fancy or poor clothing, or sandals or high heels, or lipstick or dyed hair. It will be something we don’t know how to describe because we don’t know what we will be. God confirms to us that we will be with him, we will be in the heavens in the houses he has ready for us - but meanwhile, the old body, the one that carried us from birth through life to death, is somewhere on earth - either in the ground, in a box, or a bunch of ashes tossed somewhere the family wanted to honor with one’s once presence.

But what part of us - seen or unseen - goes to heaven, when does it get there, and what will happen to it. Will I even know who I am? Will I have “memory?” which might incorporate both the good and the bad, since there is plenty of both in my life, and I’m sure in yours too, stuff we only know, as animals like us look and act, or something called spirit which is the soul that is the true me and the true you, and will we know each other without the body we dress in on earth? Will I know me? It could come to that as well.

Maybe God wants to erase all the bad things we did, the things we carry in our hearts and heads and memories which really we would like to have never happened, nor to have had to carry in our hearts and memories, and that would pop up just in a moment when we rather to have forgotten that mistake, that pain, that sinfulness, that bloated soul when we put ourselves before everyone else, and that was not the point on this earth. I believe we have been here because we have a journey, a message, a task, somehow to be valuable to others, not ourselves, to have a challenge to help others, not put us in front for glory, to teach those who suffer about love and hope and that God is Great and He is in you and me and all of us no matter what kind of person we are, what color skin, what mental bucket is in our head, what purpose and compassion is in our heart. 

When I pray each night for so many who have died, an image pops in my head as I go through the prayer list. I know them as I knew them on earth. That’s the image. Like a memory of Aretha Franklin singing, or LeBron James hitting an impossible basket, or my granddaughter shining in a school play, or my husband lifting me off the grown to hug me at the airport relieved I’ve arrived safely. There are images that go with memories and answers to prayer. But what happens when we reached through the stars?

Last night I saw this bright white star in the sky - I don’t know much about the skies. And I kept thinking it was an airplane. But it was a beautiful thought that God stays firm in his routines with this earth and maybe I saw the Southern Star in all its glory just by chance, just by looking through a few giant Eucalyptus trees in our front yard, just as it hung over the very silent, very still, Rio de La Plata as the tide had pulled it out so far, one could walk a few kilometers without getting wet. Silence, and the pigeons were cooing, and the green parrots were silent, and the dogs were sleeping, until neighborhood dogs made their rounds at night and stir up the silence in my home. And I wonder will I see these things in heaven? or will there be not objects but just souls which have no identification physically, but probably huge personalities that give God joy because He created us one by one, not in big bunches, like a bouquet of flowers.

We are individually what He made us to be, but we are also everything we might need to be to give others a chance and a heart and encouragement and much love so that the misery that so many live in can be snapped open and out can come the real THEM, the one everyone is afraid to know, to acknowledge, to trust, to believe in - the self, the soul, that which Jesus tried to teach us to know, while the Holy Spirit works like a farmer to keep us in the spirit, on the right road, freshening us up as we get closer to the end, so we will be ready when death comes, and the spirit sours to the heavens to be with the Lord.

Now you think of the billions of people on this earth and wonder, how will God even know me among the billions who are pleading and fighting to get in the Heavenly Gates? Well, there isn’t much we can do but pray, hope to love everyone no matter what the situation or what kind of person it is. It cannot be wrong if we do this and at the same time, we must trust that things will be alright and hopefully in that last day, I’ll be able to see my family and friends who have gone before so we can do a dance of joy before the throne of God.

We must stand up for those who had problematic lives, who could never get it right, straight, good, or sinless, try as we have. When one is a priest, there is no excuse for not trying, for not giving one’s life to save the soul of others, or at least give them a head start. No excuse for selfishness or jealousies or abuses or power-struggles. No sex for sex’s sake nor leading children into temptation and evil, which has happened way to often among the holy orders. And never should we fail to give a glass of water or a bag of fresh vegetables, or oranges and apples to someone hungry and with no resource to get food or shelter. That is OUR obligation - to help those who suffer.

I don’t think we contemplate sufficiently who/what we will be after we close our shutters here on earth. Do we sort of skip along and think well, we didn’t do so good here on earth, but maybe God will let us end somehow. I did bake cookies for the church bazar, and I did give leftover tins of beans to the food bank. I don’t think that is what makes us or breaks us. We must risk our soul, our heart, our everything to give others a chance to know Jesus, to have a better life, to know they are loved no matter who they are or what they have done. There is always the Savior, if we just acknowledge what a mess we have made of our soul. It is never too late to clean it up. Start now. Shut down this blog and do something for Jesus the Christ who gave His life on a horrid cross so we would understand that we are loved and that we will be in the Kingdom of God when our lives are won and done, and the breath has gone out of us.

~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com