A few weeks ago, I attended a memorial service for a relative. They had passed away in early August, due to both health complications and an illness. There were probably around 80 people at the service in Regina, mostly dressed casually, with a few people wearing more conservative black outfits. There were pictures of the deceased at the front of the hall, but the burial had taken place privately the day before.
The mood was strange for a funeral, there was very little conversation, and not a lot of tears either. Rather, people were very silent, deep within their own thoughts. If anything, there was the sense of uncertainty that comes with feeling out of one's depth. The reason for the otherworldliness was all-too-obvious; it was because the deceased person had only been three weeks old.
What do you say at a time like that? Surely such an occasion brings more questions than it does answers. It stops us from whatever we're doing and brings a pause to the mundane things of life. It reminds us of the uncertainty of life, and brings to mind those deeper, more profound questions that go far above the ordinary things of daily living.
What is life all about? Does it have a purpose? Why do the young have to die? Is there anything after the grave? Is there a God or not? What is my purpose in life? Why did this happen?
These are deep questions indeed, and when life, or death, forces us to face them, we can become very uncomfortable. Maybe it's because the answers are so divergent. Some people will point to a religious tradition and say "There are the answers." But others will point to the same tradition and say, "I do not believe that, I still have questions." Still other people will lean back on their own faith, or lack of it, and come up with a totally different set of answers.
Ultimately, if we are not careful, in trying to answer these questions we only end up with a reflection of our own uncertainties. Who do we believe? What evidence do we cite? Why don't we all get the same answers? These secondary questions can send us deeper into the feeling of helplessness, the feeling of dread. And that is why I urge every reader to take time to ponder such questions when the pressure of life is not on them. While life may get so busy that we do not think on these things until we're forced to, I really don't believe that is the healthiest way of going about it. I'm not saying that a person needs to become a monk, or become obsessed with death, no... But I am suggesting that how we answer these questions during the normality of life, will have an impact on how we approach such questions during a crisis.
If you are a person of faith, no matter what that faith may be, you should cherish it and nurture it. Allow the deep questions to be asked, it is not a sign of spiritual weakness to ask heart-felt questions. Some day you will need the answers, so get them now and ground yourself in the truth that you espouse. And if you have no religious faith, think on these things philosophically, consider the answers you give now, and see if you can formulate some sense of anchoring that will similarly allow you to face the challenges of life and death.
How we view the deeper issues of life, and how we answer these soul-searching questions really can impact our whole experience of living. It can build us up or it can tear us down. It can cause us to be people of service to humanity, or people who really only live for self, with all shades in between.
As humanity continues to evolve spiritually, whether one defines that by looking back to the religious traditions of an old era, or through the metamorphosis into a new age, each generation must re-evaluate the answers. The questions rarely change from one generation to another, from one century or even millennia to another, but our perception of the answers does.
