An essay by Ray Vaughn
about his personal thoughts and philosophical views on mortality, our transcension from this life we know and live, through death and the questions we all ask. What is the purpose of my life? What is this great mystery of life? The answers await us "Beyond The Gates to Eternity?
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| This webpage is dedicated In memory of my father in law Mr. |
Monroe "Hub" Wells
Oct. 2, 1924 to
Monroe "Hub" Wells is remembered as a good husband, father and grandfather. He served with the Marine Corp in the Pacific theater during WWII as gunner on a landing craft, seeing action at the battle of Tarawa . After his service in the Pacific, he served his community as a policeman in his hometown of Laurel , MS,
Recently I sat by my wife’s father in the hospital as he was tenuously hanging onto life, struggling to breath… He was very sick and there was no hope in this world for a cure of his condition. As I waited and watched, trying to be of some use and comfort to his needs, I was reminded of thoughts that have been on my mind during the past few months about human nature and our own mortality.
Reminded of the suffering we see around us every day through the loss of our friends and loved ones.
So, it is with purpose, through these events in that hospital room, I have set out to write down my thoughts on mortality and my own journey through life and to dedicate this webpage to my wife's father.
Aging is not a beautiful experience. It is most often a painful and humbling process that ultimately ends with the realization of one's own mortality. Watching someone you love die is a very hard thing. It is traumatic, wrought with all the emotions and feelings you have accumulated for that person over the time of your personal connection with them. We are left with a helpless feeling as their life fades from them and every moment left to them is beyond our control.
We can only watch, prayerful and compassionate, hopeful that they are spared suffering and that comfort will soon be found in the arms of Jesus. Only faith can bring us through this experience. Faith and the knowledge you have shared their last moments in your vigil, waiting and watchful by their side as they make their transcension to their eternal place beyond our earthly realm of existence. Saying goodbye is so very hard and sad.
Once someone is lost in death, we must eventually accept the finality of their earthly life and believe in a spiritual transcension. The beginning of their new eternal existence. It is difficult to come to this acceptance for many, especially those who lose a close friend or love one to an unexpected, sudden or accidental death. In this case there is no time for saying goodbye. We are simply left with emptiness for that special person who is suddenly taken from our lives as their earthly existence is severed. This leaves an unfilled void that was once occupied by that person's love and friendship.
As I watched my father in law during his last hours, I was deeply moved by my wife’s love for her dad and the depth of her sadness and grief as she kept up the vigil, watching over him, trying to comfort him and waiting as his journey through life approached it’s end. I thought how lucky I am to love someone who can love so much. I found myself thankful that this woman is my soul mate and these thoughts deepened my love and respect for her. My belief in her.
Because of my faith, I believe that instead of dying, we transcend mortality moving to a greater, eternal existence, achieving immortality. A life of freedom, well being, happiness and permanent adjustment. For believers in Christ, this is Heaven. We believe that Jesus has made the way for us to receive eternal life through his sacrifice for us and that he wants us to be there with him. In Heaven. An instructor once said to me, " the only permanently well adjusted people are those who reside in cemeterys." This is true. Of coarse, another reality is possible. An eternal existence of pain and torment as an immortal in hell. Life leads to heaven or hell and what we believe in through our life’s journey determines our ultimate end. A body being in a cemetery may not be a sign of being permanently well adjusted or of being at rest. There are believers in God, non-believers (atheists or agnostics). There's a line from an old song that describes non believers......... They hope there's not a heaven and pray there is no hell."
I believe that we are created by God and that our existence on earth is not a random accident or fluke of nature……and that we are not a product of evolution. I do believe that we, as well as other species, change and adapt to our environment as our world changes. According to Dr. Harold Morowitz, former professor of Biophysics at Yale University, the odds against even the simplest form of life evolving accidentally or randomly is 1 out of 10 to the 340,000,000 power. This is a seemingly insurmountable problem especially when it would have had to occur millions of times to support the evolutionist theory. And that does not even take into consideration complex and intelligent living things. What is life's meaning. By the dictionary, it is the period between birth and death. But life is much more and a very complex state. I believe it is the product of a devine spark that is generated and induced in us at the moment of our creation. By God! We do not know where we’ll be when we draw our last breaths or when our heart will cease to beat, completing it’s work of powering the life force coursing through our mortal bodies as we finish the journey that was our life, ending our earthly existence as we pass beyond this life into eternity. So final but yet only the beginning.
Then one day you awaken on the wrong side of '60 and finally begin to grasp the reality of the aging process. When we are young, life, health and vitality are taken for granted. We feel invincible and believe that if anything happens, we’ll be lucky enough it will happen to someone else, not to us. And, by the way, we already know everything, so don’t try to enlighten us. Young people are so confident that they know more than their parents. They usually feel their parents are disconnected and out of the know. Not up to date on happenings and certainly not very cool. Amazingly, our experience as young people usually included borrowing the keys to our parents car, borrowing gas money, going to the movies and hanging out with our friends. It's really amazing how broad we though our knowledge base was. As we grow older, life becomes more of a struggle to stay healthy and feel good. Sometimes we even become weary of life itself. When we were young, we could eat anything and as much of it as we wanted. Because of our high youthful metabolism, weight gain was not a real concern. Our bodies were metabolic dynamos, working precisely as created. Perfect health. Some would say, we could “Eat Like A Horse”. The calories were expended through our energetic drive and life styles. But, as we grow older, eating a lot is usually not a good thing. If you eat like a horse, you may look like a horse. We deal with weight gain and cholesterol, not to mention back problems and increased work on the heart due to excessive weight. And what about the wardrobe ? It can’t seen to keep up with our weight gain and changes in body girth. As our bodies age, we often develop an Achilles heel. Something that tags and aggravates our health. Our teeth, blood pressure, weight, arthritis and joints, our hearing, heart problems, diabetes to name a few. As we grow older, we often wrestle daily, sometimes hourly, with our afflictions. Our health problems can literally take the fun and pleasure out of our life, out of living and out of our relationships with work associates, friends and the ones we love. These health issues sometimes control every moment of our daily lives. Welcome to senior life.
As we age, our mortal bodies could be compared to old cars. If you have ever kept a car longer than you should have, you will know what I mean. Just as an old car begins to miss or become hard to start, so do we. Some days we just can’t get going. We need a jump start. Our battery is weak. Just as a car’s front end wears out and becomes hard to keep it in the road our hips and knees wear out to. Our step falters. Sometimes we stumble. We just can't seem to say on coarse with our life. A car’s fuel line can clog up. So do our arteries. Sometimes a fuel line ruptures. This would be equivalent to having a stroke. A car’s fuel pump may go bad, so do our hearts. Sometimes a car breaks down and doesn’t get to it’s planned destination. We sometimes just can’t make it to work or to an event because we are too sick to go. We can be patched up and repaired, sometimes. But as a highly sophisticated biological creation, we are unique and many things in us are one of a kind. They can’t be replaced and sometimes cannot be fixed. We wear out like an old car. Our organic systems begin to fail and cease to be of functional service to us. Our own mortality becomes a constant companion.
Life can also be likened to a bank account with an initial starting balance. Each day we live, we spend from the balance of this account. Based on the expected average lifespan in the USA, if you started with a 1000.00 balance and have lived 55 years, then you have spent 714.00 and have a balance of 285.00 left to spend. However, if you've lived 85 years already, then you are overdrawn by 100.00. Or maybe you have spent your money and time wisely and managed your health well. This would account for stretching and making the account last longer. And you may have had some help from your ancestors. Good genes. Or maybe you're overspending beyond your budget and at 40 years of age, you have exhausted your account. How much do you have left in your life's account ?
As youngsters, we are impatient as time passes, watching every minute, anxious to get on with our life. Anticipating what will happen next and what life holds for us. When we were 10 years old, we couldn't wait to become a teenager. When we took a trip, we thought we would never arrive. We were totally connected to life and our surroundings by the minute, living and seeing every detail. Expectant of what each moment would bring. Time seemed to drag by as we watched our lives unfold. Older people don't seem to be as connected to time and events on this micro scale. As we age, time seems to fly by rather than drag by. We now think of time passed in years and not in an hours or days framework. Sometimes when we were young, we would take a nap in the evening and when we woke up, it was already tomorrow. Older people may take a nap in the evening, wake up two hours later thinking it is morning. Sometimes older folks don't even know what day of the week or month of the year today is. I believe as we age, we began to live life in an automatic mode, not especially connected to our life on an hourly or daily basis. This may be because we have already lived so many days in our lifetime. As we age, we are connected to our life as a whole and not by sequential events. And alas, there is the health processes of our bodies and minds at work. As people grow even older, the function of the mind and brain is not what it once was.
Life can also be likened to a bank account with an initial starting balance. Each day we live, we spend from the balance of this account. Based on the expected average lifespan in the USA, if you started with a 1000.00 balance and have lived 55 years, then you have spent 714.00 and have a balance of 285.00 left to spend. However, if you've lived 85 years already, then you are overdrawn by 100.00. Or maybe you have spent your money and time wisely and managed your health well. This would account for stretching and making the account last longer. And you may have had some help from your ancestors. Good genes. Or maybe you're overspending beyond your budget and at 40 years of age, you have exhausted your account. How much do you have left in your life's account ?
As youngsters, we are impatient as time passes, watching every minute, anxious to get on with our life. Anticipating what will happen next and what life holds for us. When we were 10 years old, we couldn't wait to become a teenager. When we took a trip, we thought we would never arrive. We were totally connected to life and our surroundings by the minute, living and seeing every detail. Expectant of what each moment would bring. Time seemed to drag by as we watched our lives unfold. Older people don't seem to be as connected to time and events on this micro scale. As we age, time seems to fly by rather than drag by. We now think of time passed in years and not in an hours or days framework. Sometimes when we were young, we would take a nap in the evening and when we woke up, it was already tomorrow. Older people may take a nap in the evening, wake up two hours later thinking it is morning. Sometimes older folks don't even know what day of the week or month of the year today is. I believe as we age, we began to live life in an automatic mode, not especially connected to our life on an hourly or daily basis. This may be because we have already lived so many days in our lifetime. As we age, we are connected to our life as a whole and not by sequential events. And alas, there is the health processes of our bodies and minds at work. As people grow even older, the function of the mind and brain is not what it once was.
As we age, our enlightenment is finally realized as we become self aware of how little we really knew when we were young and how much we still don't know…….....now realizing that we will never know very much in our sum total of knowledge in this lifetime.
When we are young, we can stay up all night having fun, burning the candle at both ends and quickly recover, ready to do it all over again the next night. I know. I did a lot of this. As we get older, we have trouble just going to sleep, sometimes watching the sun go down and come up again the next morning. There is no fun in this. And if this happens with any frequency, we get behind on our rest and may develop another health issue to deal with. Chronic fatigue from sleep deprivation. This will play havoc with your health, vitality and well being.
The older I grow the more I realize how wise my parents were. And it is much more than wisdom. It’s experience. Something that young people don't have a lot of. There are things that you admire about your parents and sometimes things that you may did not particularly appreciate as a youngster, but now you can understand these differences. Eventually you may identify with some of these differences as you begin to see them in yourself. Many young people, especially teenagers, feel embarrassed by their parents when friends are around. As I have grown older, I have begun identifying with my father. I now see things in myself that remind me more and more of him. Lately, whenever I look into a mirror, I see someone that looks more like my father looking back at me. This can be a real shocker at first! Each time we look at our reflection in a mirror, the image we see looking back is added to our composite mental library of what we look like. Or I should say, what we think we look like. This is a combined memory of what we used to look like when we were younger, what we think we looked like at our best, at our worst, who we look like now and who we fear we may become as we age. By the age of 50, we have viewed our reflection in a mirror more than 50,000 times, so we have a pretty good idea of who we are, how we want to look, what we would like to change. And the reality of what we cannot change. Grappling with who we are becoming. Most of us, over time, become more and more like one of our parents. We see this in our changing reflection in the mirror. Recognizing and appreciating the good in them and regretting the things we did not particularly appreciate. Resenting and fearing the frailness seen in our parents as they aged ahead of us. Wrestling with this same frailness that seems to be creeping up on us now and viewing our mortality in a clearer way each day as we age a little more. As we die a little more.
And then one day, your cursory glance in the mirror reveals that you are past your prime. The Your hair is turning white, the color of youth slipping away…..lost to time and never to return in this life. As you think back to your beginning, your see the years of your life in a flash as you remember everything you’ve done. Your accomplishments are there. Sometimes more than you expected but often less than you planned for. And as you look forward through the years left, knowing with a certain surety, not much time is left. Your life is drawing to a close. As our lives begin to dim, through
years long lived, our youth in heart, ebbing away…leaving us in our last years weak or frail, dependant, without many expectations, just a few last hopes. Resolved to our inevitable end. But we must not give up. We must keep hope and endeavor to maintain a young at heart outlook. For once that is lost, we give up without a reason to continue, surrendering to an oblivious termination of our earthly existence. Moving on into our eternity we have chosen, through our faith and belief or through our non belief and lack of faith.
Our lives are a struggle to overcome temptation. As we age, we most often see a clearer difference between good and bad. Love and hate.
Whenever you think about all the electrical and chemical processes that have to happen between the brain, the heart, the lungs, nerve fibers and muscles, for life, motion and organic intelligence to occur, it would be naive to believe we are accidents of nature.
Humans are a complex grouping of atoms, cells, organs and systems connected electrically by the nervous system, powered by our heart and controlled by our brain. It interesting to note that experts disagree on exactly how many muscles and cells there are in the human body. Estimates on the number of cells range from 10 trillion to 100 trillion cells. This really depends on body size or mass. Muscle estimates range from 639 to 850 and there are 206 bones in our body.
The average life span expectancy of an American as of June 29, 2010 is 77.9 years. On the average, we live 28,105 days during our lifetime. Our hearts pump an average of 1,728 gallons of blood every 24 hours, 625,000 gallons a year and 48,687,500 gallons in an average lifetime. This is the pump that pushes our life force through our mortal bodies, powering the existence that is our life . The human heart is a remarkable biological pump on which we depend, in it’s tireless job of powering our earthly existence. Our heart pumps 100,000 times in 24 hours, 3,025,000 times a month, 36,300,000 times a year and 2,826,850,000 in our lifetime. That is nearly 3 trillion heart beats in a lifetime. What an amazing creation, this pump.
We are reminded throughout our life of our own mortality through the loss of those who are close to us. As we grow older, we see these losses occurring more frequently as we lose our parents, friends our own age and our spouses. The longer we live the more commonplace funerals and memorial services become. These events bring us to the profound realization that our time for passing throught the gates of eternity and crossing over to that existence beyond mortality is ever drawing closer.
It has been said, “ Live every day as if it were your last and then some day you'll be right. ... Never forget that you must die; that death will come sooner than you expect.”... It is something we all must own as it will claim us one day. We die daily. Every day spent in our life is a another day taken from your life. We should let live to live, love to be loved, forgive to be forgiven. I believe that one’s greatest mark of achievement in this world and in their life is their love for family and friends. Not their worldly successes.
To be remembered and missed for your love is our most important and enduring achievement.
Remember, death comes sooner that we expect !
We must ask ourselves this question. Where are we headed ? Many ask the questions, what is the purpose of my life ? Is there a God ? If there is a God and I ignore him, what will the consequences be for me? This trip to eternity is one we all must make, at an appointed hour and time. We don't know when that will be. But you can count on this fact. It will be "sooner than we expect." And, in the final analysis, all that counts is what's in our heart and who we really are inside. Do You believe in a life after death ? What awaits you beyond the gates to eternity ? How much time is left in your life's account ? What is your eternity ? Where is your eternity ? Today is a good place to start planning on your destiny because today is the first day of the rest of your life.
We must ask ourselves this question. Where are we headed ? Many ask the questions, what is the purpose of my life ? Is there a God ? If there is a God and I ignore him, what will the consequences be for me? This trip to eternity is one we all must make, at an appointed hour and time. We don't know when that will be. But you can count on this fact. It will be "sooner than we expect." And, in the final analysis, all that counts is what's in our heart and who we really are inside. Do You believe in a life after death ? What awaits you beyond the gates to eternity ? How much time is left in your life's account ? What is your eternity ? Where is your eternity ? Today is a good place to start planning on your destiny because today is the first day of the rest of your life.
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| Wecome To Your Eternity |
It has been said that prayer is mostly about changing ourselves. I pray this article speaks to the lives and hearts of those who are in need of the message in Transcending Mortality and that they find in it a special meaning in their own personal journey through life, to eternity.
God Bless,
Article by Ray Vaughn
