The recent services around Good Friday and Easter have me thinking more deeply lately about death. When you get right down to it, death is really the only thing about life that we can be absolutely sure of, but oh how much time and energy we spend trying to deny its reality.

Family, friends and other loved ones die, but still we manage to avoid thinking much or very deeply about the prospect of our own deaths. There are many reasons for this, which have been thoroughly explored by psychologists and spiritual writers. But when you get right down to it, there are only three options regarding the issue of death and the hereafter, and none of them need frighten us.

The first prospect is that death is the end of life and consciousness. When you die, it's the end of your existence--personal, impersonal, cosmic, or otherwise. Most people don't accept the likelihood of this option, for the prospect of personal non-existence seems an absurdity which most cannot take seriously. Nevertheless, if this is in fact the case, then there is nothing to fear, for there will cease to be anyone to feel anything with death. It would seem that this option would encourage a kind of hedonistic living in this life, but it need not. Moderate living seems more enjoyable in the long run than dissipation, regardless of what happens at death.

The second prospect is that with death, personal consciousness is lost and a kind of impersonal level of consciousness goes on, perhaps to reincarnate in another body where its karmic tendencies from the previous life will be manifest. Buddhism seems to endorse this kind of view, to some extent. And again we note that the falling away of personal consciousness means that who we find ourselves to be will no longer exist, so there will be no regrets as there will be no one around to regret anything.

The third prospect is that with death, personal consciousness lives on, but without the body and its limiting factors. Minimally, this implies a movement into a broader realm of existence free from the restrictive aspects of the physical senses. Perhaps this consciousness will be re-incarnated in another body to learn lessons missed in the previous life; perhaps the existence just continues in a more subtle realm, with or without judgment. We cannot know for sure how it goes after death if personal consciousness survives. The glimpses provided in Near Death Experiences tell us something, but those people didn't really die so we can't put too much stock in their testimonies. At any rate, there may or may not be reason to fear death if personal consciousness survives, for there may or may not be a judgment with possible consequences awaiting us on the other side. No one can deny this possibility, especially since it's so widely attested to in the world's religions.

The resurrection of Jesus provides those who believe in this mystery a revelation of some aspects of the afterlife. In the risen Jesus, we find survival of personal consciousness and a glorious reunification with physical matter. We learn of judgment based on how we have lived our lives, with exquisite joy and eternal loss presented as the ultimate options. Again, the resurrection reassures us that there is no reason to fear death, for it now belongs to Christ. Only those whose lives have no connection with God's ways need fear, and perhaps there's enough of this disconnect in all of us to generate a level of anxiety.

One of my favorite Scriptures about death comes from Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 41: 5-7.

"Do not fear death's sentence;
remember those who came before you and those who will come after.
This is the sentence passed on all living creatures by the Lord,
so why object to what seems good to the Most High?"

I find those words consoling in their simplicity and profundity.

Yes, we will all die, and this fact creates a bond of sorts between all living things. It also encourages us to live while we are alive, knowing that the shadow of death looms ever before us, adding a measure of poignancy to life and encouraging compassion for all other creatures, who are dying just as we are.

death is really the only thing about life that we can be absolutely sure of

You forgot taxes.

I don't fear death, per se. They don't say "rest in peace" for nothin'. Plus, who would really want to live forever � at least on this earth? Everything on earth has a cycle. Dark and light. Life and death. I can imagine living so long that it would disrupt this cycle and we would be mentally or spiritually worn out after a time like a form of sleep deprivation where one is driven nuts by not getting any REM sleep. Perhaps the human soul, if there is a soul, has its limits and its need to "sleep" as well.

Where do we go? Well, probably the same place from whence we came. And even the most jaded of us can take some comfort, if immortality is what we want, in the scientific principle that matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. Wouldn't that also be true of whatever makes us "us"?

Of course, Buddha and Jesus seem to agree on the "no death" principle, at least in a broad sense. Who am I to disagree? Do I question other geniuses such as Einstein and Feynman? Can I not imagine that there are those who know more than I do?

I suppose existential angst may be at the root of the fear of death � or simply being separated from loved ones. The former means nothing to me for don't we, for all practical purposes of awareness, die each night when we go to sleep? If we were to not wake up then dieing would be little different from that moment just before we actually do wake up (barring dreams).

And maybe our loved ones will be comforted knowing that we are at rest; with whom or where is the question. If they have internet access I'll let you know.