Where, exactly, do the dead go?

Friday night, as I was preparing tonight’s Easter feast and rocking out to my Jesus Christ Superstar LP, I had a visceral sensation of my parents, particularly my father. Easter has long been my favorite religious holiday, not just because of its universal sense of renewal and rebirth, but also because the scale of it was so more conducive to inner reflection and family enjoyment. The distractions of Christmas are largely gone, as are all the expectations of “the holidays” that seem to wreak havoc on modern American lives.

Easter week with my parents was one of the happiest times of the year for me with them. It was usually just the three of us, with Cathy and her family or a few close friends joining us Sunday afternoon. But the whole lead up to the day Christ would rise (without the aid of Viagra, no less) was just our little family, free of large expectations, and my parents and I indulging each other in our private, not too serious, not too light sensation of the meaning of rebirth.

It was with this in mind Friday night, when I was boiling eggs and preparing hummus, that I could feel my dad’s presence. He felt so close, I felt like he was going to come home and walk through the door any minute — maybe as soon as Carl Anderson stopped singing “Damned For All Time.”

Of course, he won’t. He’s not ever coming back. (Stranger sill, he never visited my house, nor did my mother.) And yet, I felt so close to both of them, and I couldn’t help thinking, “They’re going to be here soon!” It wasn’t pleasurable, exactly, for I knew they weren’t really coming. It wasn’t painful, exactly, because I liked having them so near by.

And yet, it was excrutiating to have them so close and yet, on the other side of some seemingly thin veil, so far away. It still amazes me that four years after my mom passed and nearly eight since my dad, I can still expect that they’re somehow going to make it to Easter this year, and walk into my house, and help me devil and dye eggs.

Where do the dead go? I am deeply ambivalent about this question. (And by deeply ambivalent, I don’t mean that I don’t give a shit and couldn’t care less, but that I swing wildly from extremely disparate views.) The Christianity I was raised with in my family was not particularly concerned with Jesus or even necessarily the name of God, but was grounded more in a general belief that there are blessings to be thankful for, there is a larger story to which we are connected, and there are many paths towards achieving the soul’s highest well being. Sin wasn’t especially considered, except as an unfortunate state of being disconnected from the most good you could do to add love to the world. Christianity wasn’t particularly thought of as superior by my parents, even though my mom was the daughter of a Methodist preacher.

If anything, I think my parents thought church was important because it tied you into a community to which you (rightfully so) should feel responsible not just for their benefit, but to get you outside of yourself. As for Christ himself, I think my parents thought highest of him because he showed that, whatever things you think “God” wants in this world, you’d better perform them without your own hands, get yourself dirty, and be willing to give it up for your brothers and sister with everything you have.

But on Easter, the particulars of the Christian tradition come into clearer focuses, and when viewed in the light of the story of the resurrection, thoughts of the afterlife come to mind.

I’ve also been deeply ambivalent about the concept of the after life, sometimes thinking that maybe the most sensible paradigm is the Japanese film After Life. (More on that another time.) After a lifetime of having a pretty grounded view of Christianity and how it can operate in the world quite apart from any esoteric views of heave or hell, it makes it a little difficult to wonder what precisely happens to us after we depart.

Are my parents still with me? Do their spirits exist? Will we see each other ever again (and if so, in a form that would be comforting, or so foreign it would be unrecognizable)? I certainly feel that they live on through their stories and in the actions they inspire in me. As I break bread with my friends around the table my parents bought for me, they will be with us in a way.

But are they still in existence themselves? What was I feeling Friday night? Have they become a deeper part of me, or maybe at one with everything, a part of the universe in a way the Buddhists seem to always have known we always are?

It was while contemplating this that I got a note from my dear friend and former minister Jan Fisher. A mutual friend of ours, Richard Sandman, left this world far too young in 2008. These were Jan’s words which were read at his memorial service, and which I think give insight into what may become of our spirits when we pass:

The last time I saw Richard was in this very sanctuary at Middle, after the gospel choir reunion concert in June of 2006. A crowd of friends had surrounded Jim and me, lots of hugging and catching up. When the sanctuary finally emptied and I turned around to pick up my things from the pew, there was Richard with that gentle smile he had. He said, “Hi Jan, I waited in the back until the crowd around you was gone.”  It was so wonderful to see him and talk for a few minutes and to be able to introduce him to Jim.

I believe his presence is in this sanctuary even now. While some of you may not believe that, and I’m not sure I could have said something like this a few years ago, I believe it now. Having gone through the passing of both of my parents fairly recently, I saw, I witnessed with both of them, how thin is that veil between this life and the next. When I saw my mother, who had been comatose all day, awake, just seconds before her spirit left her body, awake and look up, lifting both her arms heavenward, I knew that great cloud of witnesses who surround us had come to take her home. They are very close.

Those words from the book of Hebrews are inscribed on the walls surrounding this  sanctuary:

“Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses…”  Who are these witnesses? They are the ones who loved us and who love us still. They are here now pulling for us, cheering us on as we continue to run this race.

I believe Richard is one of them. He is very close. He is merely a breath away.

For me, I am still on an evolving journey, and I continue to question much. I still have no firm answers. But I do know this: that veil is indeed very thin, and all that separates us from this world and the next is a single breath. That small difference cannot, for me, evaporate them entirely from the equation of our love for each other. They are just a breath away, but that breath alone cannot possibly conquer the bond of love between us.

In the story of Jesus rising on the third day, it is for me a reminder that even in death, love cannot be destroyed. In our love, we have life ever lasting, and a connection to the people who came before us and will come after us that will never end, no matter how present-yet-unphysical it may be.

Happy Easter.