Looking at my cat this afternoon, her twelve year old self splayed out on the concrete of our patio, I thought:  what a life!  Though Summer (her name) may not possess the degree of self-awareness or grasp of transcendence and the metaphysical that we humans do, she clearly does not know what she is missing.  In her case, we might say that, yes, ignorance is bliss!  Absent any connections with immortality, Summer will continue living, perhaps for many years to come and, one day, will cease to do so--and will have no idea that she had ever lived.
     Oddly, unless the possibility of immortality inhabits our human reality, we are, in truth, no different from Summer.  We will live happily and joyfully, yes, then one day we will not.  And we will at that point have no idea that we had ever experienced our existence.   The story is over.
     As I have reflected on the many experiences I had in my recent travels West (experiences and reflections about which I will go into more detail later), I thought often of the terminality of existence.  It's sobering, it's jarring, it's frightening.
     But God is not.  And this makes all the difference.