Eternal life?  It's quite a thought.  And it is a thought that came to me this morning, when I received word that one of our neighbors had passed away one day shy of his eightieth birthday.  He had battled cancer for a number of years.  By his own admission, Tom was not a religious person; I can only speculate on his final ruminations.
     Would I like for Tom to live again?  Of course.  When I contemplate the finality of earthly existence, the prospect of never again experiencing this life, well, I'm sobered.  Although I affirm the fact of God, eternity, and the eternal life these make possible, I at the same time feel overwhelmed with the doorway to it:  death.  Embracing the former means embracing the latter, too; the one being a hiddenness to come, the other being a very much present reality.
      The inevitability of our earthly passing is a powerful thing.  It has moved humanity to find itself and its destiny in countless ways, ways too numerous to presently imagine.  It has also generated no small amount of angst.  But it cannot be any other way.  By its very definition, eternity and eternal life will not come into this temporal existence.
     And that's the point.  If not for the life of God that many centuries ago appeared in our world, we would never know.  For this, we are grateful.
     Rest well, Tom.
     By the way, I'll be traveling for the next couple of weeks and will not be posting.  I'll catch up in July.  Thanks for reading!