"Man is mortal.  That is his fate.  Man pretends to not be immortal.  That is his sin."  Such was the conclusion of prominent theologian and cultural critic Reinhold Niebuhr, who died in 1971.  What does he mean?

    Niebuhr is saying that even though physical death is the lot of every human being, it is not the end of the human being.  Because, he says, humans are spiritual and moral beings, and have been made to enjoy a spiritual existence, they cannot pretend that, in some form, this existence is the only one they will experience.  Dust and ashes are their end, but only on this planet.  To think otherwise is to ignore the obvious:  people always seek beyond themselves.

    As Friedrich Nietzsche, no friend of spirituality or God, once noted, "A human is the sick animal because he is provided with everything and yet is infected with an insatiable need for the metaphysical that can never [if earth is our reality] be assuaged."

    We cannot ignore whom we most are.