My former cardiologist and I did not get along. The final step for me was he told me I could no longer eat bread, rice, pasta, potatoes. I told him the only thing I was cutting out of my life was him.
We did not hit it off from the beginning, he said he wanted me to live until I am ninety. I explained to him that as a Catholic priest, I am in the eternal life business. Therefore, I have no interest in living so long here. It is a story that I use to this day, occasionally, at funerals to explain the power of believing in eternal life.
I believe in eternal life and wait for the day that I may go to Heaven, which is part of my ultimate goal. The other part is to do all I can to help others to get there as well. Many may laugh at that thought, but looking at the opening paragraphs, you can see it can effect some real world decisions from time to time.
The scenario actually came to mind reading about Dr. David Wood and the Transhumanist Party who plan to use technology to create eternal life on Earth for humans by 2040; coincidentally, when I would be — hopefully not — in my final decade prior to reaching ninety.
The bio-technological process would begin with the richest because they could most afford the procedure. Eventually, the scientist explains — as with all technology — it would become cheaper and everyone could afford it.
Well, I hope Dr. Wood enjoys his current endeavor to his heart’s content. He adds that religious people may not be interested and I as a religious person agree. I will not climb aboard his ‘life forever on Earth’ train.
First, let me explain. Eternal life, in the Catholic sense, is not about living here on Earth ad infinitum (literally), it is about living in peace and justice and in the eternal joy of the presence of the Holy Spirit. That is from St. Paul in the Book of Romans.
St. Irenaeus taught that the glory of God is a person fully alive. So, actually, what we look forward to is the fullest of human existence for eternity. This is something that those who want to create eternal life on Earth cannot guarantee. This is why I am not interested in the slightest. I just am not.
I look back at those days in my teens and early twenties when my mother described me as “Mad at the world.” My slogan at the time was FTW, which means F___the World. I hated school for I was bullied viciously all throughout seventh through the ninth grades, by some students and even some teachers. I literally hated then entering and attending high school. I self-medicated — mostly alcohol. This experience, during my formative years, also formed my outlook on the world for the rest of my life. I never saw existence as paradise or its potential. So, I would have no interest in being part of it ad infinitum.
Quitting drinking in my early twenties, while in the Navy, I returned to my Catholic roots. It was there that I found this quote in the New Testament from St John: “Have no love for the world or anything in the world,” (I John 2:15).
I was so excited from what I read: “You mean,” I thought to myself, “have no love for the world that taught me how much I do not belong? That world that promised paradise to some, I was not one of them? Hey, you don’t have to tell me twice.”
If there is anything that leads me to embrace Catholicism, and there are lots of them, that is the piece de resistance. Now, Dr. Wood is working hard to grant eternal life to all those who choose to embrace the same world.
No thanks.
Over the decades, I had to learn to let go of my pain and pray to forgive my worst enemies. Nevertheless, I am not sold on the idea of living for eternity here.
I wait for the day that I experience what Christ offered us from the Cross and I live my life as best I can in pursuit of that hope. Nothing on this Earth can match it.
I do not want to see my ninetieth birthday on Earth or any age beyond that point. I have other places to be.
Photo credit: USDA
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