This was a fantastic episode. I appreciate her honesty in just “not knowing” what happens after you die, but she is still not afraid. She is a treasure to those she serves.
Thanks for sharing this. I am looking forward to checking out Julie's book. I spent many years as a volunteer at a hospice center, and I was so nervous when I started, but I am so grateful now for all I learned from spending time with the families and the patients who had no family with them. Mostly, I learned not to be afraid and to be brave. Those nurses that I worked with were the definition of fierce peace. I admire them so much. Their calm and caring presence is such a gift to those who pass and to the families left behind.
For some of us, the greatest gift life offers is that someday, preferably sooner rather than later, we get to die — and not have to repeat the suffering. But when suicide is simply not an option, it basically means there’s little hope of receiving an early reprieve from our literal life sentence.
Of course, reincarnation — especially back into the average bitter Earthly human existence an indefinite number of times, the repetition of mostly unhappiness — would be Hell. From my understanding, even Buddhism [or is it Zen Buddhism?], which in large part is the positive belief in reincarnation, acknowledges that life generally is suffering or hardship interspersed with far fewer instances of genuine happiness.
Also, I read [and any reader should correct me if I’m in error] that Sigmund Freud postulated: Regardless of one’s mental health and relative happiness or existential contentment, the ultimate goal of our brain/mind is death’s bliss because of the general stressful nature of our physical existence, i.e. anxiety or “stimuli”. It’s important to clarify, however, that it’s not brain death per se that is the aim but rather the kind of absolute peace that only brain death can offer in this hectic world.
Ergo, the following lines extracted from a much larger piece:
----
.... / Could there be people who immensely suffer yet convince themselves / they sincerely want to live when in fact they don’t want to die / so great is their fear of Death’s unknown? //
No one should ever have to repeat and suffer again a single second of sorrow that passes. … Nay, I will engage and embrace the dying of my blight!
A lot of people fear a negative experience or hellish spiritual existence in the hereafter.
I believe that upon death the spirit or consciousness is — finally! — 100 percent liberated from the purely cerebrally based anxiety, agitation and contempt that may have actually blighted much of its physical existence.
Therefore, free of the corporeal shell, the soul may be wondering, ‘Why was I so angry, so much of the time? Oh, the things I said!... I really hope I didn't do damage while I was there’. ...
A few decades ago, I learned from two Latter Day Saints missionaries that their church’s doctrine teaches that the biblical ‘lake of fire’ meant for the truly wicked actually represents an eternal spiritual burning of guilt over one’s corporeal misdeeds. Bemused, I thought and said: “That’s it? Our punishment is our afterlife's guilty conscience?”
During the many years since then, however, I’ve discovered just how formidable intense guilt can be. I’ve also considered and decided that our brain's structural/chemical flaws are what we basically are while our soul is confined within our physical, bodily form. The human soul may be inherently good on its own; but trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through.
Thus, upon the multi-murderer's physical death, not only would they be 100 percent liberated from the anger and hate that blighted their physical life; their spirit or consciousness would exist with the presumably unwanted awareness of the immense amount of needless suffering they personally had caused.
Then again, maybe the human soul goes where it belongs or where it feels comfortable and right — be it hell’, ‘heaven’, somewhere in between, etcetera. This concept was suggested in a very interesting 1987 radio-broadcast sermon titled “A Bird’s Eye View of Hell”, given by a renowned preacher. I wrote a piece of fiction titled Not What It Was Supposed To Be [originally called That Other Place] that's largely themed on this premise.
This was a fantastic episode. I appreciate her honesty in just “not knowing” what happens after you die, but she is still not afraid. She is a treasure to those she serves.
This is wonderful to read. Yes that humble posture of not knowing is a wonderful quality of hers, pure soil out of which so many good things can grow!
Thanks for sharing this. I am looking forward to checking out Julie's book. I spent many years as a volunteer at a hospice center, and I was so nervous when I started, but I am so grateful now for all I learned from spending time with the families and the patients who had no family with them. Mostly, I learned not to be afraid and to be brave. Those nurses that I worked with were the definition of fierce peace. I admire them so much. Their calm and caring presence is such a gift to those who pass and to the families left behind.
So true. Thanks for that reflection 🪞
For some of us, the greatest gift life offers is that someday, preferably sooner rather than later, we get to die — and not have to repeat the suffering. But when suicide is simply not an option, it basically means there’s little hope of receiving an early reprieve from our literal life sentence.
Of course, reincarnation — especially back into the average bitter Earthly human existence an indefinite number of times, the repetition of mostly unhappiness — would be Hell. From my understanding, even Buddhism [or is it Zen Buddhism?], which in large part is the positive belief in reincarnation, acknowledges that life generally is suffering or hardship interspersed with far fewer instances of genuine happiness.
Also, I read [and any reader should correct me if I’m in error] that Sigmund Freud postulated: Regardless of one’s mental health and relative happiness or existential contentment, the ultimate goal of our brain/mind is death’s bliss because of the general stressful nature of our physical existence, i.e. anxiety or “stimuli”. It’s important to clarify, however, that it’s not brain death per se that is the aim but rather the kind of absolute peace that only brain death can offer in this hectic world.
Ergo, the following lines extracted from a much larger piece:
----
.... / Could there be people who immensely suffer yet convince themselves / they sincerely want to live when in fact they don’t want to die / so great is their fear of Death’s unknown? //
No one should ever have to repeat and suffer again a single second of sorrow that passes. … Nay, I will engage and embrace the dying of my blight!
A lot of people fear a negative experience or hellish spiritual existence in the hereafter.
I believe that upon death the spirit or consciousness is — finally! — 100 percent liberated from the purely cerebrally based anxiety, agitation and contempt that may have actually blighted much of its physical existence.
Therefore, free of the corporeal shell, the soul may be wondering, ‘Why was I so angry, so much of the time? Oh, the things I said!... I really hope I didn't do damage while I was there’. ...
A few decades ago, I learned from two Latter Day Saints missionaries that their church’s doctrine teaches that the biblical ‘lake of fire’ meant for the truly wicked actually represents an eternal spiritual burning of guilt over one’s corporeal misdeeds. Bemused, I thought and said: “That’s it? Our punishment is our afterlife's guilty conscience?”
During the many years since then, however, I’ve discovered just how formidable intense guilt can be. I’ve also considered and decided that our brain's structural/chemical flaws are what we basically are while our soul is confined within our physical, bodily form. The human soul may be inherently good on its own; but trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through.
Thus, upon the multi-murderer's physical death, not only would they be 100 percent liberated from the anger and hate that blighted their physical life; their spirit or consciousness would exist with the presumably unwanted awareness of the immense amount of needless suffering they personally had caused.
Then again, maybe the human soul goes where it belongs or where it feels comfortable and right — be it hell’, ‘heaven’, somewhere in between, etcetera. This concept was suggested in a very interesting 1987 radio-broadcast sermon titled “A Bird’s Eye View of Hell”, given by a renowned preacher. I wrote a piece of fiction titled Not What It Was Supposed To Be [originally called That Other Place] that's largely themed on this premise.