Hades and Sheol

In Hades, where even Odysseus did not dare visit, Cerberus growls as Charon rows you across the Acheron. On the shore, suffering shadows of former human beings wander about a thin fog. You look down at what was your body and know you are joining these hopeless shades. The Hebrews imagined the same nowhere for their dead. This place is the insult to the injury that was your life.

Gehenna

If I were to come to believe in the survival of the so-called "soul,"I would couple that conviction with the Jewish idea of Gehenna. There for a year souls are rid of malevolence, greed, envy, individualism, capitalism and all other forms of inhumanity. Only after such purification can the soul ascend to heaven.

I fancy that I will meet my mother and father there and be able to love them without doubt about their intentions. Likewise, my dogs will be in heaven without incessant barking and jumping on counters to steal food.

Afterlife

Because of an excessive awareness of death, I have thought excessively about death.

For humans, being alive usually involves awareness of the future. No doubt, our oldest human ancestors were aware of the end-points in their personal futures and in those of succeeding generations. The end point of life for most of us who are not great mystics is inconceivable.  I guess that's how we got to conceptualizing the after-life.

Since I am actively considering my own end-point, and, although I try, I'm not a very good mystic. I'm confused  So, the purpose of this blog is to record my thoughts about heaven as it relates to life-threatening illness and to try to clarify my thinking about the future.