As a Humanist, I believe in this life, before death. It will be over too soon; then I will be dust and ashes, my consciousness nothing more than a memory in the hearts and minds of those whom I have touched and been touched by. Meanwhile, however, I live with an imperfect passion to love life, improve this world, and relate decently to all those with whom I come into contact.
It is unfair that we each will die without the universe granting an instant’s consideration to our appeals for more life. The universe is not fair. If there is to be any justice in existence, we and only we must put it there. And working for justice is just too hard to do alone: we need each other. But it will not help us to rely on wishful visions of a supernatural world whose existence can be asserted, and even intuited, but will never be substantiated.
Still, even we Humanists and atheists would do well to ask: why it is so excruciatingly tempting to hold on to those we have loved after they are gone?
We are biologically programmed to be able to experience the “spirits” of the dead. After all, what would our minds be if we could not clearly, viscerally imagine the presence of those not physically present with us? Lasting love would be impossible. All our relationships would be stripped of meaning. We would become the very embodiment of “out of sight, out of mind.” And so our brains evolved to project memories of our ties to each other into seeming reality; that these projections continue beyond death is simply a byproduct of evolution.
But this is the beauty of evolution: our very survival has dictated that we develop the ability to remember love and affection (admittedly, along with hate and resentment) across wide gulfs of time and space.
This summer I lost a dear friend; probably the greatest teacher I’ll ever have. But we in Rabbi Sherwin Wine's community refuse the false hope that he still dwells among us. Rather we remember and draw inspiration from his life and the lives of all our lost ones. As he wrote:
Death needs courage. It is so overwhelmingly final that it fills our lives with dread and anxious fear. When it arrives at the end of a long and happy life it is never welcome, yet not deeply resented. But when it comes too soon, invading young lives, disrupting hopes and dreams, it adds anger to our fear. We cry out at the injustice of destiny and wait for answers that never seem to come.…Courage is loving life even in the face of death. It is
sharing our strength with others even when we feel
weak. It is embracing our family and friends even
when we fear to lose them. It is opening ourselves
to love, even for the last time.
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