In a recent Church setting, I heard a song (titled "Pilgrim Song," a pleasant ditty not to be confused with Wagner's rocking "Pilgrims' Chorus" or Paulus' exquisite "Pilgrims' Hymn") ending with the triumphant denouement, "And as I pass along I’ll sing the Christian song: I’m going to live forever!"
I believe that our spirits and intelligences preceded, and will outlive, our mortal bodies. But for whatever reason, for whatever doubts or angers or fears had been simmering in my mind at the time, it struck me at that exact moment, like the scales falling from my eyes in a Joycean epiphany: This may be the most ridiculously childish (not child-like) and egocentric notion I've ever heard. Could it be that our theology is nothing more than a modern, Protestant-derived twist on the millennia-old response to a simple fear of death?
And is living forever, even if forever young (as opposed to that poor sucker Tithonus), really desirable? Why not just live a full and rich life, do good, love, forgive, learn, and be content to call it a day?
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