Friday Sabbath: Death has no favorites

I've often felt that many religions are really an answer for death. At least of those religions one encounters around here, most houses of Gd offer a sort of prescription for how to live so that one might, for lack of a better phrase, attain a better death. Most of us have heard of the so-called beliefs of the Islamic extremists shooting down enemies to acquire their virgins or of a little squabble referred to as The Crusades in which both the Catholics and the Protestants had their own ideas of what qualifies you for entrance into The Paradise Club.

I've come across a few interesting people with opinions I hadn't expected. I knew a pastor of a Lutheran church who, while advocating the life that follows the Cross, had no specific belief in the hereafter. Yeah, loves Jesus and all, but didn't believe in an eternal reward for saying so. I've also come across another pastor who looked a passionate teenage girl in the eye and told her that he didn't believe Hitler was in hell (to which my mother would say, "Well, if he's not going, no one is.") It was sort of refreshing to come across people who have done the time, survived divinity school, tolerated a handful of generations of know-it-all children, and came out not so much jaded as liberated (which is the best idea one can gather from Martin Luther... leave out that antisemitic garbage).

I have no great theories on what happens when we die. There are times when I'm content to think that this is it, you live, then the lights go out, and you're fertilizer. Other times, when I'm optimistic, I wonder if there's not so much a heaven as a Step Two... perhaps there are infinite steps along the path of existence and we merely evolve from one to the other as we learn and prepare. Like the rest of us, there's no way to know until you get there, so, I figure I'll cover my bases. I favor living life as a "good person"... but also fully... and all that implies.

I did read an interesting story in this quarter's Parabola... a retelling of a Haitian story by Antoine Exavier. He tells the story of Papa Gd and General Death. The characters are walking through the climate of the story's origin during a dry, hot season. They make a bet to see who can convince a poor man to give his last drop or two of water. Papa Gd visits the man, asks for water, argues for a moment, and then the man finally asks the visitor his name. Papa Gd reveals his identity and the man still refuses him. He does mention, however, that he'd answer differently for General Death. Papa Gd naturally expresses his confusion to which the man tells him that the General has no favorites:

Rich, poor, young, old - they are all the same to him. Last week, he took the owner of the large house on the hill, the week before he took my neighbor's wife, the week before a young baby, and the week before that an old man. Death takes from all the houses. But you, you give all the water to some people and leave me here with ten miles to go on my donkey for just one drop.
-by Antoine Exavier from Parabola

General Death shows up several minutes later, and upon revealing his identity, the poor man gave him as much water as he wanted. The story ends with General Death sparing the man another day from his scheduled departure from earth...

I guess I'm thinking of this because this story doesn't give you an answer for what happens when you die. It marks the inevitability of death and the acceptance people seem to have about its mystery. While I'll continue to enjoy hearing about other people's ideas and thoughts on what happens when you die, I think I'm with the water-deprived that there's nothing to know but perhaps some perspective to be gained. Of course, the tale does insinuate that Gd specifically gives to some and not to others... that is the choice of a Creator of any kind, I suppose... I'm not entirely devoted to this idea. I'd like to think, if Gd exists, that there hasn't been direct giving since the order and chaos of the cosmos was set in motion... a little deist, but, it's the only theory I tend to share aloud.