When I Die…

When I Die

“When I die do not talk of heaven and forgiveness and redemption. Release me to the cosmos. It is where I belong and where my heart yearns to be. Let me stand on the edge of the galaxy and inhale the splendor that only a creator undistorted by human beings could create.” ~ (Terri Onorato)

If I think too hard about the vastness of the universe it’s overwhelming. When I add to the fact that there are countless galaxies beyond ours and countless more beyond that I fear my brain will explode. A positive side effect of pondering such things is it brings into perspective just how big creation really is. It also makes the god that I learned about in years past appear much smaller and less loving.

God…sigh…who has been so painfully distorted by humans as to become unrecognizable. The truth of this creator long-ago buried between the lines of a book written by humans and reinterpreted ad nauseam by anyone who did not like what they read. A god of rules and regulations and the threat of hell. A god I do not recognize.

To live life under the threat of going to a very bad place when we die is not living at all. We were given life so that we may live and a conscience so that we may live well. Love and hell cannot go hand-in-hand.

Do not call me a sinner. I am a flawed human being with a flawless but imprisoned soul. I do the right thing and I make mistakes. I possess a good side and a dark side. My ego gets the best of me one moment and I feel humbled and unworthy the next. I am all this and more all at once. I am who I was created to be. My choices are a by product not a definition of who I am.

People speak wistfully of meeting their maker upon death. But we meet the creator of all that is every day in every nuance of nature and every person with which we interact. To wait for death for such a meeting is to completely miss the point of being alive.

Contrary to what our ego insists, we no more understand who created us than we do the true depth of the universe or life in the darkest, most inaccessible recesses of the ocean. Our concept of God has been wrapped up in a neat, often legalistic little package adorned in judgement and placed within the pages of a book that no one can agree on.

I will take my chances with the creator I see in the stars and hear in the wind. The creator I meet in the eyes of an old woman and feel in the heartbeat of a sleeping dog. The creator who makes my heart ache and makes it burst as well.

When I die do not talk of heaven and forgiveness and redemption. Release me to the cosmos. It is where I belong and where my heart yearns to be. Let me stand on the edge of the galaxy and step off, taking my chances on the one I know will catch me.