Excellent Sullivan Reader email...

A Sullivan reader emails...

Pascal notes, then asks:

When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after--memoria hospitis unius diei praetereuntis--the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I take fright and am amazed to see myself here rather than there: there is no reason for me to be here rather than there, now rather than then. Who put me here? By whose command and act were this place and time allotted to me?

The answers that make sense to me now are: no one, and by no command. When I was young, I believed in God and I was terrified of death. When I was in my late teens, I realized: there is no God. It was a hot summer's night. I was laying in bed. And a deep sense of calm washed over me. There would be no me, and thus I need have no fear for that person who would not be. That freed my life from fear. I stopped asking 'who'--a human question if there ever was one. Pascal describes a feeling that I still feel. It's called the sublime. Existence is sublime. I am here in this time and place, and I have no fear.

Nail on the head, really.    Some people like to deal with the inevitability of death by believing (hoping?) that their loved ones are "happy somewhere, looking down on us."    Frankly the thought of that freaks me the hell out.  But if it helps you through your difficult times I take no issue. 

I do believe, however, that the finite nature of life and non-existence of death can breed a better moral society than one which should supposedly live in fear of an almighty judgment or an eternal life loaded with forgiveness.   For the judgment line, this would appear rather disingenuous; as if to say you only act just and morally because you're being watched.   Where's the integrity in that?    The forgiveness line opens the door for the lawless behavior of the Catholic hierarchy, who deem the sexual abuse and emotional handicapping of children as a "forgivable" offense.  

But if this is it?  A finite existence with no judgment or forgiveness to speak of?  One thinks that should gives us all the more reason to do what's right with the small space and time we've been afforded.