In Easter season, we often think about those who have gone before us and consider ourselves where we are in our own journey.   What is it that we desire from life?  For that matter, what is it that lives forever with us anyway?  As I considered these things, I realized I was thinking about what I was thinking about!  

Pondering this, I was delighted to find an article from the church by Bishop Willard Pendleton (1970) that speaks to this very dynamic of human life - and asks us to consider whether the way we are thinking (and expressing that thinking) befits the "higher form of life" God has created us to be?  I share it here in the hope that you find it as uplifting and inspiring as I did - connecting it these words of Jesus (of special import this time of year): "because I live, you will live also!"  (John 14: 19)

Love and Peace,

Ethan

To all earthly appearances, people are the product of their physical environment. Thus when the body dies it is assumed that the the person also dies. Yet it is the teaching of Divine revelation that a person, as distinguished from their body, is a spiritual creation, and that in this, people differ from all other created forms. 

For as the Writings insist, a person is not a person because they are endowed with a human figure, but because they possess a capacity which cannot be predicated of any other living form. This capacity is the ability to abstract meaning out of experience; that is, the ability to think rationally concerning the nature and origin of things. And the one who thinks rationally is capable of perceiving that nature is not the cause of itself, and that life is not an inherent property of the dust of the ground. 

But the ability to think rationally is one thing, and the exercise of this ability is another; for such is the nature of truth that it does not compel faith. If it did, a person would not be a person - in that they would not be free to live and believe as they will. Thus those who sink their rational into the sensual, that is, those who confirm themselves against the Divine by means of reasonings from the appearance of self-life, deny God and our spiritual nature. Nevertheless, we can, if we will, see God, and because we can see God we can also be conjoined with Him, and as the Writings state, "Whatever can be conjoined to the Divine cannot be dissipated." *(Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell 435)

From the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg: 

“Within every angel—and within every one of us here—there is a central or highest level, or a central and highest aspect, where the Lord’s divine life flows in first and most intimately. 

It is from this center that the Lord arranges the other, relatively internal aspects within us that follow in sequence according to the levels of the overall Design. This central or highest level can be called the Lord’s gateway (to angels or to us), his essential dwelling within us. 

It is this central or highest level that makes us human and distinguishes us from the lower [forms of life], since they do not have it. This is why we…can be raised up by the Lord toward himself, as far as all the deeper levels of our mind and character are concerned. This is why we can believe in him, be moved by love for him, and therefore see him. It is why we can receive intelligence and wisdom, and talk rationally. It is also why we live forever.”  (Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell 435)