In the end, we die...and are raised to eternal life.

Early riser in Buckland Park, Brighton NY

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth,before the evil days comeAnd the years approach of which you will say,I have no pleasure in them...Before the silver cord is snappedand the golden bowl is broken,And the pitcher is shattered at the spring,and the broken pulley falls into the well,And the dust returns to the earth as it once was,and the life breath returns to God who gave it.  Ecclesiastes 12:1, 6-7.

No matter how carefree the days of youth might be, everyone makes the journey to death at the end of life.  The author of the book reminds us to be mindful of that fact and to judge all in our lives in light of that fact.  His iconic saying is simple, "All is vanity."

All those things which concern me, even worry me, make no difference in my ultimate destination of death.  Why worry?  In the end I die.  In the end Bill as he has existed, no longer exists.  the "life breath" that somehow enlivened my body and soul returns to the Divine One and the flesh (body and soul) expires only to be raised to a new kind of life within the very Divine One.  What that life will be like is impossible to tell.  By definition it is beyond my understanding and imagination.

Even Jesus had to go through this human reality as much as his followers did not want to believe that.  In Luke, as he travels to Jerusalem, he tells them in different ways of his impending death.  They cannot accept that; they are afraid.  Even the Son of Man must experience death, in his case a horrible and public execution and torture.

I am called to keep this reality ever in mind so that my appraisal of my reality is firmly based in the fundamental reality that I come from the Divine One and in death somehow return to the Divine One.