Reflecting on the transitions we have experienced in this congregation over the time I have been here (and before), I was recently drawn to this quote by Kahlil Gibran:

“I want to see written on my grave: I am alive like you, and I am standing beside you. Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you.”

This is so startlingly familiar to readers of Emanuel Swedenborg, I thought the reader would appreciate a comparison.  As you read and reflect on it, may you be similarly upflited at thought that you are even now preparing for your own eternal life!

Love and Peace, 

Ethan

When someone's body can no longer perform its functions in the natural world in response to the thoughts and affections of its spirit (which it derives from the spiritual world), then we say that the individual has died. This happens when the lungs' breathing and the heart's systolic motion have ceased. The person, though, has not died at all. We are only separated from the physical nature that was useful to us in the world. 

The essential person is actually still alive. I say that the essential person is still alive because we are not people because of our bodies but because of our spirits. After all, it is the spirit within us that thinks, and thought and affection together make us the people we are.

We can see, then, that when we die we simply move from one world into another. This is why in the inner meaning of the Word, "death" means resurrection and a continuation of life.  (Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell 445)