Wings? I Mean, Really...
Having just attended a Catholic funeral service last week, I can, with certainty say that I do not believe in the same afterlife as Christians. I don’t for a minute believe that there are beings with wings coming out of their shoulder blades waiting for us in some sort of pretty place in the clouds. I don’t think we work off our sin in Purgatory before we get there. And I definitely don’t believe that we have to be baptized, and therefore cleansed, from some kind of original sin. It’s actually quite astonishing to me that some people believe all of those things without question...

But it’s easy to state what I don’t believe, and a much more difficult thing to consider that which I do believe. I believe that something could happen after we die. After all, something happens each morning after we go to sleep – we wake up. Why couldn’t something similar happen after we die?

Perhaps what is most significant to me about my feelings with regard to an afterlife is the very uncertainty of saying, “Why not?” I wouldn’t place all my chips on something of which I was uncertain. Instead, I try as much as possible to involve myself in the “now.” And it sure as hell wouldn’t hurt to try and develop some good karma in the “now” while I’m here…