Jon Kabat-Zinn, the creator of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction, was interviewed by Oprah and was unexpectedly asked, “Jon, what do you think about life after death?”.
Jon replied, “Oprah, I have virtually no interest in the question of life after death; I’m interested in the question of whether there’s life before death.”
He went on to say in a recent interview.
“What often passes for life is… a driven automaticity that disregards your own beauty, never mind the beauty of others and nature.
This took my breath away, and not in a good way.
The next life.
Much of my early spiritual formation had me focused on the next life. I got “saved” to avoid punishment in the next life. My foundation of what was meant to be the greatest love relationship with Love personified was based on my avoiding eternal conscious torment and never making a false move to continue to avoid it. It became a spiritual life lived on defense.
When I think of this spiritually, I’m encouraged to view this life as essentially horrible compared to the next one. Anyone who passes from this life is in “a far better place” (we say that all the time at funerals). As a result, I envisioned this life as merely a disappointing waiting room for the next life when real goodness kicks in.
An aspect of my spiritual upbringing was to warn me that I shouldn’t put too much stock in this life as it would tempt me to overvalue it and draw me away from complete investment in the next one.
But wait. Christians believe eternal life begins now. Once we become “saved,” a seamless timeline stretches into eternity from here. Our soul never dies. And yet much of my early understanding encouraged me to separate or bifurcate the experience of life into a first part of around 80 years that’s dirty, foul, and has nothing to celebrate, and a second eternal part that is the good stuff. Until that great day of my dying, I simply circle the airport and await the someday reality of going to the good times. Sure, there are glimpses and even blessed trials that are where all the good development of my faith really happens, but I mostly just want out of here. Can we just study Revelation, pastor?
One major hurdle to this view is Christ’s own words. Christ said he came to give us life and life to the full. Shouldn’t it be that we live as one who inhabits that fullness now? And embrace discussion and experience of it? Without competition or shame?
So many forces try to suppress our lived experience. Whether it’s life’s challenges or systems within the world that make demands of performance to arrive at our worth, this is made worse because some of them are interwoven with spiritual inspiration that is mostly helpful. These voices of my formation did do loads of good. So it’s complicated.
Whether it was intended or not, I’ve gotten the sense that it’s reckless and selfish to enjoy this life. You may think this is an overstatement, and to make my point, perhaps it is, but it’s merely the exaggerated expression of what we quietly feel or have been taught. If you enjoy this life, you’ll struggle to forsake it for the next. But aren’t there compatible elements in this life that we actually won’t release going into the next?
The way we’ve been taught
We must admit that much of our understanding of living life is informed by being a good worker. Dithering about for the systems we serve. Even though life to the full is what we’re promised, we’ll only enjoy a break after we’re sufficiently exhausted. We won’t indulge in the joys of this life because hardship exists for others. I mean, how dare we smile when sadness exists?
Informed by what it means to be a good, productive citizen our aim is to move through our day as expeditiously, conservatively, and productively as possible. These goals sometimes crush our lived experience at the moment, but never mind that we’re after the approving gaze of an inner Pharaoh calling us to make more and more bricks. We will someday cross that river Jordan and get to the promised land — but for now, earn your keep. We’re still slaves of our own making, for some reason.
We need convincing to live life before death. We actually always have. It shouldn’t be any wonder that the most verbose of the commandments is regarding a day of rest. To stop rest and delight. Our reluctance to rest is an effort to create our worth that we already have, gain approval that grace gifted us, and earn our right to breathe the air we we were gifted in the garden.
A trip for coffee
We were on vacation, and I was tasked with going for coffee. I happily do this as I rather like being engaged with other warm-blooded mammals. IF that makes me an extrovert, we may need to work on definitions. But I digress.
I entered an Italian-owned, themed, and fully vibed coffee place. It smelled magnificent and was serene and washed in hushed conversations of relaxed couples and lone customers sitting at hopelessly quaint tables.
I ordered our drinks and slid to the waiting area of the counter. The drinks arrived, and to my horror, they were made for what the cafe was expecting: someone who would sit, sip, chat, and live life. What I needed was coffee prepared for a person who was going to bolt, drive away, get on the road, and get things done. I sheepishly asked for them to be made to go. They dutifully adapted my order, but the contrast of the two offerings is telling. (Picture below)
The initially prepared drinks are gorgeous. A big, frothy, inviting, and flavor-filled offering teeming with an invitation to a slowed-down experience. The remade-to-go drinks are a sterile paper cylinder, plastic-capped cliche. The flavor pressed through a joyless sip slot. It gets the job done. It imparts caffeine and flavor in the strictest means of delivery. We went from a flavor banquet inside an Italian bistro to an IV caffeine drip on wheels. We saved around 15 minutes, probably.
Not every coffee order puts me at a crossroads in evaluating what we’ve become, but this one did. I drove back to our hotel and handed the coffees off to the awaiting hands of my family. Only I knew what we’d sacrificed to get on the road quicker. Life before death.
Be well, Feral Souls.