[A word about the title: I was a teacher for almost seven years till wind on my sails changed direction and became a full time researcher and was known as Philip. After a few years in North Carolina, couple of U.C.C. alumni joined the better living conditions of North Carolina and I became Philipsaar. After a few more years the few remaining hairs are tuned grey and I am known as Philip uncle. If I am uncle then all younger generations must be my nieces and nephews. You can substitute your relatives and friends where I referred to my departed souls.]

This may sound odd for me to address you all, to some for the first time, to others a bit surprise. I too am surprised at my audacity talking about a subject I am not supposed to and should be left to the clerics and Elders. There I may have a claim as an elder and not as an Elder.

A family gathering has many functions some of which are obvious and some are actually taking place without anybody’s notice. For example a marriage function, on the surface is a time for having good time with our relatives while the hidden aspect of it is heal and patch up frictions in the family which is quite natural to occur in any family. Similarly a funeral in a family is to mourn for the loss of the dear ones, a much deeper experience occurs without being conscious of it. Here I am referring to what psychologists explain as putting an end of grieving process and experiencing another phase of our connection to the departed ones. Here I am who missed a whole lot of this family thing and a lot of time on my hand, started to think a lot about all these things and I assume that some of my musing may be of help some of you and others can hit the delete button and forget about this.

When Kunjumon, Ammai, Appachan, and Achachan left us for their eternal resting place I did not spend a lot of time thinking about their departure, as the environmental pressures kept me going with limited time to ponder over things which are not immediately affecting my life. Now after the death of kochichayan, Appachan (Ramani’s father) and I am retired, I have a lot of time on hand to think about them as well as the process by which we all will join them at sometime sooner or later.

My topic for this discussion is death and how we deal with it. All religions tell us that we all feel sad for they are leaving us. Jesus was ‘deeply moved’ when He saw Mary weeping at the loss of her brother (John 11:33, 38). It is appropriate and good (psychologically) to feel sorrow at the death of someone close to us. The New Testament teaches us about the other side of death. Jesus tells us those who have suffered in this life will be rewarded with a seat at Abraham’s side (Luke 16:22) and of course the early fathers of our church incorporated that analogy in our evening prayer when we entreat God for the departed to be seated allegorically in the lap of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jesus promised the repentant thief, ‘today you will be with me in paradise’ (Luke 23:43) after his death. Jesus told His disciples that He is going to prepare place for them after His death (John 14:1). St. Paul talks about death as transformation of our life in Christ into spiritual experience after death. All these tell us of a continued life after death.

There are more assuring words I could quote from the Holy Bible, but that would be only ‘knowledge’. Knowledge is not very helpful unless it can assimilate into our life in such a way that guides us in our search for the meaning of life. Knowledge is something which takes it for granted or accepts because it has a past and is a proven or discarded idea. But when comes to faith, ‘it is the assurance of thing to come’. A meeting of knowledge and faith is what we need when we search for ‘things to come.’ ‘Death is a subject which requires this combination. Even in pure scientific search we use this concept. Scientist proposes a concept based on his past knowledge and then suggest an outcome based on faith. This is exactly what I am trying to do in the following section.

Before we examine the death experience in the New Testament pages, it would be worth while to look at the concept of death and the life after death in Old Testament (the term resurrection contains more meaning in the New Testament period than before). We can observe a disjointed growth of the concept about life after death. From the stern warning against consulting with the dead through mediums (Lev. 19:3, 20:2-6) and using the food offered to the dead as tithes to the Holy Sanctuary in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. However we see Saul engaging the witch of Endor to talk to Prophet Samuel and we see Samuel was annoyed of being brought back to earth from his peaceful and tranquil rest after his death (1Sam.28:15). At the same time we see a description of Sheol where dead are supposed to be as the author of Ecclesiastes puts it ”Whatever your hands to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going (Ecc.9:10).” The Psalmist appears to be in conflict as to the life in Sheol. It appears a state inactivity such as remembering and praising God in Sheol (Psalms. 6:5) as opposed to living in the house of the Lord forever (Ps.23:6b). The life in Exile was a watershed experience for the Jewish Nation and a point in history where Monotheism was accepted with exclusion of all other deities from the Jewish people. The question of life after death appears to be a point of argument even during the time Jesus (see Sadducees and Pharisees).

Even in the New Testament it appears to have some statements with conflicting meaning. Jesus assures the repentant thief (criminal, robber) that he will be with Jesus Christ in Paradise today. That assurance is immediate and not for a later time after storing the soul in some place till the glorious Second Coming as if in a suspended animation. I am not going to cite every citation in concordance to Bible. However let me digress a bit to have a peep at what Fathers of the early Church summed up in Orthodox Faith. In our public worship (Holy Qurbana and in our daily prayers we believe that along with the departed we offer to the glory of God the praise and petitions. We live in a community with the departed on this side of a thin screen and we join with them and/or they join with us when we offer ourselves in worship. As a regular practice whenever I take part in the Sunday morning worship in the congregation I visualize the company of our family members taking part in the worship facing us on the other side of the “Thronos”. And I feel comforted by their presence and prayers through Jesus Christ Who is mediating and pleading for me and for them to God.

It is like a three way conversation with Jesus in the middle and we the present congregation (including people who are near and far away who have been connected to me through the ‘Life-bond’ and the departed congregation, for me that consists of people who are connected to me through ‘Life-bond’ and who have asked to remember them at special occasions (like prayers) and also whom I want to remember me in their prayers. That is, for me, what the author of letter to the Hebrews describes as “great cloud of witnesses”. So in that vast cloud of witness I could easily see the immediate family and other relatives and friends and others whose company I cherish, and will be able to communicate with them. In addition, I communicate with people who have shown great courage, wisdom and above all the love God in their life as an example for me and others whom we call the community of saints.

Here I may have created confusion by referring to communication. I do not mean literarily speaking with dead people. This needs some explanation. St. Paul speaks of earthly and spiritual bodies and death as a separation. The earth is bound by laws of time, space, gravity, magnetic field etc. When we are in the earthly body we have to obey the rules governed by these laws. However when somebody shed the earthly body and have only the spiritual body he can communicate with us who still have both earthly and spiritual bodies together through spiritual language. In order to grasp some aspects of this spiritual body and its language we need to think differently from the ordinary conversation and the instrument we use for it- the language. We have a glimpse of this language at the ‘Mountain Top’ experience of Peter, James and John. Here Jesus is engaged in conversation with Elias and Moses while the disciples were listening. He gospels go out of the way to explain why Peter and company did not converse with the people departed from them some centuries earlier, because they were afraid.

I like to introduce a term which is not often used as it should in the modern Christian parlance. The word is THEOSIS. This comes from the Greek word ‘theos’ means God and it encompasses the idea of becoming like God (or becoming God). God created humans in His image with all the glory of that creation. However we are fallen from that stage to a corrupted image and in order to wipe out the blemish from the human face (race) and to bring us back to that original state is the purpose of incarnation of Christ. ‘He became man that we might become divine’ (St. Athanasius). All religions and religious philosophers agree on one aspect of nature of Godhead i.e. human mind cannot comprehend the essence of the ultimate reality, however many different models have been proposed. For us the Christians the ultimate image and goal is Jesus Christ. Perhaps because of the difference of the philosophical sources from which Eastern and Western churches derived their theological arguments they visualize the nature of Godhead slightly different. Though both East and West agree on the incomprehensibility of God by human mind the West believe as the great Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas puts, the human mind can have a direct, unmediated intuitive vision of the essence of God (Theoria). On the other hand fathers of the eastern tradition teaches us though the essence of God is beyond the limits of human mind, the creation (including the human race) can participate in God’s creative energies.

Orthodox Fathers put the emphasis on Theosis (becoming like God or deification) rather than Theoria (vision of the essence of God). What all these Greek terms means to us? From the very moment of our birth in Christ (baptism), we are put under the saving Grace of Christ and we are in an eternal process of growth as Christ taught us to” be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”. Thus what is the Theosis for us and our dear departed. To me they are in that process of perfection as St. Paul puts it “and we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” In short the path we started here on earth is just the start and goes on to eternity with Christ. Therefore, what ever means we employ to enrich the spiritual lives ours and our beloved ones (prayers and supplications for us offered by them as well as we for them) while we are on earth will definitely enrich our lives and by our prayers and supplication will give an added grace in their growth to perfection. {A poetic summary of this concept is included in Sunday morning prayers (Sleeba prabhatha prardhana)

Now let me talk in plain language and simplify the philosophical terminologies. Our beloved departed ones (this company can be as big as at time when they were present on earth and across the time span like the company of Elias and Moses to Peter James and John and includes with much higher ‘degree of glory’- whom we call Saints). This can be like when we pray for our needs as well as for others and as we request others to pray for us. The main difference is that they are on the other side of the veil- i.e. the separated by death. On Sunday morning worship, when I partake in Holy Qurbana, which is offered by and for both the living on this side and the departed on the other side as a remembrance of the great Sacrifice on the Mount Calvary, a prayer of supplication for the whole humanity and the whole Creation, I see the company of my departed loved ones and they join with me in the worship- Achayan, Ammai, Achachan, Appachan, Ammachi et. Al., including St. Gregorios my parish Saint and other giants in faith.

Philip uncle

[Please send your comments, if any, to aphilip@nc.rr.com]