Preparing for death, part 4

While my main point was originally about organizing, planning and getting things in writing - which was just parts 1 and 2 - it feels necessary to give some comfort with that. That seems to be giving us parts 3 through 5.

Reconciling oneself with mortality is an age-old question that makes for a lot of depressing literature, so this is not unreasonable.

There are different levels on which you can be concerned about death. I am assuming most of my readers will also be Mormon, so there should be some agreements on the basics of life after death. We die, our spirits go to the Spirit World, where we can continue to learn and grow. Eventually there is Resurrection and Judgement, but we believe that there are eternal families and eternal progression, and while we all sin, repenting will help us become clean through the Atonement. Also, before that there is the Millennium, where things that didn't work out in our lives can be fixed.

That makes the plan really good, covering everything that you need. The first obstacle could be a lack of faith in that plan, either in its overall reality or that it could actually work out for you or someone you care about. The answer to that is to pray for confirmation.

I can give some help here. I will tell you that our Heavenly Father's plan is real, that Christ did come and fulfilled the requirements of the Atonement. It is a beautiful plan, and the more you look at it the more you see that God is good and loving and can be trusted.

You may feel confirmation as you read that. We can help each other by sharing what we know. Asking through prayer, and getting personal confirmation, is still very important. We need to dig deeper and allow our own light to grow.

Initially my thought for being spiritually comfortable with death was that you should maintain a temple recommend. Our temple attendance teaches us how to be ready for after death, but also the interview process allows us to reflect on how we are doing, and where we can improve.

So maintaining a temple recommend is not a bad answer, but it can be too glib, if that digging deeper doesn't happen.

I just read an article about a state senator who swore at a protester, but the more interesting part happened with a different senator in his reaction. There is a bill in question to extend health care to poor Tennesseans, and those voting against it are all getting subsidized healthcare through the government, but they don't want to extend it to others.

Speaker Ron Ramsey was asked how he could be a Christian and not support the bill (which involves being both hard-hearted and hypocritical).

"I told them my religion is between and me and God, and not them," he said. "And Christ has saved me and I feel like I'm going to heaven, so don't ever, ever question whether I'm a good Christian or not because I'm against this bill."

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/state/tennessee-gop-senator-gives-obscene-response-to-protester

Regardless of the parameters of this specific bill, any question about your compassion and your religion is one to take seriously. There are religions where doctrinally salvation is considered a one-time thing, and that is not what we believe, but even so, the response to being saved should be love for others and a desire to serve them, and not pride.

So my answer to preparing for death here is yes, keep your temple recommend current, go to the temple, but it needs to go deeper than that. Going deeper will involve prayer, scripture study, and pondering, and when you are doing that, specific things will strike you as you need them.

A good starting point is Matthew 25:34-46. Are we feeding the hungry? Clothing the naked? Visiting those in prison? That doesn't just mean paying fast offerings and humanitarian relief offerings. Do we know when people are hurting? Do we help them? Do we judge them?

Charity comes up in the scriptures over and over again, as the most needful and most important thing. If we are not feeling love for others, including outside of the church, that's a good place to start. Section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants is a very good section, but let's look at just this part from verse 45:

"Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and ... then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God"

It occurs to me that there may be another area where death is scary, and that is its lack of finality, because thinking about eternity can be uncomfortable for mortal minds. This can be another area to pray for comfort, but I think also having some assurance that time and space can be filled with good things is valuable. That will relate to next week's topic.