(This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the interaction of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of Conversations with God, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The “New Spirituality” is defined by the author as “a new way to experience and express our natural impulse toward the Divine without making others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.”)

HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY’S BLOG…
* End of life issues are not easy to resolve — unless they are
* Changing our minds about ‘death’
* We think we know “what God wants”…but do we…?
* Beginning a discussion about the most important day of your life

We began in this space yesterday a discussion of end-of-life issues. Mainly, when is it appropriate to consider a person “dead”? This is not an idle question. As I mentioned yesterday, doctors, hospital ethics committees, and the courts are increasingly being asked to decide what the answer is, as our advancing technologies make it more and more challenging for families to do so.
This leads to larger inquiries, of course. What IS “death,” anyway? And who are we? That is, are we mere mortal beings who, after death, simply cease to exist? Or is there Something Larger going on here, a Grander Purpose to all of life, that we are invited to consider as we examine the entire idea of death?
If the latter statement is true, what are those larger considerations? Do they have to do with…

…what we commonly (in most Western cultures) call “God”? What does God want? Wouldn’t this be important to explore as we examine our attitudes toward death?
It is clear to me that the very delicate end-of-life issues that are being discussed more and more at ethics programs such as the one I described here yesterday have to do with our most sacred ideas about Life itself, and, of course, about the end of Life.
The day you die is the most important day of your life. In my book What God Wants, I described humanity’s current understandings around that…

Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for their wonderful life to eventually end, at which time their opportunity to learn and to grow is over and the time to be rewarded or punished for how they have lived begins.
One result of this teaching: Many humans consider that death is a terrible thing, and something to be feared. It’s the End of the Line, the Final Curtain Call, the Closing Bell. Nearly all of the imageries surrounding death are negative, fearful, or sad, not positive, uplifting, or joyful. These imageries pervade our society. A street that goes nowhere is a Dead End. A person who is badly mistaken is Dead Wrong. The spirit who comes to retrieve your soul is The Grim Reaper.
Most people do not want to even talk about death, much less experience it. No one wants to
experience it before he or she has to. People cling to life, sometimes desperately. The survival instinct is the strongest human instinct of all. Our common culture supports survival as the ultimate goal. Even people who want to die are not allowed to.
On the other side of death, many people feel certain, is the Final Judgment. If you have not been good, it’s at this point that you’ll go to hell. Your payment for all of your sins in this way is What God Wants.
Humanity’s list of What God Wants is very long and covers many other areas of human experience not discussed here. That list forms the basis of innumerable civil laws, cultural traditions, social mores, and familial customs that touch all human beings.
So what do you think about what you’re read here? With allowances for a few exceptions in wording here and there, or a slight difference in interpretation, is this basically what you remember being taught about What God Wants?
If it is, you have a lot of company. Millions of people have had the same experience.
Nay, billions.

So long as human beings consider death a disaster rather than a celebration, we will find ourselves flummoxed and perplexed when discussing it — much less when trying to decide whether a person is “dead” or not…which is what doctors, hospitals, and the courts are being asked to decide.
What is needed here if we seek to “unflummox” everyone on this subject is a new perspective on death that throws open a window, letting in some fresh air, and allowing us to come from a whole new place about the process of dying.
On Thursday, a look at some of those new ideas, as brought to humanity in the Conversations with God books.
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