Another Life? Really?

I like funerals. They sober me up! They always offer an opportunity for me to reflect on what exactly I'm doing in this earthly realm we call living. I often leave funerals with a certain sense of non-accomplishment, the feeling that one has so much work to still do.

When I was a little boy, the sight of a dead body scared me stiff and gave me nightmares. Not anymore. These days I gaze at the gaunt face of a corpse and wonder what they would do differently were they to jerk back to life. I guess we would all be saved were God to allow that. But I suppose He must test our belief and obedience. "They have my prophets and messengers with them. Let them listen to my message," God insists. The merciless helplessness that cloaks a corpse is confounding, to say the least. Indeed, wouldn't we do things differently if we had a come-back chance?

A christian brother of mine recently left his body and saw Heaven. He didn't want to but God sent him back. Incidentally, he lost his very aged mother only last week. "Go and bury your mother," God seemed to say to him. "Children should bury their parents, not vice versa."

The trouble with the soberness that a funeral serves is that it is transient. It doesn't last. No sooner do we leave the ceremony than the hustle and bustle we immediately walk into resets our minds, then our emotions. We are quickly thrust back to the routine of living again. Death with its stark lessons races away from our minds like a crazy Ferrari, and we're subsumed once again in the vain pursuits of life until another funeral bell tolls to serve us another warning we're living the wrong way.

I was at a funeral service yesterday and, as the man of God began to speak, Soberness came to sit near me as she often does.

You see, we all suffer a big mental block concerning the life hereafter. Yes, even we, Christians. I see it in our body language all the time. We are so stuck with the five human senses and the unending razzmatazz they spin that we forget, sorry, disbelieve, that there is an eternity of Heaven or Hell awaiting us. Our body language is like, 'Is there another life? Really?' Brother Job summarised our perplexity when he asked centuries ago, "When a man dies, shall he live again?" The answer to that question is a loud "YES!" from the Bible, and a subtle "NO" from the hearts of the unbelieving, so the latter carry on with abandon.

But yesterday I received a fresh insight from the man of God. I will quote to you no Bible scriptures. You're too used to them to care anymore. I will simply serve you the man's apt allegory of life-after-death. The man, Pastor Joshua Abah of the Living Faith Church, put it this way: "The best reminder that there's a life after death is when we fall asleep, losing all consciousness of who we are and where we are, and then suddenly waking up."

I caught that word yesterday.

I'm sure you've seen the face of a corpse before. Perform this experiment tonight. When your spouse is fast asleep, look at his or her face, then text me tomorrow morning what they looked like. A dead person, trust me! It will nearly frighten you, but don't attempt to wake them up!

Nothing resembles a corpse like a sleeping person: unconscious, lost, exposed, and utterly vulnerable.

I was at a shop in the Ugborikoko market two days ago. The first sight that caught my attention was a fat female body stretched prostrate on the bare shop floor, face up. The first thing I said to the sales girl was, "Please touch that woman and check she's still alive." Believe me, she looked dead, but she awoke at the girl's touch.

I say in one of my books that a person is at their weakest when they're asleep. Every night we die and resurrect, and somebody thinks there's no life after real death. Abeg, tell me anoda thing, jor!

Yesterday, Pastor Joshua reminded us again that we shall all wake up to either of two eternal realities: Heaven or Hell. It is our choice to make. The amazing thing is we have our extremely short earthly lives to prepare for this unending experience that lies ahead of us all. For me it is the most sobering thought of all. I wonder why God made it so.

(Have you read my 2 latest novels, Godly Stranger & Not Born to Live? Hurry! For other articles take this link: https://www.chrisekpekurede.com/blog)