FAITH: Immortality

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.

--C. S. Lewis, From The Weight of Glory.

One thought that really struck me during a Bible Study at the Katrina volunteer center was that people are immortal. I can't say it any better than Lewis. I'll only add some thoughts from Rick Warren. When a person's dying, they don't want or find comfort in being surrounded by their old trophies. Those are just thihngs, things that rust and break and are so easily erased from memory by time. In their dying moments, people want to be surrounded by the people they care about. People are what matter. I should be more concerned about investing time in people. These choices and relationships have eternal implications and deserve the effort and time that are due.