Tuesday, October 27, 2009

FREE SPIRITS

    I was sitting in my car, at an intersection, waiting for the light to turn green, when I glanced over towards the passenger side of the car and noticed a cemetery.
    In the last few years that I've lived in this part of town, I must have passed this way hundreds of times, but never noticed this very small, inconspicuous cemetery next to a BP gas station.
   The headstones looked old fashioned and were darkened with crud like old brick buildings get that need to be power washed.
    I also noticed there were no flowers on any of the graves, unlike the cemetery a few miles further down the road. That one has flowers on almost all the headstones. Flags everywhere too.
    I’m thinking that the people in this little old cemetery have probably been there sooo long that even their relatives are all dead and are in cemeteries somewhere too.
    I also noticed a sign that read: Hours - Sunrise to Sunset.
    Hmm?
    Being close to Halloween, I immediately thought of ghosts. And that made me think of the afterlife.
    And I do believe that there’s an afterlife. I’m just not sure how it works.
    Here are a few theories.
  1)     You die and go straight to heaven (or hell).
  2)     You die and go into a neutral holding place and wait for Judgment Day.
  3)     You die and that’s it. Nothing more. You were no big deal. Just a blip in time.
  4)     You die and wait in your grave (or urn) until the final Judgment Day.
    Well, that got me thinking.
    What if the last idea is what happens?
    What if all the people in their graves are still there? Waiting?
    Like in this little cemetery?
    And if so, are they just lying and waiting? (Is it laying or lying? I never know.)
    Or are their spirits free to move around while they wait?
    Well, that got me thinking. Perhaps the cemetery sign should read:
          Hours for living people – Sunrise – Sunset
          Hours for dead people – All the time  
                                                                           
Always, Em-Musing

5 comments:

Eileen Astels Watson said...

You made me laugh!! Hours for living people--Sunrise - Sunset!! Too funny!

I guess the sign maker thought that the dead will do whatever they like when they like, since we can't see them anyway!

Linda N.J. Szymanski said...

Very thought provoking!

I have it on credible account, however, that heaven awaits...most of us... and it is marvelous! "You can do anything you want and you feel good!" Those exact words in my father's own voice from a midnight visit one night in my dreams. Of course being a good man, he was not familiar with the other aspects of the hereafter.... I guess we'd better be good or perhaps we could write a postcard, "Just Arrived! Very Hot! Nothing to eat or drink, no views, brick walls everywhere, no one talks, lots of wailing and tears, screaming and pain, much regret here! Washington, D.C. is well represented, half of Wall Street, one guy with his right arm permanently stuck straight out...I think I know who that is!"

I'm going to try and be very good from now on in! Thanks for making me think about that! L.

Anonymous said...

I have another theory. You die, you wait while various forms and paperwork are completed, then you return (in some life form, probably human) to work through all the issues and problems and challenges you shirked in this life out of fear, self-protection, disinterest, cowardice, etc. You repeat this process until you have self-actualized...and then, you die and go to heaven. Which feels remarkably like your last go-round on Earth (or perhaps another planet in our vast galaxy.) Patrice

Karen Baldwin said...

LOL! Thanks for your comments you guys. I guess, the bottom line is, we're all going to find out what really happens one day. Hope it's what I expected.

Karen Baldwin said...

. . .OOPS! I meant to say, hope the afterlife is going to be all that "we" expect, not just what "I" expect. Because if that were the case . . .
Hmm?
Yes, if that were the case?
Hmm?
I'm going to have to ponder that one for awhile.