Snow Melt

Ascension

12 ‘Azamat 164 B.E. – Monday, May 28, 2007 about 12:09 am PDT

Memorial Day is for remembering those who have ascended into the next world. I suppose I could use one of the better know euphuisms that refers to physical death, but they don’t express my own view of what happens to the soul after its separation from the body. Death, whether it occurs in times of war or peace, whether it is at the hands of an enemy or a natural result age and cellular degeneration, is something that all humanity shares and experiences. It is something we fear, dread, or look forward to depending on the spiritual and religious beliefs of the individual.

My own view of death, of what happens to the soul after it leaves the body has changed drastically since my childhood. I can remember, as a child, helping my Grandma Newland prepare for the annual Memorial Day visits to the graves sites of relatives scattered across Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. We normally didn’t go as far as Missouri, but Oklahoma and Kansas visits were included in the jaunt every year.

At the beginning of May, Grandma would begin making crape paper flowers to put on the graves. All the departed relatives, whether they were veterans or not received crape paper flowers on their graves; at some of the cemeteries we encountered military ceremonies, which included taps and the firing of guns. At others, there were no ceremonies, not that there weren’t any graves belonging to veterans. You always knew which graves belonged to veterans because they had little American flags sticking in the ground or placed on the headstone.

I remember Grandpa pointing out the gravesites of the World War I veterans. I met a WWI veteran, Uncle Roy, my Grandfather’s brother. I don’t remember Roy speaking of the war. Although I never asked him about it, I wish I had now.

Those trips across Oklahoma and Kansas had a lot to do with my concept of death at the time. Then I accepted, without question, that during the resurrection those bodies would raise from their graves and stand before the Throne of God, waiting the final judgment, waiting to be told whether they were to go to heaven or hell. In my minds eye, I could even see those bodies rising from the grave and walking toward God’s golden throne.

However, my view of physical death, of what happens to the soul afterwards has changed, changed drastically. Now I believe that upon separation from the body, the soul will evaluate the choices made during its so journey on the material plane. The soul will know immediately whether it’s in heaven or hell, but these are states of being not places. Heaven is nearness to God, while Hell is distance from the creator. What we take into the next world are the divine attributes our souls develop in this physical life. If the soul hasn’t developed spiritual attributes than the soul will be crippled, so to speak, in the spiritual world.

God gives us plenty of opportunities to develop spiritual attributes before we ascend into the next world. We can choose to walk the spiritual path and develop those attributes, or we can choose the material road and focus upon the things that satisfy the body and the ego. Our individual choices affect the way our souls enter into the next world, affect whether we enter clothed in the divine attributes with wings to carry us through all the worlds of paradise or naked and helpless, unable to fly, unable to walk through paradise on our own.

On the bright side, we can pray for those who have ascended into the next world. Pray for God to forgive them their sins. Pray for the advancement of their souls. Therefore, on this Memorial Day as we listen to taps or visit the graves of veterans and/or of family, we need to say a prayer for the departed.

Prayer for the Departed

         "O my God! O Thou forgiver of sins, bestower of gifts, dispeller of afflictions!

         "Verily, I beseech Thee to forgive the sins of such as have abandoned the physical garment and have ascended to the spiritual world.

         "O my Lord! Purify them from trespasses, dispel their sorrows, and change their darkness into light. Cause them to enter the garden of happiness, cleanse them with the most pure water, and grant them to behold Thy splendors on the loftiest mount."

'Abdu'l-Bahá, Compilations, Baha'i Prayers, p. 43