Mortal Body, Immortal Soul: Thinking About Easter

I was raised Catholic, and Easter was always a big deal, even a bigger deal than Christmas. I mean the possibility of rising from the dead is way more appealing than the virgin birth. I mean who cares if your Mom was a virgin? But cheating death, now you're talking! This is what everybody wants, something we can all agree on.

I mean let's forget for a minute how weird the story is. I mean, he gets up physically and in his body, scars and all, he ascends to heaven on a cloud. A testimony to how attached people are to their bodies, I suppose. They want to live forever, in their current bodies. But why would you need a body in heaven? I can see it now: millions of souls and one body.

And I have to think even in biblical times, people were clear that clouds are not magic carpets. But maybe not.

Be that as it may. The amazing bottom line is that people don't believe in the eternity of their souls. They believe in death.

Now I personally believe in death, of the body. Every body. Everything physical is coming or going. But the soul knows itself as enduring. Why is this so hard for people to see?

Inside the experience of physical being, I'm every bit as fearful as the little mouse that spends its life trembling in terror. As a physical being, I don't want to die. And I'm really worried about being hurt. It's bad enough to die, but to die in agony, horrible!
This fear of physical death persists in spite of my personal certainty that the soul lives on when the body dies. I think this aversion to suffering and death simply comes with the territory. I tend to find serenity suspicious. It's great when it's convenient. But faced with an immediate threat, the instinct to fight or flight kicks in. Even Jesus suffered in the garden of Gethsemane.

So me, I have a mortal body and an immortal soul.