Opinion: What does your faith tradition teach about death and the afterlife? csindy.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from csindy.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Sarah Bender - Buddhist
Sarah Bender is a Roshi (senior teacher) in the Koan Zen Buddhist tradition. She is a resident teacher for Springs Mountain Sangha, a Zen community in Colorado Springs (smszen.org).
If a soul is a shard of the great light that animates the body it inhabits during a lifetime, clearly it shines through animals as through humans. What happens after death? I donât know. Time and physical space donât seem to be obstacles to this light. It seems to live on in everyone and everything a being has touched, spreading like ripples, wider and wider. At someoneâs death, I am always struck by the dual nature of it. It seems ordinary. Hereâs a live person (or animal), hereâs a person in transition, beyond life. Not breathing. And yet. an impenetrable mystery. Where is she? Where did he go? How is it that I can, almost physically, feel that I am now carrying some of him/her?
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Julia McKay - Unitarian Universalist
Rev. Julia McKay is the minister of High Plains Church Unitarian Universalist and a professional spiritual companion dedicated to embodied life practices that enhance our deepest ways of knowing.
Does it make a difference if the government has a state-endorsed religion or a âpreferredâ but not officially sanctioned faith? What about nations with no official religion? Or those adverse to religion? A state religion is often about who is granted civil rights, e.g., who has legal status, what âin groupâ is granted benefits over âothers.â Christianity was usurped by Constantineâs Roman Empire only when the faith began to gain massive social power. So, was the contemporary ban on Muslim travelers to the U.S. because Islam is the faith most often backed by governments worldwide? Isnât the deeper question really about what dangers we face when the power of government aligns with the power