Dearest Rachel –
For the life of me, I can’t remember the thoughts you had about the concept of eternity, of the infinite. I’m pretty sure I can remember your roommate and maid of honor Elizabeth, speaking of how the thought would keep her up at night when she was a child, fearful about the fact that she couldn’t grasp the concept of time and life going on forever. The sheer scale of it apparently overwhelmed her.
And I suppose that, if you tried to take all of it in at once, it could seem like an eldritch horror from a certain perspective. The concept of visible space (let alone infinite space, which we’re technically unable to actually view, since the edges of it – from our perspective – are moving away from us at nearly light speed, despite already being billions of light years away from us) is enough to dramatically remind us about how small we are in comparison. We’re tiny enough in the midst of a crowded city; when you expand the circle around us to the size of our state, our country, our world, we just get that much smaller – and then we have to take in the fact that our earth is a dust speck in comparison to the solar system in toto, which is in turn all but invisible were we able to contemplate the entire Milky Way in a single glance (and imagine how far we would have to be away from it in order to do so!). I could go on, as the universe does, but you get the picture.
Now, I assume that you already have that picture – as you walk on the other side of that three-dimensional version of infinity that we can at least take in to a small extent – better than I do. Indeed, I’m fairly certain that you’ve transcended the dimension of time as well, so even if your physical nature that is set to be resurrected and glorified at the end of days remains dormant for now, your spirit is capable of being anywhen as well as anywhere; it’s why I keep asking for you to keep watch over us, because I believe you could be able to. It’s even possible that you’re able to take in and transcend several dimensions beyond our ability to comprehend in this life, for all I know.
And unlike Elizabeth, who found that intimidating to the point of terrorizing, I wish I could know more about it, and I’m sorry I can’t hear from you on the matter.
But I will say that, while I get how it can be scary to wrap our heads around how small we are against infinite space, I can’t fathom why temporal eternity ought to be so terrifying. After all, when we’re young, we find ourselves doing things with such energy and exhilaration that we think that we could keep doing them forever. Of course, time and exhaustion eventually catch up with us, and we realize that every day comes to an end, and we can’t keep this pace up forever. At the same time, we don’t let go of the wish, the dream to be able to continue like this forever. I think this is the point where we have the best grasp, or maybe the healthiest view of eternity. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Jesus spoke so highly of the faith of a child.
Not that adolescents are much different; while we take one day at a time, and slowly learn to plan for future events, we still tend to think of ourselves as virtually immortal at that point. Just like our child self, we often think that our days will be like they are on into the foreseeable future, even as we make certain specific plans for this or that day yet to come. This isn’t always a healthy attitude, as we tend to take risks that could likely serve as a harsh lesson that no, we most definitely are not, at least from an earthly standpoint. You and I both had high school yearbooks with at least one picture in it that had a set of dates after the student’s name, as a reminder that life, even at that age, isn’t as unbreakable as we would like to think. But the point remains that, for the most part, we done treat eternity, ladled out in its daily increments, as something to be afraid of.
It’s only once we reach adulthood that eternity becomes something to dread. It may be the workaday grind that crushes our souls; could we imagine, could we endure dealing with that forever? There’s a reason the Lord commanded that we take a break every seventh day from it all; we can’t take a never-ending string of such days.
And then, of course, there comes a point when we find ourselves so tired, so wracked with the pain that comes of age, that every task, every day, sees us with the attitude of ‘let’s get this over with’ so we can move on to the next one – which isn’t any better than the one before; in fact, it’s just as likely to be that much worse. At that point, to see eternity like that as terrifying is more than understandable, it’s expected. If anyone actually looked forward to an infinite existence as a decrepit old husk, it would be reason for their head to be examined thoroughly. But as a child? It doesn’t make sense to fear, especially when time is given to us in the time-released form that it is.
But that’s just how I see it, honey. I wish you could read and respond to me about these questions; that you could speak with me about eternity, and address the fears and concerns we all have about what we don’t know enough. But I suppose that, with too much knowledge, there would be no faith, now, would there?
In any event, honey, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 