Why should we live?
The myth of Enoch haunts us all. To walk in the steps of God and then to be swept up alive. A rapture.
To entirely sidestep being gored. What a deft, lovely movement.
There are several reasons people do live: money, love, fear of death, desperation, an afterlife. But whether these are reasons worth living for---that, I really don't know.
I don't even have an opinion to put forth.
The love of life and religion strikes me, often enough, as simply a measure to ignore or ease the fear of death, the unknown that accompanies and defines death.
But death is remarkably empty, devoid of blame. No one can accuse death of being evil.
It has been stated as being old, powerful, cruel, stinging or sharp---but never evil---because evil implies there is a choice. There is a wonderful thing to be gleaned from this observation: Death is fair, fair because it is inevitable. What distinguishes it from all other variables in this world is that, regardless of form or persuasion, beauty or good, it will come and overtake. Something can be evil, only if there is an alternative. It is this alternative that casts a shadow upon death, this elusive notion of non-death.
Each generation of christians believe that they will be the chosen generation that will be swept up to heaven without suffering the stain and decay of death.
And they die and others are born, hoping. And they die. They are like waves rising out of the ocean floor, reaching the shore and turning to foam. Regardless of heaven or hell, they die.
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