Dear Pneuma,
I was wrestling with some thoughts yesterday, and I want to share some of my conclusions with you. I really value your insight when it comes to such matters, and I know you will not hesitate to share your own thoughts with me. I was sitting in a coffee shop, and I was watching people at their tables. I was feeling really strong and happy. What came into my mind was this:"NOTHING CAN DESTROY MY LIFE. I am indestructible. Christ in me is to live." Now, you may know that I was baptised two years ago, so I relate to God as a Christian, but I realize that you do not, so I hope you will hear my ideas as ideas, and feel free to engage with them in a manner suited to your own beliefs.

I had just come from church, and that thought, "nothing can destroy my life," seemed so clicheed. I mean, every week some Christian is shouting the same thing, and yet, I have never spoken with anyone that expressed exactly what that claim of indestructibility means. What's more, I've never been "lifted out of my pain" when someone has held the promise of eternal life before me. Everyone I know is pretty clear that anyone of us may be killed in a car wreck at any moment. Isn't that destruction? Many of us have lost someone close, or something precious. Isn't that destruction? I even know people so closed off from human contact that they have no real relationships. Isn't that destruction?
When a preacher says "eternal life," I reach for ideas like heaven-or-hell, death-and-resurrection, personal gain-or personal loss. In that framework, I find myself swimming in guilt that I do not have enough faith. I still feel and fear. I still want to hold on to breathing and to my loved ones. I still want to eat, dance, drive, play, work and be alive in the world. I am filled with terror at the thought of losing any part of this life, and I believe that it is right and good to care enough for my world to feel fear for it and to dread its loss. Compassion makes no sense otherwise.

So, is this promise of Christ, this indestructibility, that "I" will never feel pain? Is this promise of Christ that "I" won't end someday? Does this promise of Christ mean that no one "I" know will ever die, or does it mean that "I" shouldn't feel bad when someone does, because she is in a "better world" with God? If "I" feel pain in disappointment or loss, does it really mean "I" do not believe in Christ? Is it simply "Christ in me" that leads "me" to a comfortable life in a nice house and leaves a child in an abusive home?
I know many that do not believe in Christ. They live in comfortable homes. I know many that believe in Christ. They are daily betrayed by people they love, so my understanding of "eternal life," of "indestructibility" cannot mean that we feel no pain. It also cannot mean that we won't die.

I know the truth of Christ as an experience of the eternal time that is life-without beginning, without end, and, in some paradoxical way, both embedded in and completely separate from physical existence. It is true that nothing, ever, can deny me. I am. I was a will be. I will be a was. Without proof, without document, without a known purpose, or an understood goal, I am, and whatever I am, whoever I am, whyever I am, all that comes into conversation with me prooves my being separate from whatever else is. That 'being' is not touched by loss, pain, desire, worry, or even action. Even were I to stick needles with heroin into my arms, even if I were to do so unto my death, I was, I am, I will be. Taking that thought into my entire being is the most frightening and most liberating knowing I have experienced.

Hmm. That's as far as I can go for now. I hope this letter finds you well. I hope you know how much you mean to me. Take care of you and yours,

Cobalt Dreams