Thoughts on... The Fountain of Youth

"You don't have a Soul. You are a Soul.
You have a body."

- C.S. Lewis

The first time I read that, it struck me, "You know, he's right... I am a soul walking around in a body... I'm wearing my body." What an absolutely strange and slightly uncomfortable thought... "I wear a body..." Gives me the creeps just thinkin' about it! I'm so used to thinking my body is what makes me... well... me.

A dear friend of mine gave me the movie, "What Dreams May Come" a couple Christmas' ago now. It's an interesting movie actually. If you've never watched it, it's about a man and his wife - it's a love story and it takes place on earth, heaven and hell. Basically, they lose their kids to a car accident, then the husband (Chris) is killed in a car accident, after which, the wife is so distraught she commits suicide. As you watch the plot unfold, you see Chris skipping around in the heaven of his dreams and it is there he learns Annie (his wife) has inadvertently stuck herself in her own private hell. When Chris finds out Annie's dead and living a nightmare, he decides he's willing to give up heaven and literally go through hell to go and get her.

Anyhow, there's an "angel" that accompanies Chris on his journey and as I sat there listening to their conversation, there was one segment that particularly struck me. The angel is trying to explain heaven to Chris because Chris doesn't understand (or believe) where he is at first. Chris sees the "angel" do impossible things and the angel tells him he too has these abilities, he just has to let go of what he believes is true (like gravity, breathing, physical limitations, etc.) When Chris is finally convinced he's actually in the Great Beyond, he becomes conflicted about what makes him... him. The angel proceeds to ask him if he thinks it's his brain, and then goes on to point out that his brain is only physical matter... cells, just like the rest of our bodies - does his brain make him who he is, or is it something more? What makes us who we are?

If we really aren't our bodies... if we really are souls that only wear bodies, it makes perfect sense why we want to physically live as long as we can. I think the human race tends to focus on what we see - we see our bodies, we don't see our souls. Sure enough - our bodies eventually wear out and it's 100% a certainty that each one of us is going to buy the farm one of these days (that is, unless we are among the raptured), all because our bodies wear out. But do our souls wear out?

Mortal man has always endeavored to extend life. From the Fountain of Youth to the quest for the Holy Grail to Estee Lauder's Advanced Night Repair - since the beginning of time, humans have been on the lookout for the "magic pill" that will bestow immortality or eternal youth. Why? Why this obsession with life, with youth? You want to know my theory? I think it's because we were created to live on an eternal timeline.

I can't say my theory is scientific - it's not (anything scientific has to be proven scientifically and in order to do that, you have to duplicate an experiment and obtain the same results, which means I'd have to die, live eternally and then come back to tell you I had lived forever, but then, forever is forever, so I'd never be able to come back to tell you because forever doesn't end... to make matters even more mind-boggling, I'd have to do that at least twice in order to claim it as being scientific and since I wouldn't be able to do that even once, well... it'll just have to remain a theory)... but, I want to know, why then is it we all want to live forever? Really, think about it for a minute. What makes almost every single person that has ever lived on planet earth either want to extend their life as long as they can or reverse the degeneration of their bodies?

Of course, people don't come back from being dead and even those who have claimed to have "near death" experiences only have "near death" experiences, not "complete death" experiences... so it's hard for those of us who are left behind to understand what goes on after we die since no one has ever seen it, experienced it, or have come back to tell the rest of us about it. But if you take a look at how we are made, look at the delicate workings of our bodies, at the incomprehensibly complex fashion of how our bodies work, then all roads point to something bigger... something more... something else...

What makes our heart beat? What causes our brains to create thoughts, memories, directives, dreams, hopes, etc.? Like the angel in the movie, is our brain really what makes us who we are, or is it just an incredibly complex piece of physical matter that was created to help direct these bodies we live in? Do we die when our brains no longer function, or are we forced to shed our bodies to travel on to another place?

Scary. Strange. Bizarre. Uncomfortably eerie. Frightening. Yes, I think death looks this way to all of us, to some extent. Crossing into the literal unknown can make even bravest of men fainthearted and cowardly. But therein lies the very reason why we should be actively seeking the Truth: eternity is forever - don't bet against Jesus.

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For anyone who is interested, Friends Church in Yorba Linda is hosting a lecture series on Biblical Prophecy this weekend, August 30 and 31, 2008. Topics will include what the Bible says about the end of days, WWIII, and the Anti-Christ.

Log onto http://www.ylfc.org/ for more information.