Column thoughts on Thomas and the afterlife and this life

I took a few days after Easter to visit our daughter and son-in-law. while there, i went to a large WWI exhibit at University of Texas.So much death was visited upon the world in that senseless struggle. My eye was caught by an old filmed piece by the author of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle. He lost a son to the carnage of the war. Well before that, the author of the cerebral, logical Holmes was fascinated by spiritualism. My mind rocketed back to the civil War carnage and Mary Todd Lincoln’s interest in trying to converse with the dead through a spirit medium. Not long after the war The Gates Ajar was an enormously popular depiction of heavne as an extension of Victorian-era domesticity.

While in Austin the book and movie Heaven Is For Real was featured at a trivia contest.It dawned on me that many churches are reading the “Doubting Thomas” John 20 passage.  this Sunday. Too often that passage has been used as a hammer to slam Thomas. He is a foil to show how great we are who accept Easter accounts. Far too often, doubting Thomas gets used to try to halt people questioning ro struggling with a point of doctrine or practice. Notice that Thomas was the only one not ot have an appearance by Jesus at first. Notice also that Jesus does not seem to criticize Thomas. Thomas is given what the disciples received earlier in the week. Even the phrase, doubting, is not quite right. it is much closer to believing or disbelieving in English.

In the Genesis stories of the patriarchs, Jacob, after wrestling with a mysterious figure, is given the name Israel. it has been translated as wrestling with God.In that sense thomas was a true child of Israel, struggling to grasp the enormity of Easter. When Jesus gives a  summary of the command to love God, he adds the words to love God with the mind. So instead of blind faith, loving God with the mind would seem to include questions, doubts, and hypotheticals.

It is striking to me that the folks who decry Thomas demanding some sort of evidence for Easter flock to material such as reports of near death experiences. The motive seems to be the precise motive of Thomas, evidence, even tangible proo of an experience of life after death. While discounting vast troves of scientific evidence on evolution or climate change, skepticism turns into utter credulity in the face of out of body experiences, especially if they conform to our current dreams of heaven.

Over the years, i have done a number of bible studies in centers for the elderly. When i give them a chance to examine a question of the faith, they often center around the afterlife. In particular, they are seeking some assurance that they will truly see their loved ones and be truly seen  by them. As Springsteen sings in The Wall, “if your eyes could break through this black stone/would they recognize me?” I empathize with the quest, with my brother long gone and my mother a few years passed. Memory is a salve, and at times, we are hurtled back into time by a song or a hint of fragrance.

Perhaps heaven will be a version of the movie What Dreams May Come, where we create a vision of bliss. Our visions of heaven are colored by our own culture, desires, and missed and made steps on the ladder of life. The Bible gives but glimpses of a future in the great beyond, and perhaps that is a way for us to project our best dreams. In the end, how do we even begin to try to express being enfolded in the love of God forever?