How we leave world

A couple of months ago two people wrote letters concerning obituaries which stated the deceased had gone to heaven. Having more pressing things to do, it has taken a while to respond.

When I read the obits, which I do daily to make sure my name is not in there, I often smile at the way some describe how the deceased departed this earth. The two writers, and perhaps others, apparently do not realize that it is not the body, but the spirit, or soul, of the deceased that is described as departed, transitioned, etc. Jesus was, of course, the first person whose body arose from the grave and was reunited with his spirit, which he had commended to his father at the time of his death on the cross. Other righteous people, already in the grave at the time of Jesus’ resurrection, were also resurrected at that time. The rest of us will have to wait until Jesus returns to have our bodies reunited with our spirits; i.e., to be resurrected.

One of my favorite poems, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” by William Wordsworth, talks about where our spirits come from: “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; the soul that rises with us, our life’s star, hath had elsewhere its setting and cometh from afar; … but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.” The two gentlemen who wrote the opinions apparently missed the verse in Ecclesiastes which says, “Then shall the dust [our bodies] return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who also gave it.”

Incidentally, I am grateful for the First Amendment and the editorial page of the paper. It often provides my entertainment for the day. Sadly, however, sometimes the opinions are so harsh, and often downright cruel, that there is no wonder the world is in such turmoil and hatred. Regrettably, it is not likely that that hatred and turmoil will cease until our spirits have all passed, transcended, etc., and Jesus comes again to put us back together. PAUL J. HANSEN JR.

Sherwood