What Happens

AM Psalm 50 • PM Psalm [59, 60] or 114, 115
Exod. 34:1-17 • 1 Thess. 2:13-20 • Matt. 5:21-26

Psalm 115:16-18

The highest heavens belong to the Lord,
but the earth he has given to mankind.

It is not the dead who praise the Lord,
those who go down to the place of silence;

it is we who extol the Lord,
both now and forevermore.
Praise the Lord.

I really want to know what happens after we die. Where we go, what it’s like. I’ve written here be-fore about feeling like I need to do my relationship with G_d right and I have known for quite some time that this is connected to my anxiety about the afterlife. As a queer person raised in a religious tradition that condemned that aspect of my identity, and a person who has made at least my fair share of selfish decisions and thought more than my fair share of petty thoughts, I have spent a great deal of my life fretting and negotiating with my Creator. I want to be a good person and I want to have a really sweet afterlife, and I have conflated these two things for as long as I can remember. This is what so many of us have been taught: be really good in the time you have on this Earth, give the glory to G_d, and you get to go to Heaven.

The energy I feel when I read the excerpt of Psalm 115 I’ve included here is lively and expansive - the opposite of “the place of silence.” I chose to explore it here because it reminds me of a recent conversation with my spiritual director, who suggested that I set aside my daily, very structured routine of prayer, and just sit with Jesus. Sit and regard Jesus and allow him to regard me.

My initial response? No. Absolutely not. If I don’t say my prayers a certain way at certain times each day, I won’t be covered! I need to be good to go with G-d! Greatest hits or it doesn’t count! The truth is, I have been afraid of what would happen if I allowed myself to do this. What would come up? When would I know I had prayed enough? Done enough?

Reader, I tried it. I have continued to try it, with an emphasis on try. Without the incessant, structured chatter of my usual litany of prayer, there is a spaciousness in these moments, and a warmth - it is the most comforting staring game ever. In a way, it feels like a deeper, more active way of praising G_d, of extolling the Lord. I walk away not knowing if I’ve done it “right” or accomplished anything at all. As if G_d wanted that from me in the first place.

Written by Jane V. Blunschi

Jane V. Blunschi is a writer and a teacher living in Fayetteville, Arkansas.