General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: diagnosed with stage 2 Esophageal Cancer [View all]Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)watch and listen to the many positive accounts on YouTube video-clips, of their 'near death experiences' by people who have clinically died. Invariably, they discover that we do not die - only our body does (and that Christians believe, temporarily, before receiving it back in a glorified form we can't really imagine). In fact, it's a while before they realise they are 'dead', because the feeling of love and peace they experience, even at that stage, is so wonderful.
They then, sometimes after travelling through a tunnel meet a being of light, whose infinite love 'knocks their socks off', so that when they are eventually told they have to go back, they are really cut up about it, and sometimes wake up in their hospital bed in a very angry frame of mind. That bit where they are told they have to go back is one of the highlights for me, with my schadenfreudian-type sense of humour. The main highlight, however, is their body-language, which sometimes is so emotional no actor could feign. Some of them are very tearful, in having their longing to return to that ante-room of heaven re-awakened.
So profound was the effect of their other-worldly experience on them that, reluctant though most of them were to return to life down here, it caused them to completely change their goals in life to one focused on the Second Commandment - the Golden Rule shared by all the mainstream religions and a few more. If you'd like to know some of the best videos, send me a message, and I'll compile a list.
Don't look on dying negatively. Everyone you've seen and will see in this life will face it, unless they live to see the Parousia* - which may not be far off. You are only facing the possibility of it prematurely in some measure.
*I believe Paul tells us in an epistle that those who are alive when it occurs will have no advantage over those who have died.