Birth and Death
In the belly of a pregnant woman were twin brothers, Mark and Matthew, in conversation.
Mark: Do you believe in life after birth?
Matthew: Certainly, perhaps we will run on our two feet and eat with our mouths
Mark: Run on our two feet, are you crazy? Eat with our mouths? The umbilical cord feeds us.
Matthew: There has to be something out there, I feel it. I just cannot explain it.
Mark: This is foolishness, childbirth ends all life.
Matthew: What about mother? There has to be a mother out there who will take care of us after birth. That proves there is life after birth.
Mark: Mother? What mother, do you see any mother? It is just you and I here.
Matthew: She is all around us, we live through her. Where do you think the umbilical cord comes from? When we are silent we sometimes hear her singing or feel her stroking our world.
Mark: You make a good point Mark, but I cannot be sure. No one has come back after birth to verify that there is a mother out there or life after birth.
……
This scene may seem silly to you, but is the question of whether there is life after birth essentially any different from asking whether there is life after death? Just as the fetus dwells in its mother’s womb, so do we currently dwell in a womb called earth. Just as a mother sustains the growing child in her womb, so does the power of the Creator sustain our life on the earth. The twins in their mother’s womb would hardly imagine the greater world awaiting them outside the womb. They would hardly imagine the abilities of their physical bodies that they are yet to fully develop and all the good things they can achieve. The same applies to us as we strut about in the limited space of earth, unaware of the abilities of the spirit that we are yet to develop fully.
The answers to the great questions of life need not be a mystery; they often lie amid our everyday experiences. As in little things on earth, so it is in the great world of spiritual events.