“How do you think about an elderly loved one who looks like they’re going to pass on soon?” an inquirer ask me.
“You think about them the same way you’ve hopefully always been thinking about them!” I replied. “As living their eternal spiritual life, at-one with God, where there is no birth or death, no coming or going, no passing on.”
“Life is eternal,” Mary Baker Eddy wrote. “We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight” (S&H 246:27).
This rule applies to how we view ourselves and how we view others.
One shouldn’t wait until a loved one turns 95 to figure out that they’ve always been a spiritual child of God, living their eternal spiritual life. It’s wiser to figure it out in the early stages of a relationship. Then there are no surprises later on.
Evan, thank you an interesting take on passing on. I think sometimes we think we are being “lofty” by calling the experience “passing on” when referring to a loved one leaving this experience. You are pointing out (I think) that there isn’t even any passing on, that our loved ones remains intact, living their spiritual lives, linked to God as they have always been. Didn’t you love in last week’s Bible Lesson Jesus’ comment: you judge by the flesh, I judge no man (that way)? How vital the need to break away from judging man by stages of material existence. It’s really NOT an accurate view at all, is it? I remember a lecture you gave once where you pointed out that eternal life doesn’t mean eternal problems! Eternal good is our heritage.
“Judge not according to the appearance, judge righteous judgment.” Some practitioners continue working (praying) for 3 days after the seeming event.
The term passing on, is suggestive of another place to go. Some use “passing”, as a better term. If you are already an idea in the Infinite Mind, there isn’t any place outside of that Loving infinitude, to go to.