So, is there an afterlife, and if so, what will it be like? I don't have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the uncertainty of the afterlife while expressing trust in a higher power's support through life and death.
In this quote, Marcus Borg addresses the profound questions about the afterlife and the nature of existence after death. He admits to his uncertainty about what lies beyond life but expresses a deep faith in a divine presence that has supported him throughout his life. This reliance on a higher power offers comfort and peace in the face of death, suggesting that trust in this divine support is sufficient for him to find meaning.
In practice
This quote can be used in a eulogy to inspire hope and reflection on the nature of life and death.
One of God's central qualities is compassion, a word that in Hebrew is related to the word for "womb." Not only is compassion a female image suggesting source of life and nourishment but it also has a feeling dimension: God as compassionate Spirit feels for us as a mother feels for the children of her womb. Spirit feels the suffering of the world and participates in it. . . .
The point is not that Jesus was a good guy who accepted everybody, and thus we should do the same (though that would be good). Rather, his teachings and behaviour reflect an alternative social vision. Jesus was not talking about how to be good and how to behave within the framework of a domination system. He was a critic of the domination system itself.
When tradition is thought to state the way things really are, it becomes the director and judge of our lives; we are, in effect, imprisoned by it. On the other hand, tradition can be understood as a pointer to that which is beyond tradition: the sacred. Then it functions not as a prison but as a lens.
I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: 'This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.' Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.
The true greatness of nations is in those qualities which constitute the greatness of the individual.
We really suffer from a hot-take disease, wanting to be the first one who has the hottest take.
We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.
Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.
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