Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

A financial counselor says: "When clients talk to me about their estates, they usually say, 'if I die,' not 'when I die.' Even 80-year olds use the conditional." I don't think this simply means that we deceive ourselves, consciously or unconsciously. Though, can we rule that out? Possibly it is testimony to the boundless will to live that animates most of us. You see it in the elderly who are limited by poor eyesight or shaky limbs but whose spirit would still like to make that trip to New Zealand or visit an old friend.

In many cases the body wears out before the spirit and it's frustrating. The German writer Wolfgang Goethe said somewhere that the activity to which we're drawn, even if not involving the body, is for him an argument for another life after this one. Nature, he says, is obliged to provide an arena for this restless and undefeated spirit.

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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