Arose: (v) past-tense of arise.

Every once in a while, clarity crashes in on my dullness.

I’m not so certain I want it to happen all the time; otherwise I would be constantly alarmed. (A certain amount of dullness is necessary for me to achieve slumber.)

But the piece of clarity that made its way through the wilderness of supposition which surrounds my being was this:

If I don’t believe in God, I’m stuck with Earth.

That means I’m limited by what surrounds me and the hope and talent that lies within me.

• There would be no creation.
• There would be no divine intervention for my illness.
• My prayers would be exercises in futility.
• I would be limited by empathy and condolences to aid others.
• And Jesus never arose from the grave.

So this would be it.

When I was twenty-five years old, such a concept seemed somewhat acceptable since I believed I had at least five more decades of mortal passage. But now, as I discover I have more “used days” than “new days,” I am not quite so sure I want to surrender the possibility of possessing a bit of eternity.

I am certainly sympathetic to those who are agnostic–because it all seems such a wonderland of wishing and dreams when it comes to dealing with the issues of God’s love and heaven.

But I consider if I would be more disappointed if I reached the end of my life and was an atheist, and found out there really was an afterlife–or if there would be any disappointment at all to discover that Jesus was second-cousin to Santa Claus, yet I would be completely unaware of my lacking, because there would be nothing but oblivion.

Tricky, don’t you think?

So if the Son of God did not arise, so that we could celebrate that he arose, then the possibility of me doing the same is highly unlikely.

Honestly, I find that distasteful.

Just as being a father of children meant advocating for the North Pole and the toy shop, and describing the tooth angel in visual detail, I think the child in me needs the story of a man who arose from the grave … to give myself a chance to live on past my last breath.

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix