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As life nears its end with me, I find myself meditating more and more upon the mystery of its nature and origin, yet without the least hope that I can find out the ways of the Eternal in this or in any other world.

I'm using the afterlife as a backdrop against which to explore the joys and complexities of being human - it turns out that it's a great lens with which to understand what matters to us.

I have a deep conviction that our lives are eternal, that it is waking and sleeping, that we are born together with the people we love lifetime after lifetime.

The idea of an afterlife where you can be reunited with loved ones can be immensely consoling - though not to me.

Seeing life from an eternal perspective helps us focus our limited mortal energies on the things that matter most.

In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.

I would like to believe in an afterlife; it makes things more palatable. But I'm not banking on it.

The whole world appears to me like a huge vacuum, a vast empty space, whence nothing desirable, or at least satisfactory, can possibly be derived; and I long daily to die more and more to it; even though I obtain not that comfort from spiritual things which I earnestly desire.

During my days of deepest grief, in all of my shock, sorrow and struggle, I sat at the feet of God. I literally spent hours each day reading God's word, meditating on scripture and praying. I intentionally spent a significant amount of time being still before God.

There have been hours in my unhappy life, many of them, when the contemplation of death as the end of earthly sorrow - of the grave as a resting place for the tired and worn out body - has been pleasant to dwell upon.