HE who from the grave turns homeward and remains behind, continually tries to bring his dead before him. Only, and this is noteworthy, we bring our dead before us, not as they now are, but as they were before they died. That is to say, not as spirits, but in their visible, observable form.
For this reason we prize the likeness of our dead. Just after the dying there is no need of this. Then emotions are most strongly stimulated, and the representation operates so clearly, that memory without likeness perfectly suffices. But when weeks and months are passed and activities of many sorts keep us from concentrating the attention upon this particular remembrance, the representation once so clear and vivid becomes blurred and the likeness is welcome.
To that likeness, and to that representation of the observable form we remain attached, even though we give ourselves full account of it, that our dead are no longer like that, that they have laid off their material garment, and now body-less, and hence unobservable to the eye, dwell in one of the many mansions with God.
We try indeed in our representation to ennoble the image that looms from memory, something which artist-painters sometimes express symbolically, by surrounding the head with an halo; but even so it still remains the visible appearance, and think of our dead as of spirits, we can almost never do.
Even angels, who are pure spirit, when they would reveal themselves appeared in visible form, speaking as we speak to each other. And where superstition imagined to be aware of shades or evil spirits, there always appeared before their confused imagination something vague and gray, but yet a something of a certain outline and certain tints.
Only of spirits who held possessed ones under their power, we read that they “tore” their victims, and “cast them into fire” without the bystanders becoming aware of any form or any figure of those spirits themselves. Yet even in these cases it was an operation, which was perceived upon a visible person, and which showed itself in tangible deeds.
By itself on the other hand a spirit, without a shape in which he clothes himself, without a form in which he appears, and without a tangible working in which he exercises his power, falls outside of our common grasp.
We can talk about it, in the idea something like this can exist, but reality it does not become to us.
YET do not forget, that so and not otherwise the mode of existence of all our dead is, and that no other lot awaits us, than, after shaking off our body in dying, until the resurrection of the dead, purely to exist as spirits.
If in spite of this we continue to be attached almost exclusively to the visible appearance of our dead, there is a continuous life of memory, but no life with them in the present. Thus with every passing year, the distance which separates us from them becomes greater. Result of this is, that in many families, which at first almost passionately held themselves close to the memory of their beloved dead, after the lapse of but a few years this memory is seen gradually more and more wearing away.
And also as regards our own soul’s existence, this has its serious side, that that state of separation from the body remains so foreign to us. Thereby the thought of death remains too nebulous, and anticipation of our future after death too rare and comfortless.
Undoubtedly God the Lord created us spirit and matter, and it is unnatural not to count the material side of our being and to ignore it. But the root of our being must always be sought in the spirit and not in the flesh, in the soul and not in the body. And the balance is broken, the moment we become so one-sidedly distressed in the visible, that, taken apart from the material vesture, the spirit ceases to be real to us.
Faith here comes to our aid. Faith, which “is the evidence of things not seen.” And, will it be well, the real and actual existence of “our spirit, that is in us,” altogether apart from matter, flesh or body, must address us so clearly and positively, that sooner than taking the spirit in us as semblance, we will credit the visible as optical illusion.
THIS is none too strongly put.
Is it not true that spirit created everything visible, and never what is visible, spirit?
The deepest foundation of all faith is here at stake. Faith that God created heaven and earth, and that that God is a spirit. Only spirit. Nothing but spirit in Himself. And in His spiritual Self-sufficiency independent of everything that visibly exists.
The visible world is additional to God. In Himself He is the Eternal Being, the substance of all realities, Who gives to all things being and life.
In the eternal Object of our worship we therefore have the convincing proof, that altogether apart from form or stature, in the most absolute sense a spirit has real existence, and that to this real existence of the spirit nothing is ever added by matter or form.
Angels show us altogether the same thing. Also angels are spirits, without visible appearance. That in our behalf they have appeared to us in a shape created for this purpose by God’s almightiness, takes here nothing away from it. And though it be, that in the visions of Isaiah and St. John they appear in symbolical form; in themselves angels are really nothing but spirits. Incorporeality belongs to their state..
Thus also in their blessed choirs they are to us the sacred model of entire hosts of beings, which exist exclusively as spirit, and which yet in this their pure spiritual existence serve God day and night and make the most glorious operations to go out from themselves.
Therefore God is called the Father of spirits, just for the sake of expressing that higher reality of everything that is spirit above the visible.
Of all the visible God is the Creator. That is His handiwork. But of all that is spirit, He is called the Father of spirits, therewith expressing the much closer tie, and the much nearer relation, which by nature as the Eternal Being, binds Him to all that as spirit received being of its own.
WHEN asked, to what realm man belongs, to the visible things or to the spirits, unhesitatingly you have to answer, that you also, even as the angel, are spirit, and that you also, as spirit, call upon God as the Father of spirits.
Surely, the completeness of your being lies in your having also part in the visible creation. Also after dying, at Jesus’ return, the bodily appearance returns again, forever to be yours. But yet the ground of your being, the root of your existence, lies not in the body, but in your spirit. Not the spirit is given to your body, but your body to your spirit. And therefore, when in death the body for a time falls away from you, your being remains your being, you remain who you are, and now, without the bodily organ, your spirit unbrokenly continues its existence.
Your soul also exists by itself. You cannot say: it is here or it is there. Our local limitation or lack of freedom does not apply to it. There is also for our soul, after our dying a place where it abides, otherwise it would be omnipresent. It is in the Father-house. Closer yet it is in one of the many mansions of the Father-house. But we can not think of any connection between such a spirit and a given spot.
But this we know. Every soul of the departed is somewhere. That somewhere is in one of the many mansions. And in that mansion that soul is put into relation with other souls of the departed. And in that relation they are not passive, but they serve. Operations go out from them. And therefore they are spirits, come out as spirits, and as spirits fulfil their calling. How spirits can work without the organ of the body, is not so readily understandable. Yet so much can be said, that the “working” of a spirit by itself, is the less understandable to you, the lower you stand as man, and on the other hand from afar it begins to become more transparent, the higher you ascend as man.
So long as your labor consists of actual manual work, it is almost impossible for you to think of pure spiritual exertion. But when your work calls you to almost no physical exertion, and you have to work almost exclusively with your head, so that at times your body is more in the way, than a help, you at least begin to understand something of this.
The student, who weary of thinking, must finally in the hour of night, abandon his work, because he is no longer able to go on, would, if you could sever the tie of the body, with the spirit still go on gloriously in his meditation.
This is more strongly evident, where genius reveals itself in the philosopher or singer or artists. Then it wells as from a fountain from the spirit within. Then the happy one knows very well, that it is the spirit that is in him, that presses and urges and makes power to go out. And when at another time he misses this inspiration, nothing comes, and he stands helpless, simply because the spirit that is in him ceased to work.
Working toward the outside is for real genius a secondary matter. The main thing is the working of the spirit within.
This must not be exaggerated. With highest forms of labor on earth we still remain bound to conceptions, ideas, words that are related with the visible world. Also our imagination is populated by what enters in from without.
Hence it is not the same as the working of the spirits in the Father-house, but yet it gives an idea of it.
It shows at least how the spirit of man in itself can wake up to high activity. Yea, it furnishes the proof, that the work of our spirit stands the higher, and is the more intensive, the less it calls in the help of the visible.
WHETHER in that case all spirits of just men made perfect after their death have become geniuses? In the sense which we attach to it, certainly not.
But consider, not alone in the high flight of the intellect does the spirit that is in us muse and meditate independently of the body. There is in the spirit also the working of our heart, of the emotions, of fine feeling. And in that world also already here on earth work is done by our spirit. Wrestlings within and high tensions of our innermost being. Affliction battled-through and happiness deeply enjoyed, outside of the material. Above all, ecstasies in the fellowship of soul with the Eternal Being. Deep-going working of the spirit in us with the scarcely whispered prayer.
Thus from this side also already here on earth we know an activity of the spirit that is in us, outside of all material interference, and here upon a level, on which especially the quiet in the land are much engaged with their God.
And therefore, no, the idea is not so far distant, that after waking up in eternity, far from unconsciously sinking in, the spirit shall be capable rather of very powerful tension and exhibition of elasticity and activity.
Capable not alone with them, who here on earth counted among the geniuses, but also with them who in the world of the heart unfolded their highest virtuosity.
The spirit of man, that is in him, is not dependent upon the body, in order as spirit to be able to muse and meditate; as spirit to be able to feel and to appreciate; as spirit, animated by God, to serve Him eternally.
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