What if there was no life after death? What if everything was nothing more than a coincidence? What if life on earth had formed through different elements coming together by chance over billions of years? Without question the exact opposite could be claimed, i.e. that life could be created by consciousness. However, both theories include obscurity and we live choosing the one agreeing with our mind and heart in this obscurity.

I listened to a conversation a favourite author of mine, Richard Rohr, attended in the past couple of weeks. He is also a priest from the Franciscan School of Theology. The presenter, Michael Dowd, is an author and a priest in the same way. Towards the middle of the conversation, they happened to talk about how the conceptions of God have changed over the years. Both of them pointed out that at the beginning of their career and for a long time they defined God as a being up in the sky and outside of themselves, but that recently they haven’t felt comfortable with this definition and they don’t think it is true anymore, either. They expressed that the definition of God cannot be made isolated from Life and that they think LIFE on earth is, in fact, the very God himself. That is, briefly, God, in sky and far away from humanity, is in the inner worlds of these people on earth. The World, nature and life mean God and there is no need for another definition. Life is itself the divine…

I am writing this sentence again since I am pretty impressed by it; Life is itself the divine and, in fact, the only thing we need to connect to with respect. The breathe we take now, our mother nature, everything on earth now…Divine.

To write it in the way it is dealt with in the rest of the conversation, not “a God up there” but “Ecological God”.

Could placing divine starting from this point enable us to perceive life differently and lead our lives in a different way? Could thinking that life is much more than our individual lives and that it passes from our ancestors to us and from us to our children result in connecting to it in a more real way? Would it be possible for us to see what death serves when we contemplate on the fact that Divine-Life is temporarily entrusted to us and is not permanent with us?

The mission of death is to provide the continuity of life and to feed it. Realizing that we are mortal invites us to live giving Divine entrusted to us its due. If we are not aware of death, we see what we have as a right given to us forever, not a trust and determine our priorities accordingly. Not being aware of death causes us to miss life.

I am saying it out of experience. When people approach me being curious and interested about what I do( Death Doula- Companion) , and then, when I say something similar to what I mentioned above, they start to take a step back or object. There is nothing I can do about it. I have serious commitment to sharing my experiences.

That’s why, I argue that what you have is a temporary trust and that it is highly likely that you haven’t thought of this fact in a righteous way. One day, that trust will go back to its source at an unexpected moment and conditions (such as not in your bed surrounded by your beloved ones as you always imagine).

Contemplating on our temporary existence on earth saves you time. It enables you to experience life at a more vivid and connected point though it doesn’t prolong your life.

In one of the conversations I had, one participant asked me where I got my joy of living. I felt like saying from bees or caterpillars. If I had said it, it wouldn’t be wrong. Every detail belonging to life could make me happy because I can notice it as I know that I might not be able to see it tomorrow.

I don’t want to misappropriate.

I don’t mean to change you, but I wanted to pass on the concept of Ecological God because I regard it valuable. On top of it, contemplating on death is an invitation to living…

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