I think I would not like to be immortal. Whatever the span of my life will be (70 years or more, I am hoping), I think that will be enough. I think that is all I need of this world. Of course, I expect there to be more than this world in the course of my soul, so perhaps this desire (or lack thereof) is influenced by my faith. But I think back, back to when I believed there was nothing else but this world, and I don't remember back then ever wishing to live forever. But back then, perhaps this was just an acceptance, a "sweet lemons" proposition. Maybe not, though. I think I have feared death perhaps not as much as I should. Yes, I do get that rush of a sense of mortality when I look down from a high spot (as when I wait to board the train every day, going home from work), but I remember back when on the farm: to conquer the fear of sitting on the roof ledge of a building there, all I had to do was imagine what if I did fall — a sharp but brief pain, and it would all be over — and I could sit without apprehension.
I expect there is more than this, more than what we see on this world. I feel it sometimes, and it gladdens my heart when I do: I am a stranger in this world. That, after all, is what it means to be a child of God, and those brief moments that I feel it, nothing material is like it. I suppose if you ask me these days why I don't want to live forever is that I would rather be with God, to be in the presence of God. A high no drug could top, and not empty like the highs of drugs I have used in the past. I'm in no rush, though, to get there. I think I will pray for a long life, in fact — it is a gift, after all, this life. Life to me is a kind of proving ground, and I think I will need all the years I get to show what worth I can muster from this being I was given. But I don't want forever in this world — I, this stranger, like any stranger, longs for home.
