The dead they do not die; they look on and help, says Lawrence, in a letter to a bereaved friend. Comforting, perhaps, to believe this; but it's not entirely accurate.
For the dead certainly don't look on from the sightless and impersonal realm of material actuality to which they have returned and it seems absurd to even suggest this. Nevertheless, they may very well continue to provide support. Or its opposite.
For the dead certainly don't look on from the sightless and impersonal realm of material actuality to which they have returned and it seems absurd to even suggest this. Nevertheless, they may very well continue to provide support. Or its opposite.
Either way, for good or ill, the departed have a posthumous existence in the thoughts and dreams of those who knew them and I would suggest that a soul attains a state of grace when they are remembered fondly and remembrance of them provides a source of strength and encouragement.
Damnation, therefore, consists not in being forgotten, but in becoming a bad memory and a malevolent obstruction to the living: in becoming one of the evil dead.
