What Happens After You Die

-- By Tom Phillips 

Back in the day when Walter Cronkite was America's Most Trusted Person, he sat for an interview with talk-show host Dick Cavett.  After a couple of warmup questions, Cavett leaned in with an impish grin, and asked:     

"So Walter, what happens after you die?"   

Cronkite brushed it off as mischievous flattery. He was sixty-something at the time, and lasted a couple more decades.  

At 80, the question is harder to dismiss.  Here's what I'd like to know: Do we have any say in what happens? 

Maybe I do, and you do too.  

I may be risking Hell for my impertinence.  But here's a theory I've held for many years, and rarely told anyone: We may not have a vote, but we have a voice, and it doesn't hurt to ask for what you want.  

It may be that consciousness continues after death, like a dream. Dreams begin with desires.  And Heaven may just be your heart's desire.  

I don't believe a heavenly court calculates your good and evil deeds and gives you the place your life deserves. I think judgment comes in the hour of your death, and where you're at determines where you go.  Your heart's desire is part of where you're at.  It may be the main thing or even the whole thing in that hour. This is why Catholics ask Mary to pray for them "now and at the hour of our death."   

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I'm an Episcopalian, a choice made late in life when I decided to go with what appeals to me.  And Episcopalians in New York City have many places to go.   

At the corner of Fifth Avenue and 90th Street, there's the Church of the Heavenly Rest. On a recent visit I found it spacious, and dark, and perfumed with the breath of wealth. It didn't appeal to me.  

At one end of West 112th Street stands the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the length of two football fields, the nave surrounded by chapels and tombs, with light streaming in through a Rose Window that transforms sunset into spectroscopic splendor.  I can do without such grandiose displays.  

Besides those, there are Episcopal churches small and large, rich and poor, high and low.  

St. Michael

My church is St. Michael's, at 99th and Amsterdam -- an airy, light-filled vault with an Tiffany stained-glass window as wide as the altar below.  It depicts the scene from the Book of Revelation, when "war broke out in Heaven."  In the foreground is the Archangel Michael ---leading the forces of God in battle against the forces of evil.  Following him is the host of heaven, an army of angels receding to a distant horizon.    

Once I had hoped to relax in heaven, and listen to the music of the spheres.  But now, "O Lord, I want to be in that number." As long as the battle goes on below, I'd like to stay in the fight. Or better yet, bear witness and write it.                                                

My epiphany came as a journalist, in Tiananmen Square in 1989. CBS News was there for the beginning of the end of the biggest political protest in history. 

At the height of the Chinese movement for democracy a million protesters were in the square -- millions more in cities all over China.  Their demands were modest -- more freedom, more representation, less corruption.  From their mood, it seemed they would be happy with a simple acknowledgment that the voice of the people had been heard.  But day after day there was no word from Communist Party leaders, holed up in a palace a few blocks from the square.  After a week they came out at dawn for a photo-op "visit" with student leaders -- as if they cared for them!  A few hours later army helicopters flew low over the square -- and a tinny female voice sounded from loudspeakers: 

 "Martial law has been declared in Beijing," she said. "The situation is very dangerous, go home immediately!"  We tried to report it, but they pulled our plug.  Two weeks later, in the dark of night, the army opened fire in the square.  

By then we journalists were long gone. But in the moment when that disembodied voice spoke out, I flashed on the true nature of history.  It appeared to be just what the Bible says it is -- a fight to the finish between good and evil, truth and lies, darkness and light.   

I believe Plato when he says that our lives are just an indistinct shadow of an ideal realm.  And I believe Martin Luther when he wrote "A Mighty Fortress is our God":  And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us/ We will not fear, for God has willed his Truth to triumph through us."   

The cosmic battle between good and evil rages within me as well as out in the world.  But as Thomas Aquinas wrote, we're judged not on what we do, but what we love.    

If you love to fight for what's right, tell Uncle Sam to go to Hell, and sign up with St. Michael. When war breaks out in Heaven, the Truth will be revealed.  

And if, as in the book of Revelation, a voice from heaven says "Write this"-- I will write.  And this time, no one can pull the plug. 

--Copyright 2021 by Tom Phillips