CPE Journal Entry for Week 3

I remember an episode of Star Trek Voyager where Harry Kim is sucked into sub-space and then spit out on different planet. This planet believed in a spiritual after-life but Harry knew that their bodies were just sent to an astroid when they died. The people did not know this. For many of the people on this planet, Harry Kim’s explanation created doubt in their heart. Harry even began to wonder about his own mentality. But at the end of the episode when he is talking to Captain Janeway, she told him that they notice some sort of brain activity would leave the astroids every time a body was transfered there. Was that their “Spirit” or was that just a computer glitch? The episode never went into anymore detail but it did create a even greater wonder in the afterlife for Harry Kim and the Voyager crew. After completing three weeks of CPE, I am beginning to reflect on my own personal mortality just as Voyager’s crew did in this episode. I attended a funeral on Sunday and every time I attend a funeral I ask myself, “Is this the end?” “Am I going to just die one day and rot away in a wooden box?” I know this is not the case and my faith has taught me differently but my initial reaction every time I first walk into a funeral home is the same. I wonder if this is the end or is there more too it. Now when I receive a decedent care call I still have the same wonders and doubts in my heart. I still go up and minister to the people in the room and tell that by their faith God will prevail, but I personally still have doubts in my own heart. These doubts do end whenever I hear the promises that Jesus made for us in the Gospel but I have to hear them in order to believe in them. I guess seeing and hearing is believing. Death is a funny thing. For one person it is an end and for another it is just the beginning. I feel like I am stuck in the middle most days.