A love letter to eternity, pt. II

If you were on an airplane barreling back towards the earth, with no prospects of survival, what would you do? 

To the one whom I have always loved dearest,

Greetings, darling. I hope you are ––––. At the time of our last correspondence, I was boarding an airplane bound for eternity. In that moment, I was under the impression that I had escaped my own death after discovering eternity within myself. I write to you now having since come face to face with the darkness, and understanding that no man — not the poorest serf, nor the wisest sage, nor the wealthiest monarch — can stop what is coming. When death’s shadow looms, the serf, the sage and the monarch all become one in the same; their worldly triumphs are cast into The Abyss; they can do nothing but collapse to their knees, crying out in utter desperation to the One who is greatest. 

“He who loved himself became great in himself, and he who loved others became great through his devotion, but … ”

I boarded the airplane bound for eternity some time in late evening, just as the sun was readying to dip below the horizon. Stepping into the cabin, I nodded politely at the stewardess, then made my way past row upon row of tired travelers — some dozing off, others chatting quietly, a few staring blankly ahead. The flight was completely full, barring one seat in the very last row, next to the window. I slid in just as the stewardess was making her final remarks.

“Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for eternal departure.”

As the dueling jet engines began their rhythmic hum, and I, tired from the odyssey of the previous day, faded into a kind of half-sleep, a long-forgotten memory came floating back. I was a child again, no more than three, aboard my first ever flight. My mother sat next to me, her eyelids closed softly, her maternal glow unmistakable. Again next to the window, I pushed up the shade, revealing a street-lit cityscape below, complete with dwarf-like houses, diminutive baseball diamonds and toy-sized cars. So far as I knew it, our plane had skipped through to another dimension; three-year-old me was now a colossal, omnipotent being, and the miniature world below, the plaything of my every youthful whim. My mother knew better:

“That’s perspective, honey. Everything looks tiny from up here.”

Oh, to be so blissfully naive, just for one more day. One more moment. Alas, I awoke from this nostalgic daydream as the plane’s back wheels were lifting off the tarmac, launching us irreversibly into the eternal. I glanced around the cabin; an older couple sat to my right — the wife leaning against her husband’s shoulder; the husband turning the worn out pages of some novel from time immemorial. 

I recall thinking that neither had more than a decade left to live (likely less), yet they seemed perfectly happy. Not even the prospect of imminent death could’ve disturbed the contentedness with which they co-existed — two individuals, unified as one by the incorruptible bonds of love, on a flight bound for nowhere, yet at the same time, everywhere.

Poetic, but hadn’t they heard the news? God was dead (keep in mind, darling, at this point in time, I was still wholly convicted in my atheism). 

I turned back towards the window, resting my head against the cool pane, watching as we passed through the feathery blanket of clouds and into that layer of atmosphere meteorologists call “the stratosphere” and romantic poets call “the place where gods do their divine bidding.” The setting sun had just about waved its ritual goodbye, although it denied its crescent-shaped waltz partner the spotlight for a moment longer, radiating hues of deep red, orange and pink across the whole of the cloud-covered expanse. The scene was so uniquely touching, in fact, that I began to wonder if it could indeed be of divine origin. Oh, how laughable a thought! 

I drifted off once more as day faded into night. I don’t recall how long I slept. Ten minutes? Thirty? An hour? When I awoke, the cabin was totally empty, other than the older gentleman, who had been sitting to my right, and his wife, still resting on his shoulder, asleep. The man began to speak — softly, but with an air of wisdom. 

“You don’t believe in God, do you?” 

I collected my thoughts. “I believe in myself.” The man went back to his book, unsatisfied. I figured I’d explain further. “I believe in myself because, well, that’s all I can believe in. I can be sure of nothing else in this life — not the consciousness of another being, not an afterlife, or lack thereof, and certainly not God’s existence, but I can be sure of myself.”

Still, the man was quiet. Had he even been speaking to me in the first place? A long silence passed. Then, he broached the subject once more. “Do you fear death?”

Again, I paused. I wanted to demonstrate to this stranger my marked intelligence, my complex understanding of the human condition. “No,” I replied. “I once did, when I was young and immature, but I have since learned that we must accept death as inevitable and eternal. Once the possibility of anything religious has been dismissed, we can then lead lives of substance, without the distraction of some divine authority. As a man far wiser than me once wrote, ‘one must imagine Sisyphus happy.’”

The gentleman was still unmoved, lost amidst the pages of whatever fiction he so enjoyed. I grew frustrated. “We are all Sisyphus, are we not?! Condemned to this life which has no inherent meaning, no tangible end goal, and yet, unlike Sisyphus, we all must die! So what then are we to do, other than heroically embrace our fate as mortal beings, and lead lives of purpose nonetheless, however cosmically insignificant that purpose might be!”

Slowly, the man looked up from his book, then over at me. As he spoke, his lips hardly moved, if at all. “I believe you.” He went on reading. 

Confused and agitated, I again rested my head against the cool window pane and faded off into the beyond. I don’t remember how much time passed — an eternity, possibly. When I awoke, it was with a start, for the cabin had burst into a panic. Children cried, parents moved about frantically, attendants reassured worried passengers. The older couple to my right remained unmoved; they sat quietly, holding hands, praying. “What’s going on?” I repeated. “What the hell is going on?!” 

As if queued by my confusion, the stewardess’ voice came through over the intercom, “The engines have failed. Please prepare yourselves to die.”

Darling, you cannot fathom the fright which seized my body at that moment. A wave of pure dread, sweeping from the furthest reaches of my mind to the darkest depths of my soul. This was not The Abyss anymore, this was Death, and I was, for all intents and purposes, already gone. Never again would I behold your pretty face; never again would I listen to your tender voice; never again would I feel your gentle touch. My life was over, and it was over forever. 

All hope had been lost, and so, with no other resort, I began to pray. I prayed and I prayed — Oh, darling, how I prayed! I prayed until I couldn’t pray anymore, then continued on praying. And eventually, after a lifetime of praying, I believed. I believed, for no other reason than that to not believe in this moment of sheer terror, when my life was mere seconds from its eternal conclusion, would’ve been the greatest of all irrationalities. 

And with that, the flight was saved. Both engines roared back to life, and the stewardess came over the intercom once more, announcing that we would soon be arriving at our destination — eternity. The old man looked over at me, and I could’ve sworn a smile flashed across his wrinkled, yet enduring face. I lounged back in my seat, relieved. The stewardess wheeled the snack cart down the aisle, and I happily obliged her offer for airplane pretzels — they tasted far better than death. 

Now, you might be thinking that I write to tell of this near-tragedy. Hardly. I write you, darling, because this near-tragedy showed me with irrefutable clarity that non-belief is the most absurd of all concepts. Here’s why:

All of us, the whole of the human race, are passengers aboard a doomed airplane, barreling back towards the earth, with no prospects of survival. Think about it — is this not our condition? Just because we aren’t condemned to die in a matter of moments doesn’t make our fate any less certain. As such, the only logical choice, the only choice which doesn’t guarantee eternal and irreversible death, the only choice in accordance with the biological imperative to survive, really, is to put our faith into that which is highest, that which transcends the material, that which is eternal. If we do so, we may still die, but at least we’ll die having believed in eternity. And the way I see it, darling, in this vaporous, illusory life, all that really counts is belief.

“…but he who loved God became greater than all.”

With momentous faith, but possibly none at all,