I guess it goes without saying as we reflected on the “lights at the end of our tunnels” this week, that Mr. Rogers was one for me. And, as I have journeyed through life, there are a number of people who have helped me and inspired me during my tunnel experiences. I am sure that if I were to ask you who were lights at the end of your “tunnel-times”, you too would have a list of special people in your life.
But it would be remiss of me, especially in this Easter season, if I didn’t mention the biggest light at the end of my tunnel.
And that is God. Or more specifically, it is the entry into a new form of existence with God. What we perhaps would call “Heaven”.
Each of us have a concept of what that is – a personal concept of what heaven is like. Our image of the afterlife (hopefully!) brings us comfort and a sense that our life is so very much more than this mere flesh and blood experience.
It is why we are people of faith. It is why we are Christians. It is why we are Catholic. Because we believe that these present times and our present physicality are not the be-all and end-all of existence. That there is a spiritual dimension to our life that transcends the here-and-now.
And ultimately- this entry into a new form of life, a spiritual form, is the light at the end of the tunnel called life.
Do I fear illness and death? A little bit. That’s normal. That’s human. But I don’t live in fear of it. I don’t let that fear get in the way of living my life, with all of its joys and sorrows, good times, tough times, times of tears and times of laughs. The experience of the love of family, the affection of friends. Of seeing the mystery of creation slowly and teasingly reveal itself to me. To have walked the seashore holding my child in my arms and saying thanks to God. Of sitting on the top of a mountain in the Rockies, praying the psalms and saying thanks to God.
Of living a life that I know is like a tunnel – with the walls and boundaries of space and time blocking my sense of what lies beyond. Yet I don’t fear the tunnel. I have lived, and hope to live the rest of my life looking in awe at those walls, leaning close to them to listen to their story. To look intently on those walls as they reveal their beauty, their complexity, their mystery. To happily bounce off those walls from time to time and giggle like a child. Perhaps even to leave some graffiti on those walls for those travelling behind to read on their way past.
And all the while, to try to remember that the light at the end of the tunnel of my life opens onto a vista that I can scarcely imagine.
So, is there a light at the end of my tunnel? Oh yes, indeed there is. But what is even more important, what is even more exciting, what is even more profound, is what lays beyond the light.