By Stanley Collymore

You might like to know in passing that the Grim Reaper
as he does his customary rounds periodically and
uninvitingly comes around to wherever it is
that I happen to be residing and in the
process pestering me with his silly
and from my perspective unimaginative games,
and even sometimes gives the transparent
impression that he’s about to use that
menacing scythe of his to severely
hack his way through my life,
purposely ending it in the
reminiscent manner of industrious farmers
doing the identical thing with their many
sheathes of wheat, barley, corn or hay
in one or other of their harvesting
fields and, as a result, will quite
simply and literally be keenly
engaged there in a patently
comprehensible activity
that the rest of us will
understand and that
they’re actually
supposed to
be doing.

No similar structured pattern though it would appear
with the Grim Reaper or his discernibly eccentric
antics, not an isolated bit, as he routinely and
contemptuously sets out to ensure from his
subjective and illogical perspective who
should die and who should live; this
uncompromising and permanent
extinction of his invariably, and more often so than
not as it happens, defenceless and what’s more
even unsuspecting victims that thankfully I
shall never, because quite frankly I have
long been on to him and hence shan’t
ever permit myself in those unwise
situations to deliberately become
one of them. Then, before I can
draw another sustaining breath
into my body in grudging acceptance of what
I think from his demeanour he has in store
for me and thus is about to happen he
just simply and erratically changes
his mind, casually moves on to
other things or sadistically
acts as if it’s me who’s
crazily visualizing
all these things.

But what do I really care? It’s his private game and he’s
been playing it now so long with me and accordingly
I’m so used to it that I’m not in the least bothered
whether he actually decides I should carry on
living or else be instead physically changed
from my human form and consequently
be transferred to the jurisdiction of
the departed dead. Whatever! For I shall persist,
regardless, in my earthly situation to do what
I have always done and remain staunchly
indifferent to the Grim Reaper’s whims,
fancies or demands, and furthermore
while still wholly capable to freely
attract wholesome breath within
this body of mine, soldier on
in any case, and as long as
I consistently can, with
my own distinctive
and, who knows,
imaginatively
worked out
afterlife
plans!

© Stanley V. Collymore
19 January 2016.

The Author’s Thoughts:
It’s perceptibly inevitable and has been around since the beginning of time yet there hasn’t ever been and still isn’t a universal or consensual approach from the collective perspective of human beings towards death.

In the materialistically motivated west for example death is distinctly seen by the vast majority of its inhabitants as frankly a bloody nuisance which inevitably, exasperatingly and very irresponsibly from their subjective point of view simply gets in the way of them aspiring to, be it realistically so or from the detached point of view of objective observers more often than not a delusional fiction, or even essentially a glorious opportunity through which they can either acquire yet more affluence or else obtain wealth first time round from their respective and individual endeavours whether honestly applied or more likely than not dishonestly engaged in; but throughout all this with death the unrelenting and irrepressible spoiler purposefully guaranteeing that none of them can’t take any of their possessions with them when they ultimately die.

Meanwhile, other cultures and societies view death in a diversity of different ways ranging from the carbon recycle concept where after your birth, you possibly live and then at death irrespective of whether you’re placed in the earth to rot or else find yourself more clinically cremated your bodily remains nevertheless instinctively and whether you’d wished for that to be so or not become naturally recycled one way or another and in turn act as the building blocks or the raw material for the continued sustenance in one way or another of existing as well as future generations of not only human beings but also other forms of animal and plant life. So for all we know you may very well after death end up being a darn sight more useful and productive to the universe generally and our earthly world in particular than you actually were or would ever have been regardless of where you resided or however long it was that you lived on Planet Earth.

Another perspective of the multiplicity of points of views that I previously alluded to is that the deceased person essentially goes into a markedly transformative state immediately after his or her death whereby and dependent on the kind of life which that individual lived and also the valuable or otherwise contribution that they made while alive he or she doesn’t actually vacate the ambit of earth but instead is immediately transformed into another life form that in the order of things imposes on that individual the commensurate status or otherwise that they’re deemed to have warranted when they previously existed as human beings.

Then there are the atheists whose idea is that it’s all a farcical mess played by Nature which causes us to be unwillingly born, live and then die and that basically according to them is the sum total of it all; and what we get up to or achieve in the interim prior to that fateful day is all relatively speaking down to us and fate. A defective conclusion of theirs which doesn’t, to say the very least, grab me in any interesting or convincing way I must admit. And to be absolutely blunt is analogous to one purchasing an expensive car, filling it up with petrol at the nearest petrol station, driving off to the largest roundabout they know of and then determinedly motor on to that roundabout and spend the rest of their time and until the car runs out of petrol circumventing that roundabout and nowhere else; then wham bang an articulated lorry that also happens to drive onto that roundabout smashes into their car and them with devastatingly catastrophic consequences. And that’s the end of them!

No, life even if we haven’t fully grasped what it’s all about is much more than that and one doesn’t have to be overly religious to recognize that. I’m Anglican: High Church Church of England and have been all my life although I’ve worshiped periodically in other Christian churches when there’s no C of E denominational church where I happen to be at the time. Usually it’s Roman Catholicism since the religious practices engaged in their church mirror many that I’ve known from childhood within the Anglican community that I belonged to and also happily grew up in. And this is principally the case now for me in Germany.

However I always do make a point of first acquainting the respective priest of my faith and church membership as I’m a communicant and going to church for me also involves taking the Holy Sacrament of Communion. But every priest I’ve spoken or dealt with has been fully pragmatic about what I’m doing, acknowledges like me that there is the one God though several way to reach Him, analogous to determining if on a journey to Scotland, for example, from the south of England one should go by train, car or actually fly there with the ultimate purpose being to actually get to Scotland. It’s the very same with reaching God I believe and thankfully the priests I deal with fully understand and sensibly make allowances for that. However, there’s a game that I tongue in cheek play with friends and have done with some of my students along these lines. I’m not a football aficionado by any means though there is one in the family with the identical name who is– HAPPY BIRTHDAY BY THE WAY ON JANUARY 22, 2016 SON - and although I’m fully au fait with all the aspects of that game my principal sports are Cricket and Athletics. Anyway, this is precisely how I explain the Universe and Earth in essentially simple terms. Imagine a massive Galactic Life League synonymous to the football one and at the top of which if we were to take England as an example you have the Premier League and then downwards are a range of other leagues and non league clubs. Then there’s the rigorous process of promotion or demotion from these leagues according to how the respective clubs perform and with some of them although neither relegated or promoted remaining virtually “dormant” in the league in which they happen to be.

So returning to my Galactic Life league if you are exceptionally good for example you may very well find yourself promoted from this Earthly league to one in another world league or conversely be demoted to one below that of earth; and if you then systematically apply that principle to life generally it could well account for where like footballers we move on to next or come back to later. Little wonder then that some people I meet, and I’m equally sure that you do too, in general conversations we have with them say they feel like they’ve been here in some location or other on earth previously and what’s more can even lucidly describe these places that in their current life they’ve never been to. So where exactly are you personally bound for when you leave earth, which I’m decidedly persuaded is NOT in the equivalent of the Galactic Premier League? A Galactic Life League promotion to the equivalent of the English Premier League, demotion to another league; or even a Galactic non-league existence? But wherever you end up it’s a sure bet that Death is the only facilitator of all of this and in that respect not unlike FIFA!