And After Creation, For My Next Trick.

Is it my age that occasionally causes me to lie in bed and ponder the meaning of life. (Very much a 'Life of Brian' thing.)
The universe is only part of something bigger. How big can be realised when you consider that the universe consists of possibly 100 billion galaxies. In our galaxy (The Milky Way) there are between 200-400 billion stars.) There is only one certainty in our own little life within our own little world; we all die. So what happens next?
Mankind has a precarious, insecure existence, with this knowledge in mind it is natural to hope for an afterlife of some kind. This has always been the case from time immemorial. I find it all baffling, even though I was initially brought up in a Christian religion. (Moravian Church). Too many 'for instances'. For instance, my mother died when I was thirteen years of age. If we meet again will she still be the mother of a young boy? Will she be a forty six year old daughter of her elderly mother? Will the boy who died young at my junior school still be eight years old? Will the afterlife be full of Roman soldiers and Medieval peasants? What will we do all day and what will we talk about? Will I get chance to meet Boadicea, Julius Caesar and my childhood hero Stanley Matthews? Will we be recognisable to each other? And will it go on for ever? (Please, please, the believers amongst you, don't suggest I blindly accept without question doctrines that are, to me, illogical and unproven. If it works for you, fine, but we are all different. And it has been suggested, on occasion, my doubts will gain me eternal damnation, by Christians, I might add. Sounds as though I won't be short of company.)
Maybe only those of a similar 'ilk' will be together. Different 'places and existences' according to your beliefs. No mixing of Hindus, Buddists, Christians, Muslims, then. Perhaps there are different 'heavens' perhaps even coexisting side by side. Its obvious, even to me, that it all hangs on 'beliefs and faiths'. (I have no problem accepting that people like Jesus Christ existed. But how much embellishment there is concerning the originators of religions is the bit with which I have problems. And when it is suggested you can have virgins in an afterlife in return for blowing up people, including innocent children I despair. Would I really want to 'live on' in such company.)

I would love to believe that this life is just part of something bigger. But there you go. I am at peace with my own existence. I believe something of me will continue to live on in my children, and in my children's children. People who have never had children, sad, but sorry, life, and death 'sucks'. (Maybe we continue 'on the wind', a nice idea for the childless.)

But strangely enough there are situations where I question my own agnosticism. When I walk round my 'garden' as I do every morning, I see the flowers I have grown. Grown, mark you, not 'invented'. And I marvel at the sheer brilliance in front of me. The incredible, intricate beauty of the Dahlia and my latest acquisition, the Strelitzia (Bird of Paradise). And these plants will reproduce themselves, perfect copies, year after year, ad infinitum. Designed as if something bigger were 'in charge'.

And my grandchildren visit to see the Strelitzias and the Dahlias. And the likeness to myself is obvious. In small and not so small ways myself replicated. Clever stuff indeed. (My mother used to 'hum' as she worked. Almost sixty years later people are amused when I emit the same characteristic 'dirge'.) I can't imagine the world without me. But perhaps nature or whatever is making sure they'll always be a bit of me around. And maybe, just maybe there is more to life than meets the eye.