I recall my youth with warmth of heart—seventeen years old, my admission to the Orel State Institute of Economy and Trade and years of happy student life against the background of the “crazy 1990s”. My first love, the flame I carried through three years of our student life. My chosen one’s name was Svetlana: she lived in her native Sevastopol, while I lived in Orel.
And so, in the course of my intense romantic correspondence the image of a Wanderer somehow crystallized by itself—of an immortal man who walks through the centuries, fights in battles, learns different professions and languages, makes and loses friends, but carries through the centuries his love for the only lady he once met. How many songs were born and performed on my guitar, how many poems were composed! Ah! Wonderful time!
But my first feelings of love faded away and a new love named Irina appeared, whom I married and with whom I still live. But the image of an eternal man haunted me for a long time, inspiring me to creative feats. It acquired new details: There was a period when my Wanderer, making a huge fortune with his age-old knowledge and experience, traveled the world, looking for talented young people and investing money in them, forming a whole army of creative people around him. And again there were songs, stories and thoughts about it.
And now I am fifty-one. I have my beloved wife, daughter, granddaughter, job and creative work. The wanderer remained in the past—in fond memories of my youth. However, now that my life has been warmed by the Orthodox faith, the former Wanderer has transformed into myself, who believes in eternal life, believes in a beautiful Paradise and strives with all his might to go to it. That romantic, eternal man, walking through the ages, could not even have imagined that the chosen image was not at all fantastic, that it is really possible to live forever! True, the death of the body is inevitable, but the soul is the center of our consciousness, the center of our personality—it is immortal! And the Lord has prepared for those who love Him a much more exciting reality than a chaotic journey of a fictional person through the centuries.
It’s terrifying to imagine what would happen if people were not to die, but lived on earth forever. What would we start doing? Building a paradise on earth. A paradise, but without God. “Why do I need God if I’m never going to die? I will do whatever I please without any regard for higher powers.” An eternal man, freed from the power of God, would cast prudence to the winds, multiplying passion by passion, leading an unbridled and depraved life, in the center of which would be “my dear Self” and “My Pleasure”. There would simply be no place for God here. If social inequality were to be preserved in this situation, then some, the “cream of society”, would forever enjoy their impunity, while the lower classes would suffer forever. People would not have the fear of death and the subsequent Last Judgment and retribution. Oh! It would not be a paradise, but a real hell on earth, given that our nature is corrupted and distorted by sin.
But, thank God, this is not the case. We are mortal, and this is a great blessing for us. Impending death prompts a person who searches for the meaning of life to live straining his mental strength—of course, provided that he has faith in the Almighty and trust in Him and His help. But many people live without faith, without a Guide in life, Whose name is Jesus Christ, as if they really were immortal. That is, they multiply sin by sin, without thinking of repentance and reform. As Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky said in his novel The Brothers Karamazov: if God does not exist, everything is permitted. You can humiliate your close ones, bully children, be rude to others, have sex with just anyone, overeat without control and so forth. “Let’s take the most from life, because there is nothingness after it. We’ll lie down in a coffin, and that’s the end of it—that is, we won’t have to answer for anything. Hooray? Hooray!”
Death is sobering to God-fearing people. As The Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, says: In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin (Sir. 7:39). Of course, we will always sin, but we will also repent and ask for God’s forgiveness. We will rise after our falls, and gritting our teeth, walk forward. Death can catch us at any moment; therefore we must always be ready for it. “Always be what you want to be at your death,” the Holy Hierarch Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) counsels us. That is, in prayer, in repentance, in charitable acts, in sobriety, and in fighting with our old man.
Here on earth all of us humans are Wanderers and strangers. We are guests who have been allowed to wander here for a short time to collect treasures that will be useful to us in Heaven. According to Christ, For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Mt. 6:21). We are indeed immortal. However, we will not live forever on earth, but God willing, will live forever in another realm called the Heavenly Kingdom. Our souls are indestructible! After the universal resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment, the saved, by the grace of God, will enter the everlasting Kingdom of love and beauty, where God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). The Lord will become the main Content, Source and Giver of this Kingdom, in which there will be no death, sin or repentance, but never-ending joy and bliss. The saved will love God and each other, and there will be no end to this happiness.
Therefore, as long as we are wandering on earth, let us seek God, strive for Him, live according to His commandments and remember “our last day” (cf. Sir. 7:39), so that one day we may hear the loving voice of God inviting us to share eternal life with Him…
