Most of us, if we live long enough, will find ourselves participating in a funeral or memorial service. At many of these unfortunate events a member of the clergy may officiate the proceedings, reading passages from the Bible to comfort the survivors. Family members and special friends of the deceased step up to a podium and relate special memories. There are tears, solemn moments and occasional laughs as someone shares a humorous memory.

These are usually cookie-cutter affairs that follow a familiar pattern, but now and then there is a special moment, a moment that opens our eyes to a truth that even those Bible passages fail to reveal.

Recently, I was witness to such a moment.

Her name was Becky, and she was the recently deceased wife of an old friend.

Becky was a kind-hearted soul who was an active member of her church. She had a lifetime habit of giving, encouraging, and helping. She made trips to Honduras to provide aid and inspiration to those less fortunate. She had a circle of friends who treasured her companionship.

Those who spoke of her expressed confidence that Becky had surely gone to a heavenly reward, but there is always that unspoken question. Before you can believe in that heavenly reward, you must believe that the human spirit exists after the death of the physical body.

It is a question to which we have no answer based on human experience.

Most of us have heard stories of life after death. We have heard of those who claim to have gone beyond and returned. We have heard of stories about after-death experiences where someone claims to have met an ancestor who died before they were born. We may have heard stories of heavenly landscapes and knowledge of events that took place while the person was clinically dead.

We have all heard these stories. But they are stories that involve people we don’t know, and we have a hint of doubt. We can’t look into their eyes and judge. We can’t judge their credibility because their story is just words on a page, or video footage on You Tube. We might believe, but we just don’t know for a certainty.

That changed for me at Becky’s service.

One of those who chose to stand before the crowd and relate her experience with Becky was a childhood friend. She and Becky had been childhood companions who had lost touch in adulthood and then re-connected later in life. She spoke of the joy they shared after they found each other later in life.

Then she spoke of Becky’s last visit.

She knew that Becky had been declared brain-dead but was still breathing. And with that, there was hope. She went to sleep that night hoping against hope that Becky would recover. Sometime during the night, she had a dream that Becky came to visit one last time. At least, it seemed like a dream. Until the next morning when she learned that Becky had died, and she realized that her dream was more than a dream. She realized that Becky’s spirit had come to her to say good-bye.

Normally when we hear such a story, we might harbor doubts, but this was a face-to-face, real-time, real life narration of a real person.

And the doubts are washed away.

To each of us in that room there was an understanding, a realization. While we might struggle to define it, life after physical death is a fact. And with that understanding come a deeper, more confident faith.

And a knowing.

The spirit, the soul, the essence of a human being continues after physical death. And while we might mourn the loss from our lives, there is a promise of a reunion in that realm we call heaven. We call it a celebration of life, but it might be better labeled a celebration of rebirth – rebirth into a spiritual realm of joy where we will one day celebrate a reunion.

As we contemplate the miraculous elements that define our existence, we discover more and more evidence that our existence and the world we inhabit is the result of intelligent design.

The complexity of our memories is a perfect example.

If we reflect on our memories, we would recognize that any given memory appears in our thoughts as a simple image that represents a moment in time. If we focus and concentrate on that image, it may expand into a collection of images that defines an expanded view of that moment. Our initial memory image acts like a label on a file folder that contains the balance of that memory. We might compare it to the thumbnail image we see on a You Tube listing.

It is very much like the string of images that we see as a motion picture. Whether it is stored on film or as digital files on a DVD, or as a streaming computer file, the movie we watch is a string of still images that is presented so rapidly, that we perceive it as motion.

In effect, our human-developed technology has caught up with the organic technology that exists within the human form. The parallels to computer technology are astounding and revealing as well.

It appears that the technology that it took humanity thousands of years to develop was built into the human form from the beginning.

Under hypnosis, people have been able to recall much more detail than casual memory reveals. In addition, an occasional individual surfaces who can recall moments in their history that defy explanation, even to the ability to recall the weather on a particular date. Those of us who can’t recall a birthdate or anniversary are amazed that a human mind can store that much information accurately.

Maybe there is an easy answer.

If we view our memories as that string of images that comprise a single memory, we must conclude that a lifetime of memories would amass hundreds of billions of images. We would then be forced to confront the question of, how could that relatively small mass of tissue that is the human brain hold so much information?

The easy answer is that it cannot. It could, however, hold that collection of “file folders” that our casual memory could access. Perhaps opening that file folder is merely accessing information that resides in the spiritual realm that has no bounds.

If the small card that fits into our digital camera can store hundreds of photos, each comprised of thousands of bits of information, how much information could be stored in the expanse of the universe?

It is a concept that can only be explained by one answer – intelligent design. No “accident” of nature could possibly explain the miracle of memory.

While Christianity is the leading religion in the world, it isn’t without competition. Various cultures have their own viewpoint on the fate of humanity and the relationship between humans and the ultimate Creator. It seems to be an instinctual awareness that resides in the human spirit.

Few of us will makes the effort to explore or understand the various religious beliefs. Most of us will merely accept the beliefs of our particular family or culture. Fewer yet will question the “why” of our Christian beliefs.

Frankly, most of us in the Christian community blindly accept that Christianity is the one, true spiritual path. But, is it?

Perhaps the answer lies within our core beliefs of how a perfect human being should act.

The Bible, which we trust as our guidebook, reveals a long history of mankind’s struggle to achieve perfection. The Ten Commandments gives us a solid foundation of righteous behavior. The New Testament demonstrates God’s final attempt to provide His creation with an opportunity to achieve that perfection by means of forgiveness for human failures.

It all hinges, of course, on the reality of Jesus being, not just God’s emissary, but His Son. It hinges on the reality of the resurrection.

So, what is the evidence?

Let’s start with the foundation of the Christian lifestyle – the Ten Commandments. There is little doubt that we all are guilty of violating our share of these rules of life. But, when we step back and analyze those rules, we recognize that they define the perfect life we would all prefer to live. The fact that we are imperfect beings, incapable of living up to those standards, is the reason for the Christian element of our spiritual life.

The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the proof we need to embrace a relationship with our creator and mend that broken relationship. It is also the key to admittance of the spirit of humankind to the Kingdom of God.

But we are, by nature, doubters. What is the proof that Jesus, and the story of His resurrection, is true? The answer is “self-preservation.”

When we look at the earliest history of Christianity, we see a group of individuals, each with his own version of events, ready to risk his own life to spread the message. It is hard to imagine a group of men taking such a risk, unless the resurrection was a true event.

That brings us back to the initial question – is Christianity the one, true, path to the Creator?

While we might appreciate the good intentions of other beliefs, it is only Christianity that combines the full package of love and forgiveness that we all hope for, and without the baggage of revenge, intimidation, and cruelty that accompanies some other versions of worship.

Does that mean that those who claim the label of Christians are infallible?

Hardly.

If we look at our history, we will find that many crimes against humanity have been committed in the name of Christianity as any other belief. Wearing the label does not insulate us from straying.

While we might believe that Christianity is the true path, that belief obligates us to guard against distorting the tenets of our faith to suit our political or practical needs. When the temptation arises, we need only to fall back on the foundation of Christian lifestyle to correct our course.

It is an option that doesn’t exist in other beliefs.

It’s a fair question.

If God is an all-powerful being, responsible for all that exists, and capable of unlimited acts, why does He allow evil to exist?

Once more, we are faced with the complexity of our existence and the concept of an all-powerful Being. Once more we are faced with the unfathomable nature of all that is – seen and unseen. Once more we are faced with questions that seem to have no answer.

Perhaps we can find the answer by using the tools of logic and analytical thought that we possess. We should start by recognizing our limitations. As humans, we are handicapped by what we don’t know we don’t know. In short, there are things we don’t know, because we are unaware that they even exist.

As a start, we might consider that there may be reasons that God allows things that we find unacceptable, because they serve a purpose in His master plan. As an example, we would prefer that death wasn’t a part of our life cycle, but simple logic reveals that an unlimited growth of human population is unsustainable on the earth. If the human spirit only occupies a human body for a limited time but continues to exist beyond physical death, the loss of that physical body is merely the end of a stage in the continuing existence of that being. It may be that the generations of human beings are God’s process for perfecting the human form through evolution.

When it comes to the existence of evil, there may be similar explanation.

If any one of us were to experience complete silence, we would appreciate the soothing tones of a musical composition. Likewise, we would be more pleased by a beautiful sunrise if we had experienced total darkness.

It is the contrast that fully exposes the pleasure of the better experience.

Without darkness, we cannot fully appreciate the light. Without silence, we cannot fully appreciate the sound of a human voice or the dawn songs of our bird neighbors.

It may be the same with the contrast between good and evil. We cannot fully appreciate the good, without at least an awareness of evil. Perhaps that is God’s purpose, to allow us an awareness or experience of evil so that we might fully appreciate the full package of blessings we receive.

My wife sat in the room where her grandmother, lying unconscious in her bed, was breathing her last weak breaths. The nursing staff had called earlier that morning and told my wife that grandma was fading fast. “Come quickly if you want to say goodbye,” they told her. My wife rushed to her unconscious  grandmother’s side, and now sat helpless, watching death slowly take hold.

Predictably, grandma took one final breath and exhaled one last time. Across the room, my wife sat up in her chair, alert for another breath – a breath that never came. It was over.

Just then, the picture that hung over grandma’s bed, fell to the floor.

It’s hard to explain that incident as a coincidence. A more likely explanation is that the energy that departed grandma’s body when she took that last breath, somehow interacted with that picture and caused it to fall. It was an energy that our human form finds difficult to detect, but exists outside the normal range of our five senses.

Because that energy is undetectable, we seldom give it consideration, but it surrounds us at all levels. While we have developed tools and instruments to detect other invisible forms of energy, we have yet to find a means of sensing the life energy that seems to exist after physical death.

It appears that animals are more sensitive to that energy. Stories abound of dogs and cats reacting to an invisible presence that humans seldom detect. While we might find their reactions amusing, we fail to appreciate that those animals have other highly developed senses that exceed our abilities. Perhaps they can detect that life force that eludes our effort to detect.

Humans do occasionally demonstrate the ability to sense the realm that is usually inaccessible to us. Stories abound too of people who, in their final moments of life, seem to be able to see images of those who have gone before. Those comforting visits seem to be detectable by those who are gradually approaching that moment when the transition from life to death is imminent, and the previously departed are offering comfort and guidance to the failing and fearful human spirit.

As our science and understanding of our universe continues to expand, we have learned that all we are and all that surrounds us are forms of energy. Much of that energy goes unnoticed because it is a part of our daily existence. We don’t feel the weight of the atmosphere that surrounds us, or the constant collisions of the molecules of gases that make up our atmosphere. We don’t feel the processes that convert the food we eat into the energy that propels our bodies. We don’t feel the nerve impulses that transmit information from our eyes to the appropriate portion of our brain.

Surrounded by the variety of energy forms that define our world, perhaps that mysterious life force that seems to be the core of our being is just another note in the symphony of God’s creation.