Questions from Sushi and Eliza

I’m going to answer Liza and Sushi’s questions together which are “do you actually believe in god? or is it something that's been so integrated into your heritage, etc. that you feel obligated to buy into it? and if you do, what do you think god/the afterlife consists of?” And “What do you think happens after you die?”

So heres a story. On Monday my play was read and both my parents saw the play for the first time. They hadn’t read it before and aside from the basic premise (nuns on mars) they knew nothing about it let alone how much it deals with trying to have faith. Afterwards we all go out to dinner and my mom turns to me and says “Why did you write a play about God? You don’t believe in God… Do you?”

Believing in God was not part of my heritage, in fact given the way I was raised I should be an atheist. Yes my family is culturally Jewish and Quaker but that just means we’re in it for the food. Yet I have always felt this ache that the world can not be explained in purely scientific terms. That there are mysteries that will never be explained. So coming to a point where I could admit that I believe in a God was very hard and took a very long time. Its something I have struggled with my whole life. I still don’t believe in God as a white bearded man sitting in the clouds. Its more an acceptance that there are mysteries. (I would call myself “spiritual” except those god damn new age hippies took that word and made it all lame with their crystals and incense.) There is a lot of ambiguity in the play which is exactly the way I feel. I think if you have seen the play you essentially have listened to three different sides of me hash it out for 90 minuets. The last lines of the play are:

LUCIA

What does it mean?

CARDINAL

Must everything have meaning?

LUCIA

Yes.

CARDINAL

It means... have hope.

LUCIA

That is not what it means.

CARDINAL

I’m just an old man. I don’t know what it means. I just know I would really like a hot chocolate.

LUCIA

Do you have chocolate bars?

CARDINAL

Yes.

LUCIA

Come in. I’ll make you some.

***

In summery, we’ll never know. But we should hope. And drink hot chocolate. Because hot chocolate is awesome. “We have to build the republic of heaven where we are. Because for us there is no elsewhere.” --Phillip Pullman

...

And in regards to what happens after we die I have made a conscious decision to believe in The Amber Spyglass thesis. Its very long and beautiful and I am going to rob it of some power by trying to condense it here. But essentially it goes that we will tell our stories to the guardians at the gate and if we tell it truthfully our matter will drift apart and we will rejoin the stars.