Carrying On The Work Of Others

In some of my posts over the years (like here and here), I've written about the importance of thinking beyond our generation. We're often too focused on our contemporaries, pleasing them, following their (often false) lead, adopting their false priorities, trivial mindset, and other bad characteristics. We give some attention to future generations, such as when we're thinking about our children and grandchildren, and there's often talk about things like how we expect technology or the economy to develop in the future. Past generations are probably the most neglected in some ways.

I suspect that's partly because we think of the dead as being inactive or less involved than they actually are in certain contexts. We have more of an awareness of what's at stake for our contemporaries and future generations than we have of what's at stake for those who have died.

There's a problem with people being negligent about the afterlife. It's not that they deny its existence. Most don't. But they don't think about it as much as they should. We have some awareness that the dead are still active in the afterlife, but we haven't developed our thinking about the subject much.

Past generations had hopes and dreams, just as we do and just as future generations will. Individuals in the past started work that they didn't, and sometimes couldn't, complete. Bringing their work to completion doesn't just benefit our contemporaries and people who will live later. It also benefits those people who began the work in the past. They often thought highly of that work and what they were trying to accomplish, and they invested a lot in doing it.

The dead haven't ceased to exist, and we'll see them again. There's a relational element to the situation, such as being reunited with or meeting for the first time somebody whose work you carried on and perhaps even brought to completion. It's common ground that you'll have, a bond that you don't have with other people.

Our most important relationship is with God, and he hasn't forgotten the dead. Our love for them can and should be a form of honoring him.

As you get older, more of your relatives, friends, and acquaintances have moved to a more distant location, become ill in some significant way (dementia, for example), or died. We should develop more of an appreciation for past generations over time rather than becoming less concerned about them, more dismissive, and such. They should be part of our plans for the future. They aren't just a part of the past.