This is going to be a rant. I thought about what I’d like to say as my last words before I died and I realized I wanted more than just a pithy sentence. I plan to dish out the last wit and testament when I kick the bucket, should I be within earshot of anyone, but I have a lot more to say than that.

Hence, this rant.

There is so much wrong with the people in the world today, that it makes the world wrong. There used to be a time when men did not know ways to make the earth do things it was not supposed to do. Now we do those things, and it harms our ability to truly care for others.

I don’t think I can change any of this situation. Certainly, I can’t change it on my own, alone against the world. I don’t think I could change it with my family, either. I love them, but that’s not a lot of people against the world. Even if lots of people read this, there wouldn’t be any change. Sure, I’d reach some fellow-travelers and kindred spirits, but I’d also come up against a bunch of people who would spit on this as a deep and personal insult to their self-assumed right to despoil and plunder the earth and their brothers and sisters in humanity.

So why write this?

I mean, if I have no reason to write this rant, there’s really no point in doing it. This makes the previous question a good one to ask early on in the development of a rant. Without a satisfactory answer, then I should just wipe away all my words and shrug along in my quiet life among billions of others on this desperate planet that is being destroyed faster than it can heal itself.

So, yeah… why write this?

Here’s why: this is more than just me talking. There is truth in what I say. I know this. The truth is given out for two reasons. One is to convert those who have a heart given over to truth and love, and to keep those converts faithful to their conversion. Truth serves both to enlighten and strengthen others.

The second reason is to condemn and indict those that reject truth and love in their lives. There is a judgment beyond this world, and this is my testimony. I may not take this document or my words physically with me when I leave this world, but I will take them with me in spirit if I form them here.

So I suppose I should take on the issue of the afterlife. I know the Chinese philosophers often posed the question, “Why should we worry about what follows death if we haven’t yet figured out what to do before it?” I certainly don’t presume to say I have my entire life figured out. I’ve got some general ideas, sure, but nothing perfectly worked out. But I’ll never have things worked out perfectly, so I might as well move on to things beyond this life, especially since those matters impact the way I live my life.

I believe death is just a phase that divides one form of existence from another. Birth is another such divider. It is no stranger to die than it is to be born. Where we came from and where we go to is a place that is not the same as this world. If it was, then we’d have more discussions with people yet unborn and those that have died.

And, yes, I’ve had those discussions. If a person lives a life within the bounds of certain rules, that person is open to a range of spiritual experiences that are not available to those that don’t live according to those rules. It’s like anything else in our universe: there are underlying laws that guide everything. Everything. EVERYTHING.

Hopefully, you read those last three words with increasing emphasis, because that’s how I want them read. I like dramatic impact. But, yes, everything. The first proof of that is the fact that fire and water exist. This proves that love is the underlying force that guides our universe.

I first read this idea in the liner notes for the film “No Man’s Land,” a drama about the Bosnian War of the early 1990s. The director said that hate seeks to destroy its opposite, while love permits it to exist. Love will try to change its opposite so it will not hate, but it will not destroy. When opposites co-exist peacefully, it proves that love is the rule.

A hater can say, “that proves nothing” and then verbally abuse me. Well, he would be wrong. The existence of opposites is proof that the nature of the universe is not for one force to destroy another, but for the forces to work together, each in their own way, each in their own sphere with their own purpose. Live according to the laws of spirituality, and you will see that. Fail to live according to those laws and you will fail to see that.

The fact that I do not wish to destroy my detractors, but convert them, is further proof that I’m right and that love underlies the whole of the universe. I don’t fear death because I know the truth of the universe. Love is eternal and love will never be destroyed. I could be mocked, contradicted, or ignored, and it would not change the fact that love is still the underlying force that guides the forces of the universe.

The extent to which we allow love to guide our lives is the extent to which we live in harmony with the universe. The extent to which we allow hate, idleness, or selfishness to guide our lives is the extent to which we make war upon the universe – and such a war can never prosper, because love will rule over all.

Have you ever felt love? Yes, yes, you have. Everyone has felt love because that is the way of the universe. It is a testament to the power of love that every single person knows what love is. We can try to lie and look cool by saying “I don’t know what love is. I’ve never felt it,” but that’s just a big lie. The deepest, most eternal truth is that love exists and that love makes itself known to every one of us.

Love, therefore, is God.

The emotions we feel when we feel love are God’s communications to us. They are good, they are in harmony with the universe, they are incontrovertible proof that there is something more to living than survival and propagation of the species in between the events of birth and death.

Therefore, there is a purpose to life and a reason for me to rant on about it. There will be an accounting for our lives because just as we have a sense of love, we have a sense of justice. Justice is another one of those eternal, universal laws that underlies the universe.

I know that there will be justice, but that such knowledge will not necessarily change the ways of those not given over to love. That means what I’m saying will not be for them, although they’re welcome to read this all the same. My audience is the group of people that need strengthening in their life. I’m part of that audience right now, but everyone is welcome to these words to help and uplift their souls.

Therefore, the condemnation is also an empowerer. What I say is an opposite to itself, yet neither opposite destroys its partner. I hope that means what I say has love in it.

You be the judge of that.