This is Day 2 of “7 Stories in 7 Days”. I asked my Facebook followers to give me a line from a favorite song to use as a writing prompt. I have not looked up the context of these lines so any similarity to the actual song is purely coincidental.

From dust we are made and into dust we are destined to return. Is this really what we have to look forward to? Is there life after death? Are there streets of gold waiting for us to stroll in heaven? Or is there something else?

I can imagine a ‘place’ where we all exist, not in the physical form as we know each other here on Earth, but in the non-physical. Some call this heaven, but I think most of those see heaven as a destination only, not as our point of origin. But what if we existed in the non-physical before we were given a physical body? Could it be possible that once we are done with this “bag of bones” we simply return to that non-physical entity? What would the non-physical be like? Many refer to it as “Pure, Positive Energy”. What can we take from this title? Let’s look at each word individually, taken from merriam-webster.com:

• Pure: unmixed with any other matter
• Positive:  indicating, relating to, or characterized by affirmation, addition, inclusion, or presence rather than negation, withholding, or absence
• Energy: a spiritual force

What if we exist in this state of pure, positive energy? All of our needs are met. There is no strife, no conflicts. Wouldn’t it be possible to become complacent where there is no negativity? On the other hand, if all you have ever known is pure, positive energy, are you even aware that negativity even exists? Maybe that’s what our lives in this physical body is all about. We get to experience the contrasts to pure, positive energy. We see hate, anger, cheating, doing without. We experience war, depression, illness and disappointment. I can imagine that moment at death’s door when we leave our physical body to return to the non-physical. What a relief! We relish the thought that we can go back and just go with the flow, nothing to stop our deliberate creation of joy and happiness around us. Until one day, in our complacency, we decide we would like to give the physical form another shot. I’m not sure how we get selected to return to the physical. I can imagine a ‘message board’ stream of thought with impending lives coming up. Who wants to try being a white female in a rural setting? Who wants to take a shot at being a black male born to a single, drug using mother, in a blighted urban setting? Maybe we get to choose the physical life we want to experience, or maybe it is chosen for us. Maybe there’s even other options to experience the physical than those offered here, on Earth. I can imagine floating along in the non-physical, without a care in the world universe, thinking I could have done a better job than I did the last time I was allowed to experience the physical. I would be in that line, shouting “Put me in, coach, I’m ready to play, today.” Popping out into the physical form, I would be knowing but not remembering the non-physical from where I had come, attempting to create a life as close to the pure, positive energy that I had come from.