Downy Woodpecker : Life After Death
Downy Woodpecker
This is a Downy Woodpecker. He’s a father. As I stood there marveling at the visible bird, I also heard his nestlings calling out for food. That hole into which he’s looking so intently is the refuge he’s built for the next generation. Without fortunate timing, watching him enter the nest, I might have overlooked this scene. But this instance was special. I was in a place absolutely teeming with life. All around me was thriving habitat for all manner of plants and animals. But not this tree. This tree is dead. There’s a trail that runs alongside a pond, and with that water close at hand, all the trees limning the trail are large and flourishing. This tree is dead. But it’s in this tree, the dead tree, that the woodpecker is bringing the next generation into life.
What happens after we die? A question that has perplexed every young child and every aged sage. Jewish liturgy and scholarly tradition offer a wide range of thoughts regarding life after death. The only certainty is that Jewish belief isn’t monolithic. Some believe that in the age of the Messiah, there will be literal resurrection, and the dead will return to corporeal life. Others interpret these teachings to mean that there will be a rebirth of the People Israel as a national movement, fulfilling the destiny of a moral exemplar, the light unto the nations. And there are more expansive traditions that take the essence of the teaching to mean that God is the source of all life. Faith is required when the answer is both future and unknown.
I am comfortable with my deep ignorance of life after death. I find the questions of this world more pressing than those of the world to come. To live - now - in a way that does honor to myself, to my family, and to my community requires my full attention. The power of the departed comes from their names and their memories, the blessings we carry with us. Do we notice this inspiration? Or do we walk past it unheeding? Answering this question is a far more life-giving enterprise. Take from the dead their gift of enhancing life. I watched, marveling, at the Woodpecker that used a dead tree as his brood’s living home. As we wrestle with these unknowable futures, may we too enhance our lives with the blessings of our dead.