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Spring of Life -
H.
Roger Bothwell
Autopsies
If I asked my students to define the word "autopsy" I am sure all of them
would tell me it is the postmortem examination of a body. They would be
correct but I am suspicious few of them have ever taken the word apart for its
inherent meaning, which is "to see for oneself." The prefix "auto" means
self and "opsy" has the same root as optical. Therefore when we perform an
autopsy we are seeing for ourselves why the body died. Sometimes when I
see someone's spiritual life die I wish I could perform an autopsy to see, to
understand what went wrong. What happened that caused the person to
walk away from the gift of eternal life?
One of my observations through the years is very few people drift away
because they no longer believe. More times than not it has something to do
with something that occurred that made them angry or disenchanted with
someone. Somebody said something that hurt them or someone they care
about and so as to not see that person again they disassociate themselves
from the group. Once that happens it is not a very far journey into thinking
that church and spiritual things are not particularly relevant. Little by little a
very vital part of them withers and is replaced by the busy demands of life.
Often they fall into a depressing pattern of busyness not realizing the cause
for their lack of happiness and fulfillment.
Autopsies are not very pleasant experiences. In the case of a spiritual
autopsy it could be beneficial to restoring a lost happiness to life.
I'm
Roger Bothwell and my address is roger.bothwell@verizon.net
or 151 Old Farm Rd. Leominster, MA 01453. Thank you for your
support of our faith ministry.
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