First, this “equation” is simply how I like to remember my life as a Christian. As flawed as I am, God has blessed me with much and my heart tells me to share this thought.
My mother fell asleep in the Lord in October 2022. In the years before her death up until a week before she passed away, we both were on a journey bringing us closer to the Triune God. A few weeks before her passing, she weakened quickly, yet her mind stayed sharp. Maybe not wholly on her life with us, but still aware. On the Friday before her mind moved on, the very last day she spoke to me, her last request was that we stand up together and pray. I prayed aloud for both of us, and especially for her to have a quiet assurance of paradise. The rest of her left the following week.
I was numb at first, but then the grief came. I went on a couple pilgrimages to monasteries in Arizona and California. Each place, I brought her with me (her memorial card) and left her there in the company of saints. Each time I left more at peace and with a little knowledge important only to me, my mom and other family members.
Somewhere along the way I got really geeky and the thought came that death is not the period at the end of the last sentence of the book of your life, but the decimal point in 𝜋 (pi, 3.1416…). If one keeps their mind, heart and soul on the Trinity before death then, just like the infinite and non repetitive numbers after the decimal point, there is joyful, peaceful, eternal living after death.
Just another way of saying, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36)
G – God
+ – Christ (the cross), bridge between man and God, link of heaven to earth
HS – Holy Spirit
=> G+HS𝜋
Hmmm, maybe I need an equal sign. G+HS=𝜋
It is also related to the “unbossed, unbought, unafraid” statement. I am unbossed (except by God); unbought (except by the blood of Jesus Christ); and unafraid (because of the Holy Spirit).
What do you think?
May God bless you and keep you on the path to salvation and everlasting life in God’s embrace.
Athena Christodoulou