It is reported that during World War II, a young bomber pilot, just before taking off on a critical mission, lit a match in the presence of the chaplain, and, after having blown it out, asked him, "Now, tell me, man to man, is that all that happens to us when we die?" Peggy Lee, several years ago, asked something of the same question in her plaintive song: "Is this all there is?"

The question is as old as Job and those before him, "If a person die, can they live again?" And we are back again to the questions of what life is all about, what happens after death, and, indeed, what is the meaning of our existence -- questions for which answers come hard, assurances are often shallow and, all too often, we are left with that question still burning in our mouths as we bury a father, or mother, …