title: Ten Thoughts to Take Into Eternity: Living Wisely in Light of the Afterlife
author:  David Yount 
description: Yount (syndicated religion columnist and author of three previous spirituality books) addresses death as a topic that interests everyone because we all face its inevitability. While many people avoid thinking and talking about death and attempt to deny its reality, Yount prefers to look at it directly and discover grounds for hope. He firmly believes in an afterlife. His sources include the Bible and recorded near-death experiences, and he stresses human beings' almost universal belief in eternal life. Yount touches on such topics as the story of the Garden of Eden, the concept of purgatory, whether hell exists (and who might go there if it does) and, of course, what we can hope for and expect after we die. The "ten thoughts" include such injunctions as "be prepared for surprises" and "enter eternity laughing." Yount writes as a Christian speaking out of his own tradition in a way that neither excludes non-Christians from his ideas nor disregards the particular teachings that bring comfort to Christians. The book suggests that a proper perspective on death will assuage some of our fears (Aug.) <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  **The Gates**
  
  
  ## **of Eden**
  
  
  ### _Brian Stableford_
  
  
  
  
  
  _As you move along the corridor the hands sprout from the walls, their slow,
  slimy fingers groping_ _for your arms and your ankles. The cobwebs catch your
  face, caressing you, and you feel the eyes_ _of the great fat spiders watching
  you. They don't move, but some-how that's no mercy._
  
  
  _There are ghosts nearby, but you'll never see them. They're inside the walls,
  where ghosts prefer to_ _live, coexistent with cold stone. That's your
  destiny: to wait out eternity entombed in solid rock,_ _moving through the
  barriers that set apart the spaces where the others live._
  
  
  _The others?_
  
  
  _You're one of the others right now. An ephemeral creature; a meaningless
  dream of the nucleic_ _acids, a sport in the grand game of life. Flesh and
  blood_ — _flesh that is made to feel pain; blood that_ _fills you up so that
  every least pin prick will burst you and spill you and shrink you and feed
  the_ _vampire until you shriv