Psalm 49. A psalm about not fearing in times of trouble and about the fate of those with foolish confidence in themselves, their riches, and their positions. They will carry nothing with them when they die, their graves will be their homes forever. "Man cannot abide in his pomp, he is like the beasts that perish."

I have had at least part of this Psalm before, and "Why should I fear in times of trouble" is a lifeline when I do feel surrounded by persecutors. Today, though, I'm struck by the line that says that lost souls will go to the grave "and their form shall waste away. Sheol shall be their home."

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday and Bishop Barron's homily for today uses the idea of "images" "impressions" and "forms" as a way of describing how even the smallest, most inanimate object in nature, like a rock, can leave an image of itself - for example, in a mirror, or after being left in the ground and lifted up. Bishop Barron goes on to extrapolate this to how God, in his infinite wisdom and power, could, and did, beget a perfect image of himself in his Son.

But I am thinking right now of us as images created by God. Every moment we live and breathe we are being held in existence by God - He has our image in his mind at all times -  every single one of us! But if we do not turn to Him in life, if we separate ourselves from Him and instead find comfort and pride, and try to find meaning, in our riches and pomp, then we will not be with Him in death.

We can always change while alive, and He waits for us expectantly and gives us every opportunity to do so, but if we die without repentance, we will remain separated from Him. In death, this passage seems to say the very image that God made of us will begin to fade away.

God created life, not death, He does not have an image of our dead selves in His mind, since death was never what He intended for us. When we choose separation from Him, even at the point of our death, we choose to erase our living image from God's mind. In other words, we choose hell.