I am still contemplating your words. Especially what you had to say about fearing death.
I was thinking today about a sign at a church I drove past that said, "Life is short, pray hard". I fell into a lot of thought about all this little phrase says about a Christian community fear of death and the desire to have a sense of power over disintegration of ego-dominated human experience.
I'm ego-centric enough to fear the disintegration of my current expression, but for whatever reason I find more peace in letting it go and seeing myself as a changing part of that eternal whole, than in exercising power of prayer to secure myself nice accommodations in afterlife. I think both are maybe, at least partially, different expressions of a desire to maintain a sense of control over an unknown, and so frightening, outcome. At least this is as far as I've gotten in my contemplation.
I'm curious your thoughts...