For the believer in a benevolent God, death is merely a
temporary condition that will have a final resolution in time; Infinite existence for those who accept the
gift of God, and infinite non-existence for those who have refused God’s
offer. This belief offers hope to those
who are left behind in the wake of death of a loved one. It inspires those who are left behind in this
world to look forward to reunification.
The biggest problem with death, even for the believer, is the unexpected
nature it inhabits. No bigger
interruption can we experience. Plans
made are stopped without warning. All the
intentions we had – frozen in time. Even
those that are terminally ill, and understand the soon coming approach of death
are sometimes surprised when it actually arrives. It is the surprise of death that adds to our
pain, but truly, this is more a statement about how we live, than when we die.
When we think of our own mortality, we often look at it in
grandiose terms. What is the legacy we
leave behind us? What will history say
about us (if anything), or what would our loved ones say? Will we be missed? Then comes the reality of what we will indeed
be leaving – those we care about. The
thought of parting company with our children, our parents, our spouses, our
families, our friends; the sadness can be overwhelming. Thoughts like these rarely occur in any
regularity among the healthy, the young, or the affluent. Other than enduring a life insurance sales
pitch we choose to simply continue our existence and ignore our mortality. No sense in dwelling on what we cannot
change, or avoid. So we live in denial.
Then all of the sudden, everything we were planning to do,
everything we were planning to say, is put to an end. No choice.
No negotiation. No second
chances. Just gone. Those that survive a near-death experience
understand how close to this prospect they have just come. Those that discover the unexpected loss of a
loved one remain wondering what was left undone. The living no longer have the option of
expressing their feelings to the departed.
They no longer have the opportunity to ask for forgiveness, extend
affection, or perform a service. All of
these feelings go unresolved, with no closure.
Some believe that the departed can still hear us from the
great beyond that our belated goodbyes can still be heard and appreciated. Hollywood cashes in on these beliefs with
barrage of films from Ghost to the more recent Over Her Dead Body. The essential premise is that awareness,
personality, thought, a form of conscience exists after death. Interaction with the living is therefore
inevitable, and somehow the masses buy into this thinking. Of course logically the premise makes no
sense. If every loved one who ever
departed this earth could come back and interact, wouldn’t all the jealousy,
all the pettiness, all the anger and grief come back into every life, and not
just for a single generation. What is to
stop great grandma, grandma, and mom from interacting under this belief
system. Agnostic’s simply write-off
these Hollywood movies as simple fantasy stories, and so they are. But some Christians ignore the Biblical precepts
of death being similar to sleep, where the dead, know not anything. They choose rather to believe that our
unresolved feelings and expressions are still somehow visible to the
departed. Again a statement about how we
live, in a further state of denial.
The simple truth is we are ALL dying. Whether this process takes place tonight on
the road home, through the process of a debilitating unexpected illness, or
after many many decades and a full life at home in our beds – we remain
dying. The simple truth is that death
has an important role to play in our lives, but not the one you might
expect. Death is a symbol of the
unplanned, the unforeseen. It reminds us
that the priorities we place in our activities and plans may be misplaced in a
grander scheme. It reminds us to finish
what we start in a time frame short enough to insure completion. Don’t miss that opportunity to ask
forgiveness, extend affection, or perform some service of love for
another. Living like you were dying is a
bit redundant. You are dying. The point is to learn how to really
live. The point of death is not to
induce despair about what is inevitable, it is to induce excitement about every
breath you have remaining in you. It is
not your sleep you dread, it is the thought of an incomplete existence.
One need not spend their days seeking out the great wonders
of the world, to feel as though their existence has had meaning. What is the glory of the Taj Mahal against
the love that inspired its construction.
What is the grandeur of the pyramids against the brilliance of the
architecture of their designers, and the knowledge that even though Pharaoh
thought himself to be God on earth, he lays within these brick walls,
asleep. What is the glory of the Vatican
with all of its ornate sculpture and intricate paintings, against the religion
it purports to honor where Christ says He reigns in the human heart, and that
His kingdom is NOT of this world. Why
spend your days on earth honoring the creation of great artisans and ignore
what you are able to contribute?
Your life has meaning.
Those you love, those who love you are of infinite value. It remains that love is all that is important
in our lives. The things we have built
may be wiped away like sand castles on the shore of the beach. Our employer’s companies may pass on, our
homes may be torn down to build the next great thing, our art may be discarded
or remain undiscovered; but the love we extend in our lives has effects that
live on in others. It is the love that
outlives us, the effects of love, like the effects of the wind – something you
know has happened without being able to concretely explain the source. This is the nature of love, and the reason it
outlives us all.
Someday even death will be defeated for us. Those who believe will be called back into
existence to meet the God they began to get to know while here on this mortal
coil. At that time, sickness will be a
thing of the past, a faded memory we will not be able to dwell upon. At that time, all physical imperfections will
be a thing of the past, every defect changed, every imperfection corrected –
both in body and in mind and in soul.
Then existence will resume awakened from our brief encounter with
unexpected sleep.
Let us not be made fools by our mortality. Let us choose to live and value love as we
should. Let us choose to remember that
death interrupts us all, and not be surprised by it, but undaunted by it. To vow to live the fullest existence we are
capable of on a daily if not hourly basis.
Let us complete as much as we can in the time we have, not in despair,
but in joy. Don’t live like you were
dying, live like you were planning to live both now and again someday in a more
perfect world. Live like you were
loving, and loving all the time. It is
how you love that lives on forever and echoes past the corridors of time …
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