Thoughts On My Death

As Bettyann, my sisters, their husbands and I prepare to travel to Wyoming within the next few days, for the purpose of depositing mother’s ashes, I am thinking that in spite of the proverbial certainty of death and taxes, my psyche, along with every other civilized human has dreamed of discovering loopholes in whatever mechanisms fix the limits.  Why else would I go in the Medicare, perscription "dough-nut" hole? Yet though it might be possible to cheat on my taxes, "cheating death" remains a phrase of wishful-thinking applied to incidences of short-lived victories against my own mortality. Eventually, death will honor its ignominious appointment with me, calling the bluff of the temptation to believe that I am the master of my own destiny. But despite the universal, empirical verification of its indiscriminate efficiency, this past couple of months, I confess I have been surprised to hear that six of my childhood, teen, friends and close colleauges have died suddenly, apparently without warning. Then utterly surprised when my neighbor, 62 years of age, announced she had given up chemo therapy treatments and was coming home to spend the last four to six weeks of her life, attended too by neighbors, distant kin and hospice, only to die. Over the years I've been asked how I was able to minister in the area of death and dying for so long. I have westled through many dark nights and abandoned daylight hours. Mourning, saddened, elated, thankful. It is what it is at any given moment.  However, I've concluded: it’s only a painfully troubled life that can be so thoroughly desensitized against death's ugliness as to not experience the throbbing agony of the void it creates within, whenever the earthly journey of a loved ones', friends' or neighbors' life comes to an end.

I think it’s also interesting that such a peculiar reaction to an otherwise commonplace occurrence points strongly to the fact that this world is not my home. As Ecclesiastes 3:11 explains, God has put eternity in my heart, and therefore the mysterious notion that I am not meant to die is no mere pipe dream: it sounds a clarion call to the eternal destiny of my, and and every other person’s soul. If the biblical record is accurate, which I believe is, there is no shame or arrogance in pitching my hope for the future as high as my imagination will allow. Actually, I think that maybe, just maybe, the danger of my expectations may be too low, for; "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him," says, 1 Corinthians 2:9. Far from being the accidental byproduct of a mindless collocation of atoms, I am an indestructible beings whose spiritual radar, amidst much static noise, is attuned to my hearts' true home.

I’ve noticed, time and time again, over the years of ministering to those in palliative care, trouble begins when one tries to squeeze that eternal existence into one’s earthly life in a manner that altogether denies their finite nature. I do so whenever I might desensitize myself against the finality of death through repeated exposure to stage-managed destruction of human life through the media. Or when I might zealously seek ultimate fulfillment in such traitorous idols as pleasure, material wealth, professional success, power, or other means; without taking into account the fleeting nature of human existence.  Or when I broach the subject of death only when I have to, and even then I feel the need to couch it in palatable euphemisms. With some of our leading intellectuals assuring us that we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps and we therefore have no need for God, the only thing missing from our lives seems to be the tune of "Forever Young" playing in the cosmic background.  A visitor from outer space would probably conclude that only the very unlucky ones die, while the rest of us are guaranteed endless thrill-rides through space aboard this green planet.

I can see it all now: the alien guest would promptly be treated to the rude awakening that even the most self-assured of human beings are still in transit. While it is possible to sustain a facade of total control within the confines of material comforts, a functional government, and a reasonable distance from the darker side of human suffering, this opportunity is not equally shared around the globe. It would take a very specialized form of education to believe in the ability of human beings to control their own destiny, especially these days, when in the middle east, thousands of people are being put to the sword, homes are being razed to the ground, and Christian neighbors are fleeing for their lives. Unlike their counterparts elsewhere, news anchors in this part of the world rarely preface their gruesome video clips with viewer discretion warnings, and so the good, the bad, and the ugly are all deemed equally fit for public consumption.

I ask myself this morning; being affronted by such an in-your-face, unapologetic reality of human mortality, others find themselves face to face with a dilemma: why should they devote all of their our energy to making a meaningful difference in the world if it is true that everything done under the sun will eventually amount to zero? I really believe that one comes to the conclusion that the emperor has no clothing, what sense does it make to keep up with the pretense? Sadly, I think there are many elders who see through the emptiness and choose to end their own lives.  I wonder if this may not be the case with so many of war’s veterans, as well. If I were coming from a naturalistic perspective, that seems, to me, a perfectly consistent step to take.

Yet, I find the Bible grasping this nettle with astounding authority. I see that not only has God placed a yearning for my true home in my heart, God has also promised to “cloth the perishable with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality through Christ's own death, as described in 1 Corinthians 15:54. In the meantime, the light of the gospel shines an eternal perspective upon my service unto God and humanity, fusing all of my activities with significance. When the call of God has been answered, nothing that is done in obedience to the Father, as the Son himself confirmed in life and death, is ever trivial. Thus even in the face of suffering and death, as a follower of Christ, I neither bury my head in the sand nor grope blindly in total darkness.

Father, God, With faithfulness and joy, I enthusiastically render service to You and sing this morning vibrantly along with Joseph Gilmore when he wrote the 1862 hymn, He Leadeth Me:
And when my task on earth is done,
When by thy grace the victory's won,
Even death's cold wave I will not flee,
Since God through Jordan leadeth me.  Amen