Still Thinking – Death and Dying

I never thought much about my own death when I was a young person even through at the age of 13 I was in the house when my mother died.  While I had an awareness of what death was I was too much immersed in life to dwell on it.  I recall a real feeling of irritation as a teenager when a travelling evangelist came to Upper Mt Gravatt Baptist Church and at the conclusion of his sermon told us, “As you leave the church tonight and walk out into the street you could be hit by a bus and killed.  So if you don’t accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour tonight you will spend the rest of eternity in hell!” As a “God intoxicated” sixteen year old whose mother had died when she was 32 years old, I truly felt that I knew more about life and death than this itinerant preacher did.

While my mother’s death left an indelible mark on my life the only time thoughts of my own death would pass through my mind as a young person was when I was engaged in something dangerous - like diving off the rocks into the surf at Currumbin beach and then the fear was more about being injured than actually drowning. However, life and aging does change our reflections on death and dying. 

At the ripe old age of 59 I do think more about my own death today than I did ten or fifteen years ago.  But, and I suspect this is true of most in the second half of life, my concern is not so much with death, that final terminus, but with the “process” of dying.  What can be worrying is the manner in which I will die.  I don’t lie awake at night fearful that one day I will die, neither do I want to live forever, but I know that dying often - not always - takes some time.  Perhaps it’s the fear of the loss of control when doctors or my wife or adult children make decisions for me; or the loss of dignity when forced to wear those hospital gowns designed to display ones rear end to the world. I don’t think I fear the pain or the discomfort and while I don’t want to be euthanized, I do want to have the right to both pain medication and the final say about the end of my life.

I am aware that such a discussion is much easier in the theoretical or hypothetical than it is when faced with the sting of death and the cloak of dying but the Christian faith has taught us that death is a part of life and that those who face their own death can then live more fully.  During my time in the desert on the men’s initiation retreat with Richard Rohr I spent a day by myself on the top of hill contemplating my death.  We all had a simple sentence we were to contemplate for 8 hours.  That sentence was, “You are going to die!” What began in the morning as a trite recitation of the sentence, ended after a day’s work with tears, longings and a love for living.  “Death,” someone said, “is too important to leave to the end of life.” 

This morning we will consider the story of Jesus drawing his disciples into the paradoxical truth that “only those who lose their lives for the sake of gospel will save their lives,” I hope that in this story we can still see the flowering of hope and life.

Christopher