What’s The Purpose of Death Anyway?—Denial

We did a rather unusual thing tonight. We reminded ourselves that we are mortal, that we will die. Lines of people, senior citizens and toddlers, confirmation students and their parents, people of all ages came to the front of the church to receive a smear of black ashes on their forehead. And we all heard those solemn words, “Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

This Ash Wednesday ritual goes entirely against the grain of much of our human lives. Many years ago Ernest Becker wrote about this in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial Of Death. Becker’s thesis is that much of what we humans do in life is motivated by the our efforts to deny the fact that we are mortal, that we will all succumb to the grave.

Humans are strange creatures, capable of producing such beauty, such works of art and invention s of science. Yet, we must all deal with the nastier aspects of being an creature, an animal that will die, a being that deep down knows that it will die.

Becker contends that much of the impetus to produce something that will last and to gain as much mastery over out world as we can is the result of our efforts to deny that we will die. The denial of death is what drives us to try to achieve many things in life, things that have meaning and that we hope will last longer than we will.

Such denial is almost necessary, for if we started thinking every moment about death, contemplating our eventual demise every minute, we most likely would become paralyzed by depression and despair. No one can live like that.

At the same time, it is important that we allow the realization of death to rise to the surface of our consciousness every once in a while. Such honesty with ourselves can lead us to savor the good things we encounter in life and can keep us from frittering away or lives in useless pursuits. It and also drive us to seek life beyond what we can produce on our own. We didn’t create ourselves and if there is any hope for more than the 70 or 80 years that we might endure if we are lucky, it must be found in something, or better yet, someone beyond us.

Comments

[Nikoya]

Hmm. Very intriguing point. Yes, I believe keeping the idea of death in our mind (every once in a while) can be good to keep us humble, driven and clear on how we spend our time. You are right - we did not create ourselves, so the realization remains that we can not control, time or even truly understand the purpose of death, nor the mysteries of it.

I think that is what gets me the most, Arlyn. The mysteries of and around death. Does it hurt? What happens afterwords? What if I have not completed my life's purpose yet? I'd hate to die before my time.

At the same time since we were created by a higher being and were not created by ourselves; we can use this fact to give a sense of trust in that higher being. It allows me to know that if I am not in control, hopefully He is the one in control at the time of death.

[Arlyn Norris]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I think that death is mysterious in many ways. Now we only see things in a limited way. My hope and my belief is that all will become much clearer to us after death. As a believer, in the end I must trust God both now and in the future.

I do, however, think that we can see some reason death is needed to serve life as we know it. I will be posting more about that in the coming days.