Throughout the whole of life one must continue to learn to live and what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die.—Seneca
All living creatures seem to have an innate desire to live and will make tremendous efforts to preserve their lives. That’s true for the smallest single-celled organism to the most complex creatures including humans.
Yet, we as far as we know, no organism escapes death and often the life cycle includes specific stages where one generation surrenders life so that the next can take it up. The salmon swims to its death in a mountain stream to lay eggs that will produce its offspring. This is one way that death serves life.
Nevertheless, I want to suggest that death is not simply an event at the end of life. It is a pattern that is repeated as we go through life, a pattern that leads from the death of the old to the emergence of something new and usually better. This must happen again and again for us to successfully travel the path of life.
For instance, I recall that time in life when first one of my sons and then the other left home to start college. It was a painful transition for our family because we were all letting go of an old way of life so that something new could emerge. We all shred some tears of grief.
Yet, there are many good things that emerged from that transition. My wife and I have had more time to invest in our relationship, our sons continued to mature, eventually they married and have brought grandchildren into our lives. Change doesn’t always yield so many benefits, yet to live is to change. And to change is to grieve and to die in one way or another.
The Christian faith proclaims a belief in death followed by resurrection. Sometimes Christians seem to think that this is something that only kicks in after we take that final breath.
By contrast, I believe God intends this pattern of death leading to life to be one that permeates the life of a Christian. Here’s an example. Whenever we visit a friend who is sick or when we sit with a person in grief, we share a bit of their sorrow and pain. If we allow ourselves to enter into their situation, we taste some of bitterness that they taste. We die just a little.
Yet, those acts can bring new life to the person whose pain we share and in a strange way those acts of compassion can enliven us as well. We experience a sense of purpose for our lives.
One way of live successfully is to learn how to incorporate those ‘little deaths’ in the way we live. Too often people try to avoid such experiences or to numb the pain. Yet real life is able to enfold the pain in such a way that it produces something that enhances life itself—our own life and the lives of others
Learning to live means learning to die.
Next up: I’ll give my view on makes for a good death.
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