March 22, 2009

From the Outside Looking in at Death

“How do geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we humans know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within if only we would listen to it, that tells us certainly when to go forth into the unknown.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Early in my ministry, I was perusing a used bookstore in Columbia. Upon checking out, the cashier, noting the books On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and A Funeral Manual said, “Are you one of those morbid types who is obsessed with death?”

People of non-Western cultures are often surprised to know that Americans do not think nor reflect much on death.

Anyone wishing to deepen their spirituality and their walk toward holiness will have to concentrate on this one certainty.

John Wesley had done this. If he had loved wealth he would have died an incredibly rich man. Instead, he gave not part of his income, but all that he had after taking care of the bare necessities of his own life. “If I have more than 10 pounds when I die, people might call me a thief,” Wesley once remarked.

In his will he disposed of his horses, carriage, books and money. Everything he owned could be gathered onto a table.

Deeply spiritual persons live in such a way that personal wealth and the attachments that come with it are a hindrance. Perhaps uncomfortable for many, it would be wise to have some focus on death to help us see our lives with clarity.

Such a focus would also reveal just how attached we are to our homes and our property. None of these attachments were ours in the first place – only on loan.

The scriptures say: Knowing that Jerusalem for him spelled death; Jesus set his face straight towards it.

Having passed the halfway point of Lent, the shadows will grow longer as Jesus gets closer to Jerusalem where he will encounter suffering and eventually death.

People of deep spirituality have a lot to teach us about living while they are facing death.

It is hoped that Jesus’ words and actions we will hear in the coming weeks will take us to a new level of meaning as we come face to face with our own death