Читать книгу From Here to Eternity: - Bruce G Epperly - Страница 5

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE MIDST OF LIFE

For everything there is a season,

and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die. (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2)

One midweek morning, Susan called me at my study and requested that I stop by to see her on my way home that afternoon. Susan and her husband of forty years Phil were among the saints of my church. In the year that I’d been her pastor, I had companioned with her on cancer’s roller coaster ride. For a while the treatments appeared to be working, but now they had reached an impasse with no certain remedy in sight. The most recent regimen had left Susan so physically weak and mentally fuzzy that she could no longer do what gave her great pleasure, painting, writing poetry, and taking walks with Phil. Tests confirmed that chemotherapy could no longer keep her cancer at bay. The cancer had spread throughout her body. She could enter an experimental protocol, but there was no guarantee of success and there was also the likelihood of serious side effects.

Around the kitchen table they had shared for four decades, Susan told me of their decision to forgo any further treatment. “We had hoped to get a few more years. We’d even hoped for a cure. We wanted to travel and spend time with our grandchildren. But, now we’re opting for quality, not quantity. I want to live well until I die, playing with my grandchildren, finishing a few canvasses, and leaving a legacy of poems for my children and Phil. We’ve prayed about this, and now it’s the time to let go.”

As a pastor, I believe such conversations are sacred. They are “thin places,” as the Celtic Christians say, where divinity and humanity meet. I took a few breaths to spiritually center, and then inquired as I’ve done many times in similar situations, “How are things with your spirit?” Susan and Phil looked lovingly at one another as she responded, “I know what this means. I’m going to die, but I know that I’m in God’s hands. I know that death isn’t the end. I’ve lived a good life, done good work, and loved my family, friends, and church. I hate to give all this up, but I know God won’t let me down.” Three months later Susan died, leaving a legacy of love and a life well-lived. Her memorial service on Thanksgiving weekend was truly a celebration of life and affirmation that Love is eternal.

The Reality of Death. “In the midst of life, we are surrounded by death,” so wrote Protestant Reformer Martin Luther. In life there are no guarantees nor can we insure the safety of our loved ones and ourselves. Even among healthy and young persons, a car accident, heart attack, stroke, or diagnosis of an untreatable illness can come with no warning and when we least expect it.

The story is told of a servant who encountered Death at the bazaar in Bagdad. Frightened by his encounter, he raced home to his master. “Please let me have your fastest horse,” he begged. “I just saw Death at the marketplace and I’m going to flee to Samarra. He won’t find me there.” Being a kind man, the master lent his horse to his servant and sent him off with a blessing. Being a bold man, he confronted Death in the bazaar and challenged the Grim Reaper. “Why did you frighten my servant?” he demanded. Somewhat taken aback, Death responded, “I didn’t mean to scare him. I was simply startled to see him. You see, I have an appointment with him this evening on the road to Samarra.”

The mortality rate remains 100% despite our technological advances. Still, there is something about the human spirit that defies death. Deep down we have a sense of immortality and can’t imagine the reality of our non-existence. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, author William Saroyan quipped, “Everybody has got to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?”

I know how Saroyan felt. Now in my sixth decade, I can no longer claim to be in midlife, as many baby boomers do, unless I make it to 125! Yet, on certain days, I feel sixteen or twenty-five and when I’m playing baseball or rough housing with my young grandchildren, walking on the Cape Cod beach down the road from my church, working on a writing project, or taking a few minutes for meditation, I feel eternity in the midst of time. There is a spark in us, something holy and divine, which participates in everlasting life. There is something dynamic and timeless that shines regardless of our age or physical condition. We experience ourselves as being part of an adventure that is bigger than our lifetimes and lures us toward new horizons.

Still, everything hinges on the “now what?” that perplexed William Saroyan. Once we recognize that life — and let’s get personal, “my life” and “your life” — is finite, we need to ask ourselves “What are we going to do with this unique and precious life that has been given us?” Once we truly realize that we don’t have forever, at least, in this lifetime, will we live in fear or savor each moment, including the most painful and challenging ones? Will we greet each fleeting day with worry or with the affirmation, “this is the day that God has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it?” (Psalm 118:24).

The Psalmist asks God to make our mortality meaningful. “Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart” (Psalm 90:12). As a friend asserted, after he was diagnosed with incurable cancer, “I don’t have time to mess around. I’m not going to let anything get in the way of living. I’m going to greet each sunrise with joy and each sunset with gratitude.” “Each day matters,” noted a 95-year-old widower I encountered at a Hyannis, Massachusetts, coffee house. “When I was younger, I thought I had forever. I thought my wife would live forever and that she’d be with me at the bedside. But, she didn’t make it. I was with her when she went. I want to make to one hundred but that’s just a few more years. I have no illusions. I’m going to die and pretty soon. Even if I stay healthy, I only have a handful of Christmases left and what if dementia sets in. I know how brief my stay will be. Now, each day is a cause for celebration.”

Our human adventure can be described in the counsel of the Hasidic Rabbi, Simcha Bunim (1767–1827):

Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and, there, find the words: “For my sake was the world created.” But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: “I am but dust and ashes.”

We are heavenly dust, sparks of the divine that must eventually be extinguished, at least in this world, and that is the source of our greatest joy and most abject sorrow. Our mortality is inevitable, and an abundant and joyful life involves accepting the reality of death. But, our deaths are not entirely natural phenomena, without anxiety or care. Our deaths are not always like the gentle fall of an autumn leaf, especially if our dying process involves certain types of debilitating physical or mental diseases. Once we reach a certain age, we experience the reality of death not as abstraction, but as a concrete reality. We realize that eventually everything we love will be taken from us and that we will be taken away from this world, perhaps entombed in a cemetery, stored in an urn, or scattered along the seashore.

Even young children have momentary glimpses of mortality. Recently, my four-year-old grandson told me, “When you die, Grandpa, I’m going to marry Grandma.” Young children rehearse the reality of death, first, in their observations of the natural world and, then, in contests between sharks and whales and heroes and villains, in which one dies and the other lives on. It may take a few more years for the child to internalize that the fact that he or she will die as well, but death is our constant companion from the moment of conception.

We are dust, but we reach to the heavens in imagination, creativity, wonder, and sacrifice. In that contrast between spirit and flesh, imagination and concreteness, and life and death, we experience the greatest joy and creativity as well as the greatest fear and grief.

Pause a moment, take a deep breath, and say out loud, “I am going to die.” How does it feel to admit your mortality? What images come to mind? When I used a variation on this exercise at the study upon which this book is based, participants responded with:

 I’m excited to find out what’s next.

 I feel anxious.

 I’m not afraid of death, but of the dying process, the pain, and losing my sense of control.

 I have trouble believing I will die.

 What will happen next?

 I’m hopeful about the future.

 I feel a sense of loss. I don’t want to leave my family and friends.

Even people who are confident about the afterlife as a result of near death experiences or deep faith in God have moments of anxiety and uncertainty about what’s next in our human adventure.

Death as the Doorway to Spiritual Transformation. The encounter with death can lead to denial or transformation, emotional shutdown or spiritual open-heartedness. We can flee to Samarra, acting as if we can escape death, only to ride into the hands of our greatest fears. We can also embrace the reality of death and discover that each moment is a miracle. According to a Buddhist legend, young Gautama was a wealthy Indian prince. Early his life, his father received a prophecy that his son Gautama would be a great spiritual teacher. Desiring that his son follow in his footsteps as a political and military leader, he tried to shield him from all of life’s difficulties. He surrounded him with youthful companions, servants, and dancing girls, who were discharged as soon as wrinkles appeared. But, one day, Gautama escaped the palace and wandered about the city. In the course of his meanderings, he encountered something that he had never experienced before — an elderly man. Puzzled by the realities of aging, he returned to the city and on two successive days, he encountered a sick person and then a corpse. Troubled, Gautama ventured forth one more time, and beheld a monk. From then on, he recognized that all things must pass, and that we can experience peace only through embracing change, letting go of attachments, and deepening our spiritual lives. Out of Gautama’s encounter with death, one of the world’s great wisdom traditions was born. He became the Buddha, the “enlightened one,” whose teachings have inspired millions to face the challenges of death with equanimity.

Resurrection Living. Two grief-stricken women trudged to the graveyard to pay their last respects to their beloved friend and teacher. “Who will roll the stone away from the tomb?” they asked one another. To them, death had sealed their future and the fate of their beloved friend and teacher. When they arrive at the tomb, the stone is rolled away and the tomb is empty. They are amazed and awestruck, but know that the One they loved is alive and will meet them on the path ahead (Mark 16:1–8).

In another Easter story, one of the women, Mary of Magdala, cries out to a gardener, “Where have you taken my beloved friend?” (John 20:11–18). Her spirit soars when the gardener calls her name, “Mary.” Her beloved companion lives. Love is stronger than death.

“In the midst of death,” Martin Luther also asserts, “we are surrounded by life.” That first Easter, the power of death was unmasked. Yes, pain is real and loss is devastating; but there is something more. New life springs forth. The crocus emerges after the chill of winter. The butterfly bursts forth from the tomb-like chrysalis. This is resurrection living. This is the pathway we take, mortal and finite, which leads beyond the grave and takes us from here to eternity.