Читать книгу Before We Say Goodbye: Preparing for a Good Death - Ray Simpson - Страница 18

SEE ETERNITY IN A GRAIN OF SAND

One way to befriend death when we are young is to see in the things that are visible intimations of things that are invisible. We need to take time out to do this.

To the north the mountain ranges stood like kings upon their thrones. The sky was an arch of pearl. A cloud city, with towers and battlements complete, went floating by. The mystery of the Infinite was about us. Then the old stalker spoke. ‘Is it not fine,’ he mused, ‘to be abroad on a day like this? For, look you, the high places win the heart to peace, and here a man gazes on the mirror of his own eternity.’ ALISTAIR MACLEAN, Hebridean Altars⁷

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

WILLIAM BLAKE, Auguries of Innocence

This approach has been made famous by William Wordsworth’s ode ‘Intimations of Immortality’, which ends with these words:

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

These intimations often came to Wordsworth as he ‘wandered lonely as a cloud’ among ‘a host of golden daffodils’. They led him to conclude, in the words of his ode:

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal silence.

RAINBOWS

Our hearts do indeed leap up when we behold a rainbow in the sky, yet it disappears as suddenly as it appears. The rainbow seems to say to us, ‘This life is ephemeral, but there is something that lies beyond it.’

HARBOURS AND HORIZONS

Little fishing boats securely tucked up in the safety of a harbour after the ups and downs of their days at sea speak to us of homecoming, and of the final harbour of this life. When we are young it is good to enter wholeheartedly into both the choppy seas and the homecomings of life.

Human beings are touched by the mystery of horizons. As a boat disappears from our own horizon, it may appear on the horizon of people on the other side of the sea. Is it like that with our dying?

BIRDS AND WINDS

Birds and winds come and go, and often we do not know where they come from or where they are going. It is amazing that birds can travel over 3,000 miles from a place, and return to that exact place three years later without map or compass.

The sensation of flying often comes into our dreams. Like the birds, there seems some mysterious instinct in us which calls us to transcend our present limitations. Is this an intimation of immortality?

NATURE’S CYCLE OF REBIRTH

Flowers blooming and fading, the sun rising and setting, animals hibernating and mating – the cycle of dying and rebirth is all around us. Is it not also within us?

When you are bursting with life in the pleasure of bright sunshine, say a prayer like the following, in order to connect your now with your end:

As the sun above pours its love on my body,

So at the hour of my death

Pour your grace on my soul.

Find something that you can place in the palm of your hand and gaze at. Keep gazing until you become aware of the mystery to which this points.