I went to "supervision" today and as I reviewed the last month's work I realised I had led two funerals. Before those in the previous month I had two other funerals. I have been thinking about this death experience. At funerals I look at the coffin and know the person is not "in there", only the body that will soon be discarded. When I talk with terminally ill people, it is hard to imagine that some time soon they will not "be here". What is this mystery called death? What can we say about it?
"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, to serve your turn long after they are gone" ("If" by Rudyard Kipling)
First I want to live in such a way that my deeds continue to have impact for good long after I have gone. Harry and May Smith; George & Bessie Symons; Laurie Findlay; Joan McDermott; Doc Haddon; Mrs Michaud & Alec; Ian Chadwick; Ian Corlett; Gordon Stirling; Ken Clinton; Doc Bowes; Maud Benjamin; Joyce Brown (mum); Angus Brown (Dad); Bob Crafts; E L Williams; Pat Taylor; Alice & Geoff Doust; Betty Galland; etc. etc. - all these people are dead. They have been a part of my life but have died and gone from this world. They are not now here. I once could talk with them and touch them, but now their physical presence, their body has returned to the elements. ... but have they "gone"? They have touched my life in some way with their love, their example; their lifestyle. There is a real sense in which they are alive in me! Their being still finds expression in the way I live. They have helped in some way to shape who I am, and their life, their kindness and their love still impacts the world through me. I, and the many others they loved and shared with, will impact the lives of others for good, and once again their life will continue to be "alive" in this world. There is a real sense in which when we die, we do not "go". We are still doing our thing in the lives of those we have left behind and loved. We are not isolated individuals in life, in a real sense our life penetrates and permeates the lives of others we share with, for good or bad. I believe that every act of kindness goes on to continue to impact the world for good. If this were all that "eternal life" signified I would be happy. I will seek to live the way of God, the way of Jesus, the way of love. I would love to leave as positive a legacy in terms of love as I can in the years I have.
"Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except God." (St Theresa)
As my mother lay dying she had this verse open on the bedside cabinet. It was important to her. She was sometimes in pain, she was often uncomfortable but in her weakness she would whisper, "This too will pass." After I had visited Christchurch and in particular the inner city area in the days immediately after the big February quake, I was quite shaken. Of course I experienced some of the after shocks, but at a deep level I was shaken. I knew now that even the earth under my feet could not be trusted. Even when I was walking the dog the day after I returned home, I looked at the road and the hills surrounding me and thought, "I can't trust these any more! Once I saw these as stable and everlasting but now I know this is not true." Everything changes! But I do believe in a movement of love called "God". "He" has been here forever, long before me and will be around, bubbling away like yeast in ginger beer, long after I have been forgotten. "He" is the constant. When I die, whatever is at the other side of death, whether or not there is conscious existence, "He" will be there in love. The old hymn goes, "Change and decay in all around I see, Oh thou who changest not, abide with me." Even if all that is after death is my consciousness reunited and lost in this great flow of life and love we call "God" I will die at peace. God, who I have lived for and with, still lives. "His truth ( the truth I have joined myself to) is marching on"
"Death is but a transition from this life to another existence where there is no more pain and anguish. All the bitterness and disagreements will vanish, and the only thing that lives forever is LOVE. So love each other NOW..." (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in "On Life After Death"
While she talks of experiences I find hard to understand, I found this little book so helpful on the subject of death. She spent a large part of her life with dying patients, studying the process and watching the experience. In the book she gives pretty convincing evidence of existence after death. From memory, she sees our real selves as a bundle of psychic/spiritual energy or entity, and that at death this is released from our temporary homes and moves on to be in a different existence of love. She gives evidence from experiences of death that we are met by and encounter loved ones. While some of her thinking is spooky, most of it makes sense and comes out of solid relationships, conversations and reflecting with the dying. She writes; "At the moment of death, all of you will experience the separation of the real immortal You, from the temporary house, namely the physical body. We will call this immortal self the soul or the entity, ....... When we leave the physical body there will be a total absence of panic, fear or anxiety." That's nice to know. She says that we experience unconditional love. I like the Apostle Paul's statement, "I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God's whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!" ... not even death. I kind of think that each of us is too precious as individuals, and that somehow, whatever is over the horizon we call death, we consciously exist in a deeper experience of unity (oneness with God and others) and love. I don't claim to know everything about this subject for sure, but I do know that ultimately life and love are stronger than death. I sense the presence and power of love in life now. When I love, life has significance that is bigger than death.
That's tonight's musing.
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