Death, Where is Your Sting?

                        In recent months the notion of death has been thrust into our minds and lives through a barrage of news stories or maybe personal experiences of losing family or friends. Death, being an unpleasant subject for most people, is not something we like to think about. Not only is it mysterious, raising many questions with no answers, but it can stir unpleasant, even painful memories.

                      When two of our oldest sisters died recently on the same day, the topic started nagging at me. Memories tinged with smiles, regrets mixed with prayers and a sense of gratitude that they are relieved from their long illnesses. Because death is such a mystery, I found myself wondering what kinds of light past thinkers have cast on the subject. I went on a search  thought I’d share some of what I found.

Some things struck me as simple but profound truth that made me think beyond the headlines:

            * Death is in the goodbye.    Anna Sexton

* A friend who dies, it’s something of you who dies.         Gustav Flaubert

* The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.  Joseph Stalin

* Every parting is a form of death, as every reunion is a type of heaven.           Tyron Edwards

* Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live .      Norman Cousins

Some thoughts opened me to some new ways of thinking:

* Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time.  Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.       Ray Kurzweil

* Man always dies before he is fully born. `Erich Fromm

* The gods conceal from men the happiness of death that they may endure Life.        Lucan

* I had seen birth and death but had thought they were different.         T.S.Eliot

Ideas that seemed especially centered in God and spirituality:

* Look for me in the nurseries of heaven.              Francis Thompson

* Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.                Rabindranath Tagore

* It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.              Thomas Mann

* For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.             William Penn

 

There were many more thoughts I found, and you’ll notice I didn’t even dip into scripture. In this season of Lent the church reminds us that each of us is only dust and that we need daily to remember to die to the selfish part of ourselves. The headlines in the news, if we allow them, could be a reminder of this challenge. St. Benedict says in his rule that each of us should keep death daily before our eyes. Why? He didn’t spell out his reasons, but it’s easy to guess at least some of them. We are meant for life beyond dust. Christ showed us that the limitations we experience here are limits he has already broken if we let him bring us to himself. If we can do this, it will certainly lessen the sting of death because we will become aware of the undying love of God that enfolds us even while we are here on earth. Maybe the sting of the vaccination needle can be a reminder that beyond the sting of death lies love and wholeness that lasts an eternity.

Sr. Colleen Winston, OSB