“I am the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me, though they die, yet shall they live.”  John 11

“But for me, death is past.  It has already taken place. My own.  It was at the beginning . . . of course death also has a future for me.  But I am not expecting death.  I am expecting to cross it, to spend it.” Helene Cixous

The title of this blog means “Remember Your Death”.  Seems strange, in light of the fact that Lent is over, and we are in the Easter season.  This is a time of life, not death!  And yet the two are never far apart.  This week I’ve had several stimulating conversations with various friends and family members, all of them centered around this theme of death.  One, with my friend Mark, made a particular impression.  We talked about how different the modern view of death is—as something strange and to be avoided—from the way death was viewed in the past. The concern of those who lived a mere hundred years ago or so, was not how to avoid death, but rather on how to live well, and die a good death.  Part of the reason for that is because they viewed human beings not as having bodies that might have a soul, but rather souls who have bodies.

This morning I went to my trusted and true friend, John O’Donahue[1], to see what he had to say about death.  The following is from his book “Beauty”.[2] That in itself might strike us as odd—to include the theme of death under the topic of beauty.  I’d like to share some of what he writes, as he addresses this topic so poignantly, and the way he does so reaches deep into my soul.  I hope it will have a similar effect on you.

“If someone were to ask me, ‘What is the most remarkable thing you have ever heard?’, I would say: ‘The most remarkable thing I have ever heard is death.’ We avoid thinking about death because it makes us afraid.  There is no one to intercede with.  No one who could call off your death. When we view death in a purely physical way, it is that frightening ending where a life is stopped and cut off. However, it is possible to see death in a different and more creative way. To view death as an abrupt, dumb stop is unfair to the beauty, struggle, and growth of life.  It seems unlikely that life would choose us so carefully, bring us through so much, and then simply offload the whole harvest of journey over a cliff.  That in one sudden, dead moment all growth, memory and presence cease sems to fall out of rhythm.  So much could not have been so carefully built to be simply destroyed in a second.  Something more profound and ultimate is happening behind the veil.

The soul is the real container of the individual’s life.  The eye always assumes that it is the physical body that holds a life.  However, rather than the soul being simply a component or presence within the body, the soul surrounds and pervades the body.  The body is in the soul.  This means that the soul has a different kind of knowing than the mind and its thoughts and feelings.  While the knowing of the mind is limited by frontiers, the soul has no frontiers.  At death, the mind Is up against the last and ultimate frontier.  It will attempt to understand and, with dignity and hope, accept what is ending and what is coming.  However, the soul knows in a different way.  The soul is not afraid. It has no reason to be afraid, for death cannot touch the soul.

At the time of death, the soul knows how to protect its precious cargo.  While death will stop and empty the body, the soul will ferry your essence into eternal life.  Not one moment of you will be lost in the crossing.  Eternal life is the province of the soul; this is where the soul is at home.  For your soul, then, death is indeed a homecoming.  Naturally the soul will feel the sadness of withdrawal from the visible world.  Ultimately, however, physical death must also be an adventure for the soul.”

O’Donahue writes so eloquently here about the soul.  The wonderful promise of Easter Resurrection is that one day the soul and body will be reunited, in a manner similar to that of Christ’s.  That also takes the fear out of death. I leave you with this lovely poem entitled “Ode. Intimations of Immortality” from William Wordsworth, also quoted in “Beauty”.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

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[1] He died in 2008 at the age of 52.

[2] Harper-Collins Publishing, copyright 2004, John O’Donahue