The True Face of Death

Death is loss, loss of life. Life is good. Loss of good is an evil. Therefore death is an evil. Loss of a great good is a great evil. Life is a great good. Therefore death is a great evil. Not to see this is a great blindness. Blindness is a great evil. Therefore not to see death as a great evil is a great evil. –Peter Kreeft, Love is Stronger Than Death

Our culture does everything in its power to cover the true face of death. “Life’s Good. Death’s Good. It’s All Good.” We hide our instinctual horror at death’s face behind beautiful chapels playing soft elevator music in the background, and with manicured cemetery lawns. We use euphemisms such as, “sleeping,” “eternal rest,” and “passed away,” so as to shield us from the terror of the finality of death. But whatever veneer or façade we use, as it was written of Jesus, so it will be true for us: he suffered, died, and was buried. Dead.

The New Testament never speaks of the human soul as being immortal or eternal. This is why we do read of “resurrection.” God alone is eternal. Throughout Scripture, we humans are seen as dependent upon God for every breath we take. To say that our souls are immortal is to say that we are not dependent on the God of Life, but have life within ourselves, regardless of and independent from God.

Throughout scriptures God is revealed as the source and giver of life. Nowhere is He seen as the author or creator of death. Death was not His doing but ours. Death is revealed as being contrary to God: The Enemy of God. For death to be “natural” would mean that God intended it from the beginning of creation. He did not.

The story of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis shows us that death is the outcome of our choice to no longer be dependent on the life of God. We took God’s gift of the freedom to choose between Life and Death and we chose to subjugate ourselves to death.

Death is a poison we freely drank: a poison that inevitably and irreversibly leads to disintegration and death.

I believe that this is another reason – The Reason, in fact – why we seek to avoid thinking about the meaning of death, seek to cover its horror with beautiful chapels and beautiful words. When we witness death we sense that something is wrong with the world: that this (death) is not right, not how it should be. And then the horror of all horrors: What if it’s not a case where there is something wrong with the world? What if there is something wrong with me?

The bad news is that there is something wrong with us. We broke faith with God. We ripped ourselves away from a relationship with the God of Life, so as to go our own way. We divorced God. This is why we don’t want to speak about death, why we avoid, at any cost, seeking out its meaning, why we work so hard to cover death’s face. At the core of our souls, we know we are guilty and that the cause of disease, suffering, and death, lies within us.

Here is the good news. In our guilt and blame we find hope. As Peter Kreeft points out in his book, Love is Stronger Than Death, there is nothing wrong with the Cosmos. There is nothing wrong with God. Death is not natural. Life is not insane or guilty: I am. And if there is something wrong with me, maybe there is hope that my wrongness may be righted.

We may seek to put a different face on reality so that it appears other than what it is, but we do not, thereby, change reality. Our only hope is in facing reality, facing the fact that Death is pointing his guilty finger in our faces. And this is the beginning of hope. I say, “beginning,” because it is only the first and necessary step in discovering the meaning of death, and the possibility of changing or transforming our relationship to it.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

Death: The Last Enemy To Be Conquered

My first encounter with death was when my Uncle Harry died. When my dad told me, I went into my bedroom weeping and retching. I was so traumatized there was no way I was going to his funeral. As I was only a boy, my parents were very caring and respectful, so did not force me. The closest thing I could come to explaining to dad what I was feeling was—terror.

As I grew older I was haunted by thoughts of my grandfather dying. (Monte, Sr.) However self-centered and juvenile, I frequently begged God to rapture us all to heaven before this could happen. (As an aside, I think many of the people who profess a belief in the “soon return of Jesus Christ for His Church” are actually whistling in a graveyard, hoping there won’t be a coffin in their futures.)

Death is Not Natural

During my formal studies in psychology one of the bon mots that we were taught was to “Teach people that death is natural.” What intrigued me was that I was hearing this from a professor who was a Christian.

Professor: Mr. Wilson, I can see that you disagree.

Mr. Wilson: I do. I think death is bloody well the most unnatural thing we will face in life.

Death is not natural. It showed up as a consequence of our free will choice to follow after God or to go our own way. God offers us life in and under Him, but we prefer death and going our own way.  

St Paul goes so far as to assert that death is not only unnatural, it is an enemy: “the last enemy to be destroyed.”

“But Monte, I want to die. In death I am freed from sickness and suffering, and from this evil world. I don’t fear death, I desire it.” Sounds quite spiritual, doesn’t it. The problem is that people who say such things usually have yet to first face the fact that death is an enemy. And how do you think God responds to those who speak and live as if the world and life that He gifted us with as something to escape as quickly as possible?

Tell me, when Jesus was in the garden praying in the shadow of his death on the cross, was he saying, “Whoopee, I am about to be outta here”? Or did he pray, “If there is anyway around this, Father, I’ll take it…let this cup (death) pass from me”?

When Jesus’ friend Lazarus died did He let out a shout of glee? No. He wept. Death is agony. Death is not natural, not what God intended for us.

Death is a terrifying enemy. YES, it is far more than this, or, rather, can be. But until we first face the reality of death being unnatural and an enemy, all of our rejoicing and celebrating that Brother Wilson is now with Jesus, are akin to Jesus skipping the bloody agony of the cross and going straight to heaven. As Peter Kreeft wrote, “Death cannot be a friend; it can only become a friend, after first being an enemy.”

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

Death and Your Worldview

I was brought up to believe that, for Christians, death is an escape hatch from this dark, terrible place of disease, poverty, and every manner of suffering imaginable. Eternal life with God is what matters. Life here on earth, at best, is an Intensive Care Unit where we wait for God to pull the plug on our life-support system. 

To those people who believe this way, there is our pre-death life on earth that is relatively meaningless, other than to prepare for death and the after life, and then there is their after-death existence, where they will find true meaning and eternal life with God.

These Christians strike out into the world advocating the reality of everlasting life with God, yet at the same time surrenders to the meaningless of this life and this world. All we can expect in our pre-death life is suffering and evil. Their fundamental message, then, is to worship the Creator of this world but reject His creation.

The unbeliever, however, defends this world, scoffing at any notion of eternal life. However, by rejecting God, whether consciously or unconsciously, their defense leaves them asserting that we humans are an accident, an insignificant mist that is here today and gone tomorrow. No matter what else they might say about finding meaning in this life and only in this life, it is all undone by the presupposition that all of this—the world, life, and death—are accidents.

The meaning you give to death determines your ideas, ideals, perceptions, evaluations, and judgments regarding your view of this world. Your relationship to death creates a framework of beliefs, ideas, and attitudes through which you interpret and interact with the world and the people within it, as well as determine how you will order your life.  

If death is an escape from this world of evil and suffering into eternal life with God, then what is the only possible and logically consistent worldview available to you?  

If this world, your life, and your death are all accidents, then what is the only possible and logically consistent worldview available to you?

“Okay, Wilson, what is the meaning of death, to you?” To begin with, I agree with St Paul’s writings: Death is an enemy we humans brought into God’s creation, an enemy that Christ came into the world to defeat.

Next Post Death: The Last Enemy To Be Destroyed

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

A Meaninglessness Death: Mindlessness, Hedonism or Narcissism

He's a real nowhere man

Sitting in his nowhere land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

-John Lennon and Paul McCartney

If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,

what is the gain to me, if the dead rise not?

let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.

St Paul, I Corinthians 15.2

We cannot control death. It is coming for us and there is nothing we can do about it. So what do we do? Some of us just flip the switch of consciousness to the off position. Some look at death, decide it is the annihilation of self, that life and death are nothing more than accidents of nature, and then go about creating a life of fun and games, dancing on the deck of a sinking Titanic. Others, who have also decided death is meaningless, refuse to embrace the fact that this means that life is also without any meaning. These are the people who seek to prove that they matter, that life can still be meaningful. While their counterparts are on the deck of the Titanic dancing and shooting champagne, these people are below decks, attending a seminar on how to develop self-esteem.  

Some of those who avoid thinking about the reality of their death and its meaning have placed their lives on automatic pilot. Life is lived mindlessly, without purpose or intention. These are the people who often turn themselves over to others. “Life and death terrify me. I don’t want to think of the meaning of it all, so, here: you think your thoughts through my mind, live your life through mine. It’s your responsibility.” Avoiding seeking to face the question of the meaning of their deaths and, therefore, their lives, they are choosing to allow others to do it for them. This, of course, makes their lives a redundancy, a waste of oxygen, as they have taken on the role of “mini-me” to some other guy’s “me.” Okaaay. I suppose willful ignorance and abdication are one option. Unless there really is a point to it all and then their life is all about missing the point, isn’t it.  

Many people take a quick glance at death and are hit with a despair that they then allow to choke out any further questioning and seeking of answers. “If it’s meaningless, I don’t want to know.” These people seek to numb their senses with food, or substance abuse, or fun and games, or work, or with one thousand trivial pursuits that bring momentary pleasure and serve to keep the despair at bay. “If I don’t feel it, it isn’t there. If I don’t dig deeper into the meaning of death, then I don’t run the risk of my despair increasing exponentially, if I discover that it’s meaningless. If I close my eyes and whistle while I walk through a graveyard, then…” Then what? Have death grab you by your neck and slap you in the face with the reality that there is – or was – a meaning to it all? And then? At that point, there are no more questions to answer and no answers to live by.

But what of those people who have come to the sure conclusion that death and, therefore, life are meaningless: who have completely embraced the belief that life and death are all an accident of nature? Many of them will live by the motto, “Let us, therefore, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we are food for the worms.” Others become angry and lash out at their own meaningless existence. (See Johnny Ringo in the movie, Tombstone.) They do not deny the meaninglessness they see and do not play the hypocrite by pretending this all means something.

Others, however, have a different response to what they believe to be the meaninglessness of death. These people refuse to see their selves as impotent, refuse to see that if their death is meaningless then so is their life. “I do count. I matter. I am valuable. And I will prove it. I will not ‘go gentle into that good night.’ I will not allow death to negate me, to tell me that my life doesn’t matter. I will make myself into a hero, the chief protagonist in a book that is all about …well, me, of course! One day, death will come but not before I justify my existence and spit in death’s face.” (See Ayn Rand)

No matter what you do, death and time will erase your memory from the earth and all your heroism, “meaningful” pursuits, and wars for The Right, The Noble, and The Ideal (as you define these terms) will ultimately be meaningless. Besides, your answer to the question is no less narcissistic than the hedonist who is over there eating and drinking and being merry. Life is all about you justifying your self, eh? You decide what is meaningful and what is not? You are the Final Arbiter, god of your universe? (See? You do believe in a god, after all!) In the end, death will spit in the face of your achievements, heroism, and self-justification. If death is meaningless, then your “meaningful” life is no more significant than an inedible piece of a 25 year-old fruitcake. Of so I believe. Just something you might want to consider … if death is actually meaningless, that is. 

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014 

Weddings v Funerals

Despite his afflictions, man wants to be happy, only wants to be happy, and cannot help wanting to be happy. But how shall he go about it? The best thing would be to make himself immortal; but as he cannot do that, he has decided to stop himself thinking about it. 
-- Pascal, Pensees

Death stalks us. We run but, in the end, cannot hide. Death is inevitable. We do anything and everything to not think about it, to not see that it is at the end of every path we take so as to avoid it. And each morning we wake, our avoidance mechanisms are strengthened and emboldened, and death disappears deeper into the mists until, poof, we think it is gone, or at least so far off in the future that we can safely tell ourselves we will think about it, later. Much later.

Solomon said that it was better to be in the house of mourning than in one where there is feasting: it is better to go to a funeral than a wedding. (Ecclesiastes 7.2) How so? Who thinks this way? Isn’t this morose? Isn’t it better to celebrate life than to stare into the abyss of death? “Carpe Diem!” Well, sure, but what if all of our Carpe-ing is actually a seizing of the meaningless?

At funerals we are faced with mortality: my mortality.  Death whispers to me: “Your dead body will also be in a casket or your ashes in an Urn. Your day is coming. Your time here will end.” And herein is why funerals are – or can be – better to attend than weddings, because it is here where we are most prone to asking ourselves,

What is the meaning of life?

Why am I here?

In the end, what really matters?

Of course, the answers to these questions depend upon the answer to The Question, “What is the meaning of death?” After all, if death is meaningless, then so is life. If death is the obliteration of my existence—my self—then tell me what was the point of my being here? Why was I even alive? And how does anything actually “matter”?

“Come on, Wilson, our existence is an accident by way of some freaky accidents millions of years ago that came about by accidents out in deep dark ‘space’ that occurred billions of years ago. These accidents set in motion a series of occurrences that led to our having these bodies that wear out after so many years.”

So, life is an accident? Your life, my life, their lives are an accident, and death is simply part of that accident? Then what does that mean about our lives here on earth?

Even in asking ourselves serious questions about the meaning of life, we often still seek to avoid death. Think about this: If I never ask questions regarding the meaning of life, I cannot help but have a very shallow existence. However, if I never seek out the answer to the question of the meaning of death, how do I know that my answers to the questions about the meaning of life have any relationship at all to Truth or Reality? 

How many of us set about to create meaningful lives, with our meaningful goals and meaningful experiences, without actually sitting before the reality of death and asking ourselves, What does it mean? If it’s meaningless then what’s up with seeking to create a meaningful life? If death is The End, if death is meaningless, then anything we do here on earth is, in the words of Solomon, only so much “vanity and the grasping of wind.”  

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014

Wasting Yourself

Reading about Johnny Football hanging out with King James: “"When the opportunity was brought to me, I just told him (Manziel) if he's willing to listen to my advice, I was willing to give it," James said. "I was texting him weekly, before the games and after the games. I didn't know it would lead to us being together with business, but I was happy to help." If he is willing. Just. So.

How much energy and resources have we wasted on seeking to Be There for people who demonstrably don’t want us to do so? I say “demonstrably” because where we most often err are with those people who say they wanted our help to learn or change or grow but whose behaviors screamed: “I’m not really interested or willing.” But there we were pouring out whatever life and light we had … on a disinterested mind and heart. You’d think once we saw that all we had poured out for their sake wasn’t seeping in we’d get the hint, but, nooooo, we redouble our efforts! When we do this not only are we wasting the resources God has given us, we are robbing those who are willing and who actually want whatever it is we have to offer.  

Think of Jesus calling Peter to follow him, Peter saying, No Thank You, and Jesus still coming around every day seeking to teach him, and help him with his fishing business. Not going to happen. Christ gave himself to people who followed after him, to those who sought to be and do what he called them to. The “willing” people were the one’s who got his on-going attention.

Sometimes people start out all gung-ho and such but after realizing that learning and changing takes a great deal of sacrifice and work, they begin backing away. Imagine Peter saying, “Yes, I will follow you”, but then, a year later, saying, “Never mind. All that, ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’ stuff, freaked me. I am out of here.” Maybe Jesus would have gone around a few times to check in with Peter, maybe had John do the same. What He wouldn’t do is give himself as much to Peter as he was to the disciples who remained with him. His mindset was, those who continue to hunger and thirst, get my life. Those who don’t, don’t.

Where this analogy breaks down is that—shock—none of us are Jesus, so we are not someone that all people need to heed. Your not wanting to learn from me or have my support in your quests is not necessarily an indictment against you. In fact, I make it a practice to never allow myself to think along those lines. If you don’t want me to Be There for you, then my thinking is, “I hope and pray you find people who can serve you on your quest,” and then watch out for those who want me to do so.

Of course, it took me years and years of wasting my resources to learn this. My thinking was that you could love people into changing and learning. Keep Being There, no-matter-what, and he or she will see the light. Maybe. Sometimes. Rarely. Usually, however, if they aren’t willing, if they don’t listen, if you are doing most all of the reaching-out, if they rarely take any of your advice and recommendations and run with them, then they don’t see you as someone from whom they can learn: no matter what they may be saying to you. Again, don’t think of this in terms of an indictment against either of you, just a sign telling you to pull back and move on to those who are willing.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2013

Messy v Clean

Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; but much increase comes by the strength of an ox.  

--Proverbs 14.4 

So the Fidel Castro mini-me (Raul) decided to “permit” a small amount of entrepreneurialism in Cuba but quickly jumped in to “restore order” because the guys were branching out and producing in ways and places they weren’t supposed to.  Statists just hate the messiness of free markets where people think that they know best regarding how to get what they want with what they’ve got. And it galls them, when it comes to the marketplace, that freedom loving people see the State pretty much as a cop walking a beat to keep force and fraud out of the neighborhood. Silly people.

The Statist’s idea of how the marketplace should operate is where everyone proceeds along at the proper pace, earning a proper wage, making the proper purchase from the proper vendor at the proper price. The problem with all of this properness, however, is that throughout history it inevitably has led to empty troughs.

The “Ox” of freedom produces a lot of caca. Whether it’s in markets, the Public Square, or relationships, freedom is always messy. The freedom to succeed brings with it the freedom to make a mess of things, to err in judgment, and to fail. The alternative to the messiness of a free market is State control … and empty troughs.

Freedom also weighs a ton. All the responsibility for filling your trough is on you. There is no unalienable right to success and happiness: only the right to pursue them, as you deem best.  With the weight of responsibility firmly in place, the individual quickly learns that filling his trough will require self-motivation and self-government. Some people, however, don’t like mixing it up in the messy marketplace, and definitely do not want a ton of responsibility placed on their shoulders, so find that their troughs remain fairly empty. Rather than allowing this to motivate and educate these people, the State is called in to do-something-about-this: which it gladly does, of course.

“I’ll clean up the mess and will slaughter other people’s oxen and feed you.”

What it is actually doing, however, is taking away much of our freedom and replacing the weight of self-responsibility with the restrictive burdens of State control. Now the only people with full troughs are those in the upper echelons of the State and those corporations that make unethical side deals with it: deals unavailable to the self-employed and to small businesses. The result: an ever-increasing amount of empty troughs.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014