Tuesday, February 2, 2016

When I Die : Part 2



169. Despite these miseries, man wishes to be happy, and only wishes to be happy, and cannot wish not to be so. But how will he set about it? To be happy he would have to make himself immortal; but, not being able to do so, it has occurred to him to prevent himself from thinking of death.  - Pascal

Death is not a welcoming conversation topic. Many of us boast of a mostly casual relationship with death, even though deaths happen everyday. There is a steady stream of the departed. This can be proven by just watching the local news. But we have just been mostly carrying on. I have been recently reading Pascal's Pensees. Pascal rightly notes that death is the ultimate universal no one can deny, but many run away from in the form of pleasurable distractions.


I had the unhappy experience of lying down on a hospital bed just recently. I do not wish to be dramatic. This trip was brought about by a required physical examination. The nurse had to run me through an electrocardiogram (ECG) on the top of said bed. As I stared blankly at the ceiling, lights flooding my view, thoughts of my future fate came to mind. I do not wish to die in a hospital, whether fighting an incurable disease or struggling to keep frail organs functioning. I do not wish to die anywhere at all, with the exception of dying in my sleep. I fear the pain it brings to my person. But that fact is a bit speculative. What I am certain of is the pain it brings to other people. Death is possibly the saddest event. The casual relationship we have with death turns intimate whenever we come to a wake. The wife who's lost a husband, the children who lost a parent, the parents who lost a child. I never wish to be in their shoes.

As a Christian, I understand that there is to be no fear in death. The apostle Paul notes that for him to live is Christ and to die is gain, for in death we gain more Christ... that in glory. Yet the feeling remains: I do not wish to die. I do not wish to see death. Death intrudes on all facets of existence. Who does not dread, along with Pascal, knowing that the last act is tragic (bloody), however happy all the rest of the play is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end forever? Not at all comforting. But downplaying the pain is downplaying the very human reality of death; it trivializes the very notion of mourning with those who mourn. The glorious hope of the resurrection banks on the fact that the entry to it is the most painful way, that of death.

Everything will come to an end in due time. How it ends, how it is led to that final moment, is a mystery. Does death teach me something before I come to meet it? It does, and that greatly. Unlike my first post on dying, which was rather written a little lightly, the simple fact that I am learning as I grow older is that life is altogether tragic. I'm writing four years later and death has become a more frequent presence. It is painful. Whatever pleasure there is in life, it is fleeting. The appeal of pleasure is the fact that it exists for a short while. Rich or poor, wise or fool, all men will come to die. Pascal's observation regarding this fact is fascinating. He notes that since people know that death is upon them, they fill their lives with so many distractions, that thinking of death has become quite rare. True. He adds that we don't really wish to be alone with only our thoughts, for our thoughts will eventually lead us to think of our impending death.

The wisest of men, Solomon, came at the end of his life to command "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." He had all the possible distractions that his wealth and wisdom afforded him, for the living know that they will come to die. I don't even have a fraction of his resources and I have been doing well enough to distract myself. He was left to say that everything is vanity, a chasing after the wind, if one does not find satisfaction fearing and knowing the true God. I fear that this casual relationship with death is intricately connected to an equally casual relationship with God, who holds both life and death. As men are not able to fight against death... they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of [it] at all (Pascal).

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