I'M NOT AFRAID OF DEATH, AM I?

A friend warned me not to go here. "Put Death on the blog,"he said, "and it may be death to the blog. If you feel you must engage with the subject, at least hide it away somewhere. If you put it on top spot like you seem to do with each new topic, every Blogger in the place will leave and you'll never hear from them again. Nobody wants to talk about death, unless to make a Will."

I think he's wrong. I even think that there can actually be a spirituality of death. Put it another way, engaging with the thought of being dead can nourish our living and not just in making us grateful that they have not yet carried us off.

So here we go out along the rim of our existence, out along Eternity's Edge. Let's first of all have a brief look at what others have made of it; we may learn something.

William Wordsworth, for instance. In the last of his Duddon sonnets, he reflects on how the river (Duddon) was there long before us and will remain long after we have gone. This leads him to speculate about how it may all turn out. Lovely lines these, listen.

For backward Duddon as I cast my glance,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; — be it so!

Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

Not much mention there of meeting up with old friends in heaven and a smiling God assuring us that we have laid aside all aches and pains, have had the "joy of our youth restored." We can play out now for the whole eternal day. How does that sound?
The most W.W. seems to hope for is some kind of good reputation others can remember us by and on the strength of that that are to go calmly to our graves.

There is a passage from the biblical "Book of Wisdom" or "The Wisdom of Solomon" which we often hear at Roman Catholic funerals. It was written just before the time of Jesus, 1,900 years before Wordsworth. Why is it that Wordsworth cannot sound as sure of himself as the writer of Wisdom? Hardly a failure of the imagination, this is Wordsworth! Watch the contrast in styles, in wording and most of all in imagery. Here's the reading from Wisdom, compare and contrast with Wordsworth above.

The souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God,
no torment shall ever touch them.
In the eyes of the unwise, they did appear to die,
their going looked like a disaster,
their leaving us, like annihilation;
but they are in peace.
If they experienced punishment as men see it,
their hope was rich with immortality;
slight was their affliction, great will their blessing be.
God has put them to the test
and proved them worthy to be with him;
he has tested them like gold in a furnace,
and accepted them as a holocaust.
They who trust in him will understand the truth,
' those who are faithful will live with him in love;
for grace and mercy await those he has chosen.

In the early years of the 19th century, there lived in the hills near my native village in Ireland a poet by the name of James Tevlin. He was not a great poet but was gifted with a colourful imagination which he expresed best in his native Irish. He was given to personifying death in a vivid way that witnesses to the place it occupied in the minds of people at that time. Listen to just one small example of his imagination at work.

One afternoon late,
as I sat in my seat, Death from a dark shade did threaten me,
And when he drew near,
I trembled with fear,
His ghostly cold sneer did so frighten me.
His bones were all bare,
half joined here and there,
His visage was pale and all horrible,
No pencil or pen can picture to men,
An object so grim and so terrible.

In complete contrast, or to go from the ridiculous to the sublime, we have the Four Last Songs of composer Richard Strauss. Strauss wrote these towards the end of his life, reflecting on the journey that was now coming to a close. The last song, “In the gloaming” gives a peaceful, almost welcoming picture of death, very different from poor James Tevlin
Through want and joy we have
walked hand in hand;
we are resting from our travels
now, in the quiet countryside.

Around us the valleys fold up,
already the air grows dark,
only two larks still soar
wistfully into the balmy sky.

Come here, and let them fly about;
soon it is time for sleep.
We must not go astray
in this solitude.

O spacious, tranquil peace,
so profound in the gloaming.
How tired we are of travelling -
is this perchance death?



The Christian belief about death is stated in the creed, "We believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting" but writers and poets may be able to help us imagine what our beliefs look like. And since Death is something we must all face, it would be helpful to hear from members on just how they imagine it. Just click the comment line at the end of this post.

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But let us finish (for now) with Cardinal Newman's well known prayer so often a feature of funeral services and memorial cards.

"May He support us all the day long,

till the shades lengthen and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed,
and the fever of life is over and our work is done!
Then in His Mercy
may He give us a safe lodging
and a holy rest
and peace at the last."