Dying to Live
Twins in the Womb
Twins
were talking to each other in their mother’s womb. The sister said to the
brother, “I believe there is life after birth”. Her brother protested
vehemently, “No, no, this is all there is. This is a dark and cozy place, and
we have nothing else to do but to cling to the cord that feeds us.”The little
girl insisted, “There must be something else, a place with light where there is
freedom to move.” She still could not convince her twin brother.
After
some silence, the sister said hesitantly, “I have something else to say, and
I’m afraid you won’t believe that, either, but I think there is a mother.” Her
brother became furious. “A mother!” he shouted. “What are you talking about? I
have never seen a mother, and neither have you. Who put that idea in your head?
As I told you, this place is all we have. Why do you always want more? This is
not such a bad place, after all. We have all we need, so let’s be content.
The
sister was quite overwhelmed by her brother’s response and for awhile didn’t
dare say anything more. But she could’nt let go of her thoughts, and since she
had only her twin brother to speak to, she finally said, “Don’t you feel these
squeezes every once in awhile? They’re quite unpleasant and sometimes even
painful.” “Yes”, he answered. “What’s special about that?” “Well” the sister
said, “I think that these squeezes are there to get us ready for another place,
more beautiful than this, where we will see our mother face-to-face. Don’t you
think that’s exciting?”
The
brother didn’t answer. He was fed up with the foolish talk of his sister and
felt that the best thing would be to simply ignore her and hope that she would
leave him alone.
Father Henri Nouwen, Our Greatest Gift.
Dying to Live
Ah, fool, why
do you think that you will live a long time when here you have no day secure?
How many are deceived and snatched unexpectedly from the body. How happy and
prudent is he who strives so to be in life, as he prays to be found in death. Thomas à
Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, 1418
Over the past
few years, I have tried to make sense of the mystery of death. In
conversations, three reactions have come to pass. For some, contemplations reach
the very core of their beings and elicit a thriving flow of grace, gratitude
and truth. A pause here reveals near and close to death experiences, either for
self or cherished in recent times. I sometimes find myself wandering in this
space of reminiscing my sister’s passing in early 2017. A second response is gentle
befuddlement, followed by mental check-out and transition of discourse to
matters more current. The third is penetrating sarcasm, chastisement and wise
counsel to abandon morbidity. “So unbecoming of a man in the prime of his life”,
whispers the trail of footsteps and distancing of heart.
And so here I
am - responding to the divine invitation to share a newfound liberation.
Renewing our minds: the transformation from
chronos to kairos
“O Lord, when
shall I die? I do not know and I hope it will not be too soon. Not that I feel
so attached to this life….but I feel so unprepared to face you. I feel that by
letting me live a little longer, you reveal your patience, you give me yet
another chance to convert myself, more time to purify my heart. Time is your
gift to me. Amen.” A cry for mercy:
prayers from the Genesee, 24 March 1981
When
befriending death, one of the best places to start I believe, is with time. We
hear the Psalmist cry out: “teach us to number our days aright, that we may
gain a heart of wisdom” (Psa 90:12). One profitable step is to convert our
experience of life from chronos (χρόνος: a random series of connected
events) to kairos (καιρός: the coherence of divine moments and opportune
change in right season). Here, I have Father Henri Nouwen to thank for
schooling me. When time becomes kairos,
my soul is enlarged in its vision to receive endless possibilities through the gifts
that each new day brings forth. I begin to savour my daily portion of manna, as the worries of tomorrow fade.
But this has also necessitated a new type of yielding, one that is jarring and
unfamiliar. Of learning to let go, in order to take hold. Of discerning when:
to act urgently; to posture in hold and wait; or to simply sit at the feet of my
Lord Jesus listening, resting and being restored. God is intensely dynamic and His
rhythms of grace are an open secret yearning to be discerned. Perhaps there is
great wisdom in pondering:
things I cannot do because of what I have
become;
things I need not do because they are not
mine to do; and
things I absolutely must pursue because they
are my deepest desires and prophetic destiny.
Soon enough,
clarity begins to emerge and the Holy Spirit’s illumination can work its way
into purposing my tender heart. I delicately move from a life of opaqueness to
transparency.
Neither death nor life will separate us
from the love of Christ
Another
movement towards freedom continues to stir within. I read recently that deeper
than the assails of money, sex and power, lie an insidious foe. This is the
voice that says, “You are not good enough”. Much of my life’s performance-based
identity projected to significant others, colleagues, and even strangers is
spent living out of this place of fear. What a sheer waste! But then my soul
looks upwards. I hear my triune God affirm – “this is my son, Mark, with whom I
am well pleased….you’re a good and faithful servant Mark, well done. You’ve
been faithful with a few things…come and share Our happiness” – and create
space in my inner sanctum to allow the sinking in of these new realities, fresh
as the morning dew.
In those
meditations, God has been gracious to show me more. Romans 8:37-39 is familiar
and unassuming, as we recite the creed of being more than conquerors in all
things through Jesus Christ. By more fully reclaiming this truth of belovedness,
our souls can transcend the fear of mortality into a firm, assuring and calm
pronouncement of love. My conviction is not passive. It is anchored on the
spiritual reality that the battle over death has been fought and decisively
won. So the passageway of death, is in fact one of love. The words “neither death
nor life will be able to separate us from the love of Christ” is now released in
context to take on its true meaning. Alas, how I wish for this truth to have
come sooner. Almost instantly, I travel back to my sister’s bedside, clueless
and swept by a sort of haunting dread as she strained to breathe her last. I
had nothing but grief to offer her, instead of a gift that could accompany and
ease her transition from fear into God’s secure love.
Entering into my second childhood
Yesterday, I
observed how my 3 year-old boy contrived to exude pure joy out of nothing. He decided
to run around in circles and bask in a continuous stream of giggles and
laughter. And here I was, grounded ashore staring at the tides of our political
ebbs and flows. Relishing his antics, my mind shifted once more to the
interplay of life and death. Could it be that the same innocence, purity and
dependence that defined our entry into this world also tarries with us as we
leave? My first ever cry greeted the face of those most loved as truly being
the world to me. My last desire, with tears I’m sure, is to have dearest close
by giving away the purest ounce of what’s left of me. At the beginning and end,
I am utterly dependent on God and others to sustain me. In between it seems a
stubborn self-sufficiency has come to grip my soul.
Yet the
carefree moments of young ones going about play evoke and offer a returning
path to the freedom of a second, more mature and trusting childlikeness before
God. I recall being in my sister’s room before she made what would be her last
visit to the National Cancer Institute. It was amazing. She was dancing and
worshipping God to the tunes of Don Moen, as her face shone with peace.
Although aged 44, my sister had a health condition that meant she took on the
mental persona of a young teen. Much of society failed to understand her
childish and innocent ways, and she bore a lot of its unkindness. I now see how
she was blessed with a measure of grace I am only beginning to touch. I hide these
precious words of Jesus within me – “Truly I tell you, unless you change and
become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt
18:3).
And so it seems,
the choice before me is not a complex one. I could clutch the illusion of
control when in fact, frailty, fragility and fracture inch closer to delivering
its sudden or final blow. Or I could accept the early invitation set before us
all. This is well-expressed by the German mystic Jakob Böhme when he wrote “who
dies not before he dies, is ruined when he dies”. I have no idea what readers
may think of this post. But what I do know is the philosophy of ‘better late
than never’ will fail miserably when it comes to confronting and embracing our
mortality. Perhaps this is our modern
day parlance for King Solomon’s wise exhortation. He urges us in Ecclesiastes 12 to "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth" – or today for that matter – well
before our bodies fail us as the silver cord (our spines) severs; the golden
bowl (our brains) breaks; and the pitcher and wheels (our hearts, veins and
bloodflow) shatter and are broken at the well.
Soaring above the shakings
In Haggai 2:6-7,
the Lord Almighty says “In a little while, I will once more shake the heavens
and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations…”. Through
God’s revelation, light is shed over the panorama of shakings across the environment,
economy, health, politics, international relations, society, church and even the
spiritual realm. Our nation itself is being rocked to her core.
Perhaps death
and its profound certainty has a faith message for us in season. Keeping our
eyes fixed on the prize of eternity while holding lightly, O pilgrim, to the
things of this world. For in dying to live, our spiritual vision keeps being
raised on eagle’s wings -- a little higher, a little purer, and a little
clearer -- langkah demi langkah towards eternity and everything else in its
right and richer perspective.
May our unfettered
spirits soar with courage over the storms and tumults of the day from within
and without.
Mark Lee, 29
February 2020
Love your meditation
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