Coming to Terms with Death: Some Thoughts on Easter

When I began this blog, I mentioned something about coming to terms with death. All men are mortal. Caius is a man. Therefore Caius is mortal. Yes, true enough, but as Ivan Illych says on his deathbead in Tolstoy’s short story “The Death of Ivan Illych,” “The syllogism… had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself.  That Caius—man in the abstract—was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others.”

Well, this is the right weekend to think about coming to terms with death. This evening begins what Catholics call the Easter Triduum. During it Christians first remember the Last Supper. Jesus knew he is going to be arrested, condemned, and executed. And so he gives his followers a way to remember him and to share in his life. Then by agonizing prayer, he surrenders his will. This is the way it must be and he acts with confidence in the face of doom.

Tomorrow is Good Friday, the day of Christ’s death by crucifixion. Christian believe that just as his life was for others, so his death was for others. The cross is the supreme example of redemptive suffering—an idea almost completely lost today, but really not that hard to understand. A mom in labor experiences redemptive suffering. Yes, it hurts badly. Yes, she suffers, but the pain releases her child to life in the world, an enormous good. It wasn’t “meaningless” suffering. Can our aging, ailing, and eventual deaths be redemptive as well? Does all of our aging, ailing, and eventual deaths have meaning—meaning apart from the meaning we subjectively give them? I believe they do.

Holy Saturday is far and away the strangest day of the year. On Holy Saturday, nothing happens. Oh, we’ll be doing preparation for Easter dinner, but it always ends up being a still quiet day of limbo—a hanging between death and life.

By 8PM we’ll be in church (since at 8:15, there won’t be any more seats) for the Easter Vigil that begins at 8:30. A solemn procession, baptisms, confirmations, and Bible reading after Bible reading in the dark until… “Christ is Risen!” the blare of all the lights coming on at the same second, and the Last Supper all over again.

Living, dying, dead, more alive than ever.

In participating in the mystery of the Easter Triduum year after year (actually week after week since every Sunday is a little Easter), we come to terms with the true facts that all men are mortal, Jim is a man, therefore Jim is mortal, but because of the cross and the resurrection, there’s more to the syllogism and to the story.

Bounder of Adventure

"We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!" --Bilbo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been listening to lectures by Joseph Pearce on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. The story is, of course, about Bilbo Baggins' adventurous journey from his comfortable home and comfortable life through a great deal of discomfort to the Lonely Mountain and back again. Back again to his comfortable home at Bag End, but Bilbo never returns to his comfortable life. Bilbo comes back permanently changed. The respectable, old-before-his-time Bilbo became the somewhat disreputable, eccentric Bilbo we meet at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. He's the Bilbo who is friends to dwarves, elves, and younger hobbits, the one who seems to behave younger every year.

And how could it be otherwise. In the course of his adventure--something he was never interested in to begin with--Bilbo spent weary days trekking and weary nights trying to sleep on the ground in the wild. He was threatened by trolls, captured by goblins, chased by wolves, and nearly eaten by Gollum. Bilbo killed a giant spider, rescued his friends from prison, and matched wits with fire-breathing Smaug, the dragon. He experienced the joy of Rivendell, the terror of battle, and the deep sadness at the death of his friend and traveling companion, the dwarf king Thorin.

This is what happens, he later warns his nephew and heir, Frodo when you leave your front door. Before you know it, you're on an adventure. And who knows what will happen around the next bend in the road?

At a recent dinner with a long-time friend (who may or may not be an old friend--depending on your perspective), we discussed what I would call the next big adventure. "My wife and I figure we have about twenty years of active work left," said my friend. "The question is what to do with that time and who to do it with in order to really make it count." 

Dottie and I similarly have about twenty years left as well. It may be longer, but let's call it twenty. How do we make those years count for the good of our family, friends, community, the Church, and the world? How, where, and with whom can we best influence the next generations toward the good, the true, and the beautiful? What's our next and possibly last great adventure?

Sure adventures are "nasty disturbing uncomfortable things." Sure they make you late for dinner. But how sad to settle for sedentary comfort when, as Bilbo put it:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it meets some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

After all, if I could say, it wouldn't be much of an adventure, would it?

Luxury or Comfort

This morning driving to work, I was listening to a series of lectures about J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit by scholar Joseph Pearce.  In the course of talking about the book, Pearce quoted the first two sentences of chapter one:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.

As he read, I finished the quote—incorrectly. Instead of “that means comfort,” I, in the privacy of my car said, “that means luxury.” Well, that says more about me and I suspect many others than I’d like. Tolkien and the Bilbo Baggins valued comfort. We value luxury. Bilbo had a fireplace for his cooking; I want a Wolf range.

Comfort comes from the Latin com-fortis meaning strong. Luxury comes from the Latin luxuria meaning rankness or excess. Comforts strengthen and console us. Luxury is more than is reasonable and too often weakens us and makes us want more and more and more.

Perhaps my misquote was the result of the brand new Audi S6 that passed me along the way or perhaps, to use Tolkien’s imagery, it was the dragon in me. While Hobbits love comfort, dragons are the ones on Middle Earth who love luxury. For a dragon, enough is never enough. More is always better even if you can't use anything you own.

Now I realize that the whole point of The Hobbit is breaking away from comfort. Comfort blocks the way to adventures and it's only in the adventure of the journey to Lonely Mountain that Bilbo learns heroic virtue. Having said that, I suspect that for many of us just breaking away from our craving for luxury to be content with comfort could be the first step on a journey that, as it becomes an adventure, teaches us heroic virtue as well.

Feeling Just a Bit Ill

The end of last week, over the weekend, and even today, I don't feels so well. Neither does my wife, Dottie. In fact, she been in bed the last two days, hardly checking her work email at all. Now that's unusual.

While there's nothing good about being sick, there is something very good about being reminded that I am not immortal, invincible, or irreplaceable. The sense--contrary to all reason--that I am immortal, invincible and irreplaceable is, in fact, a mark of adolescence. You rarely hear a middle-aged person or a senior saying, "Hey, hold my beer and watch this." At some point we outgrow the need to jump off cliffs, swim with sharks, drive at 110 miles an hour, and ski down the mountain without turning.

The trick is to get our spirits to follow the good judgment of our bodies. One of my friends was close to the founder and president of a nonprofit organization who was in his mid-seventies. "What's your succession plan?" my friend once asked. The older man just stared at him and then changed the subject. Later one of the organization's vice presidents took my friend aside and informed him that they never, never bring up a succession plan. The president simply would not discuss it and became angry if pressed. He was operating as if he was immortal, invincible and irreplaceable.

As it turned out, he created a situation in which he was, in fact, irreplaceable. When he became seriously ill, the organization's revenue took a significant dip. Within a few months of his death, the revenue did a nosedive, huge layoffs began, and the organization he so carefully grew nearly declared bankruptcy. How sad and unnecessary.

Part of wisdom is recognizing our limitations in every area of life and in every phase of life. Something to remember the next time we feel under the weather.

Seventy-Six and Growing

Pope Francis I, it has repeatedly been said, is a pope of firsts: the first Jesuit, the first from the Americas, the first non-European in ages, the first to be ordained after Vatican II, and the first to take the name Francis.He’s also seventy-six years old. Not a first there. The Catholic Church knows something.

It’s not secret that we live in a culture that’s obsessed with youth. Botox, anti-wrinkle creams, hair dye, and trendy clothes can make (or possibly "fake") us look years younger. And that, of course, is a cultural value.

“Never trust anyone over thirty,” it was once said by those who eventually turned thirty-one and changed their minds. I’ve also heard, “Anyone over thirty still working for a living is a chump.” We salute those who either retire young and wealthy or at a young age take over huge responsibilities. A forty or thirty-five year old pope—that would be something!

Not really.

There is a great deal to be said about age, experience, and wisdom, things that only come with the passing of time. Someone may be “wise beyond his/her years,” but there are deficiencies in our wisdom that only years fill up. A forty-year old may be "wise beyond her years," but nonetheless lacks the experience and perspective that go with the territory when you're seventy-six.

As far too many of his peers have settled into mediocre, largely sedentary, and in many cases self-consumed lives of retirement, Francis I has taken on the challenge of his life, one that will require the kind of wisdom, experience, spiritual maturity, and virtue it has taken him all of his seventy-six years to develop.

May God bless him.

Loosen Up

We've had a great weekend with our son, his wife, and our grandson. Jon had meetings here in Denver (we're sitting at the airport) and so we flew in to hang out, ski, and celebrate birthdays--59, 29, and 9 months. It's been a very needed few days in the slow lane.

On Saturday morning I picked up the Denver Post and the Wall Street Journal in the hotel lobby when I made the morning coffee run. Once I got back to the room, however, I realized that I didn't have the heart to actually read them. So I read the funnies and pretended that Washington, DC was on some other planet. It was refreshing. I recommend it. The news about crawling around the floor, pulling up on furniture, and making new noises is far more important anyway.

My son and I skied at Arapahoe Basin despite warnings that Arapahoe, due to its altitude, has a reputation for white-outs. Basically, you end up skiing in a cloud and if you're lucky you can see one bump ahead. At one point I slid down a steeper part of the slope simply because I couldn't see what was snow and what was cloud. About all we could know for certain is where down was. For the most part, I found it all extremely funny and laughed as I slid into white snowy wherever.

Which brings me back to the airport. Due to traffic and what ended up being a wrong turn, we missed our scheduled flight. Driving along knowing the inevitable and then arriving at the airport, checking in, and going through security, I did not find it funny at all. I kept getting tighter and tighter.

Now you can't ski when you're tight. Flexibility allows you to handle the bumps, the icy spots, the changes in slope, and minor errors that would otherwise result in falls. Tighten up and you're on the snow with your skis flying off your feet and your goggles up the slope where you planted  your face. You have to stay loose.

The trick is to translate that loose, flexible attitude that works when skiing into running late for flights, burning dinner, fender benders, and all the various and sundry bumps, icy spots, changes in slopes, and minor errors that are a part of every life every day. No small task, but I'm trying to learn.

Grandbabysitting

Advice columnist Carolyn Hax received a letter from a young mom. Here's part of it:

Let me start by saying, I have a great relationship with my mother-in-law. Before we had kids, we vacationed with my husband’s immediate family, and went for dinner and drinks very frequently together.

We live within minutes of my in-laws but do not get or ask for a lot of help. When we do ask for babysitting help, we are made to feel like it is a major inconvenience. My sister-in-law gets the same response. We get a laundry list of things she has going on that MAY be impacted by a few hours with her grandchildren. It is usually hair and nail appointments, not work, medical appointments or other terribly pressing matters.

Now obviously there are piles of facts missing from this story. We don’t know what’s going on in the grandmother’s life or in her relationship with her kids or grandkids. But, having said that, if our grandson lived “within minutes” of our house, we would claim first rights of refusal on all babysitting opportunities. In fact, we’d probably treat our son and his wife to romantic getaways in order to score additional babysitting hours.

And the long-term plan, let me add, is to live within minutes and have many such opportunities.

Does that, I wonder, make us weird or at least unusual? 

Living nearby them would certainly break the cultural norm of families being flung across the country if not the globe. Yet part of growing up with a sense of identity is knowing where you come from and, you came from your parents who came from your grandparents who came from…. Whether you love it or hate it, you have a heritage and that heritage is part of your identity.

In a culture where an increasing number of children don’t even know both of their parents, it seems to me that those who are grounded in their heritage will possess riches about which others can’t even dream.

In Your Face

Prior to the birth of our grandson, Matthias, Dottie and I gave no thought to FaceTime or Skype. Why would we. Telephones work just fine for talking to people. But grandchildren, as it turns out, aren’t “people” in the same sense that everyone else is.

Our particular grandchild lives 1,900 miles due west at the foot of Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains. We see him as often as we can (this weekend, for example), but that’s not nearly often enough to keep up with the changes happening in the life of someone under the age of one. I was looking at his birth announcement photos this morning—the announcement is on the refrigerator. Matthias doesn’t look anything like those pictures taken less than nine months ago. New activities and skills seem to pop up nearly every day.

And that’s why God gave us FaceTime and Skype. For a while we were just watching him and I can still remember the first time he looked at his dad’s phone and the picture caught his interest. Since then he's clearly watching us as well—a relationship has formed.

How well he knows the faces in the phone is a question for this weekend when we all meet up in Denver. Of course, if he doesn’t recognize us this trip, seeing us weekly on the screen will sooner or later result in greater friendship between the generations.

So despite many misgivings about technology—it’s not as benign as we’d like to think—I’m a Facetime fan and I think Matthias is too.

What Should I Fear?

Daily devotional guides push me in all sorts of directions I would not otherwise go. That’s why I like them. Earlier this week, for example, I was reading about fear.

St. Hilary, the fourth century bishop of Poitiers in central France, wrote:

We are afraid, or made afraid, because of a guilty conscience, the rights of someone more powerful, an attack from one who is stronger, sickness, encountering a wild beast, suffering evil in any form. This kind of fear is not taught: it happens because we are weak. We do not have to learn what we should fear: objects of fear bring their own terror with them.

That is, fear is part of our human condition. We live in a scary and dangerous world with an uncertain future. Our health, our children, our jobs, our savings, the economy, and the daily headlines are frightening things to think about. And so often, the older people get, the more afraid they become. Oh, you can call it worry or stress, but, let's be honest, those are just other names for fear.

St. Hilary doesn’t say we should not have natural fears, but he does suggest that we learn a higher more exalted fear, the fear of God.

That sounds scary to many people. Childhood memories and training tend to put ugly thoughts in our heads about what sort of God should be feared. But St. Hilary goes on to explain what he means by the fear of God.

For us the fear of God consists wholly in love, and perfect love of God brings our fear of him to its perfection. Our love for God is entrusted with its own responsibility: to observe his counsels, to obey his laws, to trust his promises.

When we fear God, the fears of this world begin to shrink. We begin to see the uncertainties of life that cause us to be afraid through the lens of God’s love and power. And we can walk into our senior years with confidence and joy instead of worry, worry, and a side order of stress.