"You never know the hour. Death comes like a thief in the night."
I was sitting in the dentist office Monday, waiting and waiting for the dental hygienist to come and pick at my teeth. It is not a pleasant experience, but certainly better than having rotten ones, or none at all, like my mother and her mother and, really, most of her generation who usually lost everything by age 50. Staring at the ceiling, I could hear the doctor talking to an elderly woman next door. "You're in very good shape for your age. Honestly, I would never have guessed that you're 82. So what we need to do is take out all the old bridgework, pull out the teeth that are remaining, and build a new bridge on both sides. That will make it possible for you to chew."
He was trying to convince her that she had enough time left in life to go through this tremendous expense and hassle. It put a new perspective on dentistry, one I shared with the hygienist when she finally arrived. "Really, you do what you can, but you can't stop the inevitable. It's all going to turn to dust in a few years." Usually, health care professionals do not like getting involved in philosophical moments with their clients - they are too busy! - but this one nodded. "It's true. It's just a matter of time."
And we never know the time. Two of my life-long friends have died in the past two years. One, the most recent, had been a heavy smoker, a very heavy drinker, didn't exercise or do anything that one is supposed to do to keep fit and live - forever or thereabouts, as I think many want to believe. The other had died two years earlier, on a trail bike. He exercised, didn't smoke or drink to excess, and tried to keep fit overall. And yet he died at an earlier age than the bon vivant.
In the last blog, I wrote about the smug English author of White Sands. I wondered if I might like him more by the end of the book, and I did, sort of, being perhaps more gracious than I felt. But his last chapter, as I suspected, was the doozy. Here, he talked about suddenly standing up from the garbage and not being able to see half the room; or to remember exactly where he was or what he was doing. He and his wife took their time before going to "hospital" (the Brits leave off the "the's" all over the place) to first go for their morning coffee and donuts. All so carefree, even though he must have been suspicious of what they did eventually find - that he had had a stroke. But, he complained in the essay (in a self-deprecating way), he never ate animal protein! He exercised daily and was thin as a rail!. His uncle, he said, had eaten everything that should never be eaten, and had lived to the age of 90. He was only 55!
After that, he now admits to always feeling, just in the back of his mind, the sword of Damocles over his head. When will it drop from its thread?
"No man has gained one moment more of life by worry," says the Gospels, and this "thief" - death - cannot always be detected, like any good thief. But worry cannot help, either. Rather, death seems to be the greatest and most immediate catalyst for faith, whether that be in God, gods, or in living for the day, bravely ignoring the shadow of the sword. But in any of those cases, worry only ceases through trust - the fundamental element of faith. Trust, that is, that this is a good universe, a good system, one that has meaning even if we cannot reason that out; trust that death will not bring horrors, and will, at the very least, be a release from the travails of life. Trust that death, as inevitable and natural, is no more wrong or ugly than winter before the world turns again to spring.
Without such trust, one keeps looking over one's shoulder. The author says that his life soon went back to the frustrations and routines of before, but that now, he looks at each sunset as if it might be his last. He wishes that he could live forever.
I don't know. This has been a very hot summer, and already I am waiting for the fall. I do not want summer to last forever, and by mid- fall I will be happily waiting for winter's first snow storm. I don't want any of these seasons to last forever. Nor do I wish that for this season of life. I fear dying for its pain and suffering, and sometimes worry about the after effects - oh, please, may there not be reincarnation, and certainly not hell ! - but something else, something deeper, tells me that it is just a season. At my age, it will come more or less on schedule, as I am past that time when people shake their heads and say, "he had his whole life before him." I might even say that, with a catch in my breath, I am almost desiring it, as I now desire fall and then winter - not because I hate it, but because I am about ready for a change.
Unlike Dyer, my wish will be granted (but not now, I hope!) It is a philosophy born by me not so much from religion, but from living in the seasons. Death is painful and, frankly, it literally stinks, but it is natural, the most natural thing in the world. It seems to me that love of life would also, then, include love of death, for that is a part of life that must be. And in that hollow of love for life is faith, and in that is faith in the goodness of life, and in that, the first knowledge of God. FK
I was sitting in the dentist office Monday, waiting and waiting for the dental hygienist to come and pick at my teeth. It is not a pleasant experience, but certainly better than having rotten ones, or none at all, like my mother and her mother and, really, most of her generation who usually lost everything by age 50. Staring at the ceiling, I could hear the doctor talking to an elderly woman next door. "You're in very good shape for your age. Honestly, I would never have guessed that you're 82. So what we need to do is take out all the old bridgework, pull out the teeth that are remaining, and build a new bridge on both sides. That will make it possible for you to chew."
He was trying to convince her that she had enough time left in life to go through this tremendous expense and hassle. It put a new perspective on dentistry, one I shared with the hygienist when she finally arrived. "Really, you do what you can, but you can't stop the inevitable. It's all going to turn to dust in a few years." Usually, health care professionals do not like getting involved in philosophical moments with their clients - they are too busy! - but this one nodded. "It's true. It's just a matter of time."
And we never know the time. Two of my life-long friends have died in the past two years. One, the most recent, had been a heavy smoker, a very heavy drinker, didn't exercise or do anything that one is supposed to do to keep fit and live - forever or thereabouts, as I think many want to believe. The other had died two years earlier, on a trail bike. He exercised, didn't smoke or drink to excess, and tried to keep fit overall. And yet he died at an earlier age than the bon vivant.
In the last blog, I wrote about the smug English author of White Sands. I wondered if I might like him more by the end of the book, and I did, sort of, being perhaps more gracious than I felt. But his last chapter, as I suspected, was the doozy. Here, he talked about suddenly standing up from the garbage and not being able to see half the room; or to remember exactly where he was or what he was doing. He and his wife took their time before going to "hospital" (the Brits leave off the "the's" all over the place) to first go for their morning coffee and donuts. All so carefree, even though he must have been suspicious of what they did eventually find - that he had had a stroke. But, he complained in the essay (in a self-deprecating way), he never ate animal protein! He exercised daily and was thin as a rail!. His uncle, he said, had eaten everything that should never be eaten, and had lived to the age of 90. He was only 55!
After that, he now admits to always feeling, just in the back of his mind, the sword of Damocles over his head. When will it drop from its thread?
"No man has gained one moment more of life by worry," says the Gospels, and this "thief" - death - cannot always be detected, like any good thief. But worry cannot help, either. Rather, death seems to be the greatest and most immediate catalyst for faith, whether that be in God, gods, or in living for the day, bravely ignoring the shadow of the sword. But in any of those cases, worry only ceases through trust - the fundamental element of faith. Trust, that is, that this is a good universe, a good system, one that has meaning even if we cannot reason that out; trust that death will not bring horrors, and will, at the very least, be a release from the travails of life. Trust that death, as inevitable and natural, is no more wrong or ugly than winter before the world turns again to spring.
Without such trust, one keeps looking over one's shoulder. The author says that his life soon went back to the frustrations and routines of before, but that now, he looks at each sunset as if it might be his last. He wishes that he could live forever.
I don't know. This has been a very hot summer, and already I am waiting for the fall. I do not want summer to last forever, and by mid- fall I will be happily waiting for winter's first snow storm. I don't want any of these seasons to last forever. Nor do I wish that for this season of life. I fear dying for its pain and suffering, and sometimes worry about the after effects - oh, please, may there not be reincarnation, and certainly not hell ! - but something else, something deeper, tells me that it is just a season. At my age, it will come more or less on schedule, as I am past that time when people shake their heads and say, "he had his whole life before him." I might even say that, with a catch in my breath, I am almost desiring it, as I now desire fall and then winter - not because I hate it, but because I am about ready for a change.
Unlike Dyer, my wish will be granted (but not now, I hope!) It is a philosophy born by me not so much from religion, but from living in the seasons. Death is painful and, frankly, it literally stinks, but it is natural, the most natural thing in the world. It seems to me that love of life would also, then, include love of death, for that is a part of life that must be. And in that hollow of love for life is faith, and in that is faith in the goodness of life, and in that, the first knowledge of God. FK
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