on death

over the past weeks, i’ve found myself in a contemplative mood.  i believe it’s due to a number of factors, which i will get to later, but for now, here's a small peek into my thoughts.  at first, it was difficult to put a finger on what i was thinking about, what seemed to be gnawing at the back of my mind, which was keeping me up at night.  then, this morning, as i was driving to work in the fog that engulfs the south carolina lowcountry in the early mornings, i passed by a cemetery that i’ve passed hundreds of times, but today had a spookiness about it in the fog and pre-dawn twilight.  i love old cemeteries,and believe they have a unique beauty to them, but today the creepiness overpowered the beauty.  if you’ve ever been to the lowcountry, you will know that the area has an “otherworldly” appearance about it, even in the bright daylight, more so in the darkness.  it is truly a place of inspiration for writers of the eerie and the macabre.  large live oaks spread their branches like tentacles, twisting and groping the surrounding spaces, casting dark shadows underneath them, choking out the life of the undergrowth, leaving the ground below them barren.  hanging from the branches are massive clumps of spanish moss, which oddly enough are neither spanish nor moss.  they drip like some sort of alien symbiote, giving the landscape a ghostly appearance.  these elements today transformed a cemetery into a ghastly scene ripped straight from the pages of a stephen king or edgar allen poe story, or perhaps from one of the spooky movies that fill our television screens during the month of october.  even with my windows up, and passing by at 55 miles per hour, in my imagination (which, if you’ve read my books, you know can be very vivid!) i could even smell the damp and decay coupled with the sulphur smell of the nearby tidal creeks.  it was then that i realized what had been occupying the recesses of my mind:  death.

now, i urge you to do two things before you go trying to diagnose me or calling the white coats to come and put me in a padded room to protect me from myself:  first, stay with me through this walk through the dark; and second, give me a chance to explain what i mean.  death is a topic that intrigues me, and in my recent moment of clarity, i realized why.  my jobs as a hospital chaplain and navy chaplain have forced me to come face to face with death and all of its rippling effects on those it touches.  whether it was sitting at the bedside of someone with terminal cancer, awaiting death’s temporary triumph, or knocking at the 13 doors of families to inform them of death’s cruel stealing of their loved ones, death is always just a few steps ahead of me.  i have a coffee cup that is shaped like a skull that i refer to as my memento mori cup, latin for “remember death”, meaning to remember your own mortality and to make the most out of every day.  after all, as chuck palahniuk said, “on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”  for me, this was both a personal reminder to not squander time, but also that everyone i meet is also somewhere in that dash between their birth date and death date, and the urgency of the gospel becomes that much more profound.  after all, we are not guaranteed another breath.  every second of every day, someone leaves this life who still had plans for tomorrow.  but, the depth of humans’ unique relationship with death was not something that had dawned on me until this morning. 

in the month of october, western society likes to focus on all things scary due to the lead-up to halloween.  i’m not here to discuss halloween and its origins or whether or not you should celebrate it in whatever manner you choose (halloween, all hallows eve, fall festival, harvest festival, trunk or treat, trick or treat, etc.), so don’t come at me with any of that discussion.  however, the origins of halloween and other similar holidays (all saints’ day, all souls’ day, dia de los muertos, etc.) are based on humans’ encounters with death.  as a matter of fact, if you boil it down and reduce it, the majority of fears are based on a fear of death.  we watch scary movies, and what’s scary about them?  the fact that killers, monsters, creatures, or any of the other unknown or unseen entities with malevolent intent out there could bring about our demise.  ghost stories scare us because they are encounters with those who have already died, and could possibly cause us to die.  fear of heights?  yep, it’s the fear of falling which could possibly kill us.  we use things like skulls and crossbones to elicit fear in people, to cause them to stay away from something that could potentially kill them.  pirates used skeletons to coerce compliance out of their victims, communicating that to cross them would mean death.  the paradox is that we like things that scare us or make us feel close to death because it makes us feel alive!  that’s why we like those things that scare us, such as scary movies, haunted houses, or riding roller coasters, because there is safety in the fear, a brush with death without actually touching it.

humans have a fear of the unknown, and death is no exception.  we do whatever we can to avoid it.  trillions are spent each year on pharmaceuticals meant to prolong our lives and stave off death.  we come up with every safety mechanism imaginable to prevent our deaths through accidents.  we avoid talking about it, referring to it as “passing away” or “passing on” or even “falling asleep.”  for some of you, even reading about it in this essay makes you uncomfortable.  even for the Christ-follower, death is an enigma, an enemy that is somehow inexplicably on our side.  there are a few reasons for this.  the first is the simple fact that we were never meant to experience death, and it only became our reality because of adam's sin, therefore it is foreign to us.  the second is because even though we have an idea of what awaits us after we die based upon what we read in Scripture, there is still a mystery to it.  we only have an inkling, but no real idea of what it is truly like.  it is like trying to describe the beauty of a sunrise to someone who is blind.  our words fall woefully short, and unless the blind person sees it for themselves, they will never truly comprehend what a sunrise is actually like.  so there is still that element of the unknown, and thus our apprehension concerning it.  one of the most profound things ever said to me was by a patient named claude.  claude had been in and out of the oncology floor of the hospital where i worked, and had beaten cancer two previous times, but the third time proved to be the final battle.  he was nearing the end, and knew it was coming, and he called for his wife, his pastor, and for me to come to his bedside during his last moments.  it was there that he said something that cut me to my core:  “i don’t know how to die!”  he was not afraid of death, but he didn’t know how to let go of the love of a wife, the joy of kids and grandkids, for something that he knew was greater that awaited him (he was a devout Christ-follower!) but he couldn’t quite picture.  and that is all of us!  for the believer, we know that death is not the end, and we find ourselves like those that the apostle paul mentioned, “loving this present life more than the next.”  so we run from death.  we fear it.  we fight it off.  but in the end, the sin that infects this world like cancer kills us. 

you see, the events of the past weeks such as writing and publishing my latest book containing the story of a serial killer stalking victims, my turning 50 all the while seeing obituaries of people my age or just a few years older on social media, knocking on the door of yet another wife to tell her that her husband is not coming home, or even my nightmares of knocking on a door to make that notification and having the door opened by my wife on the other side, are all tied to that knowledge that death is there, crouched like a ravenous animal, waiting to pounce.  the thing is, i’m not frightened of it.  apprehensive?  of course!  avoiding it?  with every ounce of my being!  you can tell that by the small pharmacy i load into my daily pill rations every week!  and there’s nothing wrong with that!  it’s okay to not necessarily fear death, but be afraid of dying.  we all have ways we would like to go if given the choice, and those usually involve something painless, peaceful, such as dying in our sleep, on our terms, and our timeline.  but God doesn’t work that way.  Scripture tells us that each of us has an appointed time to die, and instead of that bringing us despair, it should bring us joy, for to be absent from the body is to be with the LORD!  that doesn’t mean we are to go chasing death like some in the early church, it just means we are to live our lives with urgency and purpose, glorifying God in everything we do, including dying!  some of the most powerful testimonies have been how a person glorified God in their very death!  thousands came to Christ through the martyrdom of His followers.  i watched medical staff experience the grace and mercy of God through the witness of how His saints spent their last days praising Him!

this year, during the “spooky season”, don’t let the excitement of being scared create a spirit of fear within you!  we can be afraid of dying, but we are not to fear death.  that’s what we are to avoid as Christ-followers!  after all, as Scripture tells us, “death, where is your sting?  grave, where is your victory?”  or, as one of my favorite songs says, “where is the enemy?  i can feel no bite.  where is the enemy?  when death is on my side!”

it is also important to remember that death is not a friend, despite the poets proclaiming otherwise.  it is inevitable, yes, but it should not be something people seek.  while Christ has defeated death, it is still a tool of the real enemy, the one who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy.  he and his little minions are the ones behind the suicide epidemic of today.  their goal is for you to turn your eyes from the true source of peace and the One who provides and instead despair and see death as a respite for the problems that plague us on a daily basis.  in talking with those who have attempted suicide, they share similar stories of voices inside telling them to do it until the moment they actually do, and once they do, the voices go silent.  the man who famously jumped from the golden gate bridge and survived tells of how the voices got louder and louder, becoming deafening, until the moment he let go of the rail.  at that moment, they left him to suffer the consequences of his choice alone.  it was because they had achieved their goal:  destruction of a life, a life that is precious to God, a life that Christ died to redeem.  most importantly you have to remember that the devil and death are both defeated foes, regardless of how loud they scream and yell.  death is not the goal, but it's also not the end.  

consequently, if you are not a follower of Christ, be afraid.  be very afraid.  for there is a second death for those who are not redeemed in Christ, and that should be something that terrifies you, even more so than the worst entity hollywood can come up with on a television screen!