Part of the Project… “Death is vanquished when it ceases to be the terrifying specter that prevents us from living and proclaiming the truth. It is simply inserted into the project….” Leonardo Boff, Passion of Christ, Passion of the World, p 65 I’ve been uncomfortable with the thought of dying—I admit it. It isn’t so much that I fear an end, though; I just don’t want to leave! Like Mary I feel that I’ve been blessed abundantly, and especially blessed in those who love me and whom I love in return. The bottom line is simply that I don’t want to leave those people and all that love. And I have a more-than-faint suspicion that I’m not alone in that feeling. |
And so I’m working on it. I think about my ending, and what I can do to make it a little more reasonable for those I love. I can’t eliminate their grief, nor would I even if I could. We are entitled to mourn those we love. That’s our right. And I know from my own experience that we live through the mourning and can take something good from it back into our lives. But I am practical about some things, and I have decided that I don’t need to leave those I love with mountains of unnecessary labor to complicate an already complicated time. So I’m trying to clean up, and my first big project was my file cabinet. Don’t laugh. Cleaning out my files is enough to cause anyone grief, all by itself. I’ve spent the last many days wading through papers I’ll never use again – papers no governmental agency will ever want to see – papers that are parts of projects long since accomplished. Why in the world did I ever save them in the first place?! I’ve cleaned out my files, so that what is left is current and generally necessary. Anyone who has ever handled the estate of a “pack rat” will appreciate my efforts.
But other things beside the cleanup have been happening as I wade through stuff in an effort to ease the labors of those who love me. I find I am less concerned about my own end as I make that simply part of “the project”. And even more importantly, I am less weighed down and encumbered by my own life’s accumulated detritus. All those things I’ve always been “going to get to” are finally being gotten to. I am more free. I won’t say that I’ve vanquished death, as Boff says, but it is no longer a scary specter somewhere in my future. I have always believed that we are part of something larger, and that, in some ways unknown to us, we go on. I also believe we never lose our connections with creation – with those we love. I hope for and expect many, many years to enjoy my life – and I also want to be prepared to leave it whenever that happens.
Jesus lived his life doing and saying all the things he felt important to do and say. He surely was an intelligent man, and knew that he was not prolonging his life span by those doings and sayings. Somewhere along the way, though, he became able to make his own death a part of the project, and that freed him to bring God into the world in a way we’d never known before. That’s not to say he didn’t have moments of real fear and even real desperation. But deeper and stronger than those were his ability to forgive, his hope, and his faith…and I firmly believe—his joy. That’s what I’m aiming for; not a morbid preoccupation, but a sensible appreciation – and, of course, thankful joy.
But other things beside the cleanup have been happening as I wade through stuff in an effort to ease the labors of those who love me. I find I am less concerned about my own end as I make that simply part of “the project”. And even more importantly, I am less weighed down and encumbered by my own life’s accumulated detritus. All those things I’ve always been “going to get to” are finally being gotten to. I am more free. I won’t say that I’ve vanquished death, as Boff says, but it is no longer a scary specter somewhere in my future. I have always believed that we are part of something larger, and that, in some ways unknown to us, we go on. I also believe we never lose our connections with creation – with those we love. I hope for and expect many, many years to enjoy my life – and I also want to be prepared to leave it whenever that happens.
Jesus lived his life doing and saying all the things he felt important to do and say. He surely was an intelligent man, and knew that he was not prolonging his life span by those doings and sayings. Somewhere along the way, though, he became able to make his own death a part of the project, and that freed him to bring God into the world in a way we’d never known before. That’s not to say he didn’t have moments of real fear and even real desperation. But deeper and stronger than those were his ability to forgive, his hope, and his faith…and I firmly believe—his joy. That’s what I’m aiming for; not a morbid preoccupation, but a sensible appreciation – and, of course, thankful joy.