(The Nationalist, 04 March 2005)
One of the great qualities of the Christian faith is that it’s not afraid to talk about death, to look it in the eye, to call it by name, and then go on living joyfully. I have a theory, which is that people who are afraid of death were afraid of living in the first place. I see people who suffocate life with caution. Put an idea to them, and they will immediately see what’s wrong with it, potential dangers to be avoided. ‘It might be wiser not to…’ Give them a doughnut, and the first thing they see is the hole in it. For them, the glass is always half empty. But if you start by looking at problems, you’ll never do anything.
In a paradoxical way, people like those should welcome death. There’s no place more safe and predictable than a cemetery, all those people lined up in rows and straight lines, and never a cross word between them! Lovely!
There are many kinds of death, apart from actual bodily death. There is:
- Despair: many people, such as the lonely, live lives of quiet desperation.
- The absence of meaning, direction or purpose in life. That leads some people to end their life, since they see no point in living.
- A relationship that is destructive, such as one without depth or commitment.
- Being crushed by a sense of guilt, having low self-esteem or self-respect. Never be afraid to accept the truth about yourself – no matter how good it may be!
- Cynicism: it’s a parasite like cancer, destroying what it lives off; there is nothing it cannot corrode. There is sometimes in us a perverse refusal to accept or to believe in good, a deep-seated, hardened refusal which belittles or despises good. It is within us, though we blame it on circumstances outside of us. Cynicism is not simply an absence of hope; it tramples on hope, regarding it as naïve. It is not simply without hope; it is a refusal to hope. It is wilfully destructive, like a child smashing a toy in a temper tantrum, and its end is suicide.
There is something of that death-wish in us. Vandalism is a minor example and suicide a major one.
All of those are a kind of death. It needn’t be like that; it’s not meant to be like that. Jesus said, ‘I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly’. (John 10.10) The Christian religion is a religion of hope.
God can give meaning to life, and with it a sense of direction and purpose. He can lift people out of despair. Accepting God opens the way to life.