In 2020 and 2021 I was making a habit of reading several times a week from a daily devotion called "Life of the Beloved" which was a 365 compilation of works by Henri Nouwen. My wife called it my "befriending death" book. Nouwen's works on aging as a gift and my own experience getting to walk with very close grandparents through their final days has got me thinking about and reckoning with death more. In recent conversations with cousins who are "de-churched" I was surprised to find just how much they focus on immortality. Health and fitness are obsessions, "how not to die" are books on their shelves, and they become evangelists looking to convert you to the newest Peloton craze, nutritional coach, or health guru.
What if the old "fire insurance" model at least was more honest about the inevitable reality of death? Instead now we baptize quests for the holy grail as just smart modern people. We cannot preach Christ resurrected and eternity with God without preaching Christ crucified and the call to pick up our cross and follow him - ours is a calling not of self-preservation but a calling of dying to self.
There is an article called Tuberculosis and the Optimism of Biomedicine that gives a quick synopsis of the origin of the change in our relationship to death has come from.
Thinking about death is hopeful when we see it in light of the resurrection. I had a visceral realization of the mortality of my body when I had a health scare in my mid-40s, and it hit me for the first time that this body I’m in, ME, that I would stop breathing someday and would no longer live. And it was the scariest thing I’ve ever faced. But it brought home to me the joy and hope of resurrection - that I don’t just float off to heaven when I die, but that *this* body that I am in will somehow be resurrected and transformed, and the same for all of God’s children and the whole of His creation.
I wrote about this after reading and commenting on your last post. A friend asked me in the comments section if I'd read your book, "The Slavery of Death." I said that I was halfway through it. I find that I'm having to divert my attention from "death," lest I become too absorbed in it . . . which is funny really, because if there ain't no resurrection, then we'll all soon be absorbed into death, huh?
In 2020 and 2021 I was making a habit of reading several times a week from a daily devotion called "Life of the Beloved" which was a 365 compilation of works by Henri Nouwen. My wife called it my "befriending death" book. Nouwen's works on aging as a gift and my own experience getting to walk with very close grandparents through their final days has got me thinking about and reckoning with death more. In recent conversations with cousins who are "de-churched" I was surprised to find just how much they focus on immortality. Health and fitness are obsessions, "how not to die" are books on their shelves, and they become evangelists looking to convert you to the newest Peloton craze, nutritional coach, or health guru.
What if the old "fire insurance" model at least was more honest about the inevitable reality of death? Instead now we baptize quests for the holy grail as just smart modern people. We cannot preach Christ resurrected and eternity with God without preaching Christ crucified and the call to pick up our cross and follow him - ours is a calling not of self-preservation but a calling of dying to self.
Thanks so much for this. I've not read Nouwen, though I have my mother's books. I will explore the one you mentioned.
There is an article called Tuberculosis and the Optimism of Biomedicine that gives a quick synopsis of the origin of the change in our relationship to death has come from.
https://origins.osu.edu/connecting-history/tuberculosis-and-optimism-biomedicine-covid19-coronavirus?language_content_entity=en
Thinking about death is hopeful when we see it in light of the resurrection. I had a visceral realization of the mortality of my body when I had a health scare in my mid-40s, and it hit me for the first time that this body I’m in, ME, that I would stop breathing someday and would no longer live. And it was the scariest thing I’ve ever faced. But it brought home to me the joy and hope of resurrection - that I don’t just float off to heaven when I die, but that *this* body that I am in will somehow be resurrected and transformed, and the same for all of God’s children and the whole of His creation.
I wrote about this after reading and commenting on your last post. A friend asked me in the comments section if I'd read your book, "The Slavery of Death." I said that I was halfway through it. I find that I'm having to divert my attention from "death," lest I become too absorbed in it . . . which is funny really, because if there ain't no resurrection, then we'll all soon be absorbed into death, huh?
https://themjkxn.substack.com/p/death-smiles