Forced to Face Mortality

I came across an excellent opinion piece today, authored by an anthropology professor at Wheaton College (my alma mater). She talks about how one of the major things that this pandemic is forcing Western culture to face, is death. I was just thinking about this topic this morning, in a quiet moment of reflection, that most of what I see happening, is an overreaction meant to stave off suffering and/or death...two things which we talk very little about in our culture...neither of which we will ever be successful in preventing or eradicating this side of Jesus' return.

I think it's good to have to face death, to have to think about it and wrestle with it. Death, and thoughts about the finite-ness of our lives, has a way of reminding us to focus on what is important. If you're over the age of 15, chances are good that you have attended at least one funeral and likely many more than one. Some funerals are incredibly sad - especially the ones where people died younger, and you have this sense that they missed out on some life that was left to be lived. Also, you feel intensely for their families, who have to deal with the incredible sense of loss they will feel. Some are more joyous, when the person has lived a long life and are now free of the suffering they had to endure at the end. But whether you are attending the funeral of that younger person, or it is of the ladder kind, a funeral naturally forces you to focus, even if only for a moment, on your own eventual death and if you're an introspective type, that leads you to some self-evaluation.

I dare say we need to think about death more, perhaps much more, than we do. I think one of the big reasons that older people seem so much wiser, aside from years of experience, is that as they have gotten older, they realize they are closer to the end. That realization, I think, helps them put things in perspective. Things that used to seem like a big deal, aren't as much, because their sense of what truly matters has been reoriented. Obviously this doesn't apply to all older folks - some only get more crotchety and rough, but that doesn't seem to describe most.

I enjoyed Dr. Jeske's thoughts on how youth obsessed and how production-obsessed our culture is. I have seen myself get wrapped up in the productivity side of things. It is a very easy trap to fall into. "If some is good, more is better." -- and our culture is only too happy to encourage that type of thinking. Anyway - very good thoughts from Dr. Jeske; alot to think about and consider.