Man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upward.--Eliphaz (to Job) ca A Long Time Ago
Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die. The wind blows, and we are gone—as though we had never been here. -- King David ca 1000BC
Life is suffering.--Siddhartha Guatama, the Buddha ca 530BC
But learn that to die is a debt we must all pay. --Euripides ca 430 BC
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Death By Small Doses
To follow yesterday's post of Ode To Life by Pablo Neruda, here is another poem by the same name. I've been told that it is also Neruda, but after scouring a dozen of his books I can find no trace of it. I don't know if it is his or not. Internet sites credit it to Neruda, but where is the paper version of it?
Regardless of who wrote it, it is an intriguing poem. The two are very different in many ways, but both sound clear and ringing warnings, and each are woven throughout with hope and possiblility.
Ode To Life
Slowly dies he who becomes a slave to habit,
repeating the same journey every day,
he who doesn’t change his march, he who doesn’t risk
Regardless of who wrote it, it is an intriguing poem. The two are very different in many ways, but both sound clear and ringing warnings, and each are woven throughout with hope and possiblility.
Ode To Life
Slowly dies he who becomes a slave to habit,
repeating the same journey every day,
he who doesn’t change his march, he who doesn’t risk
Thursday, December 8, 2011
His Mistaken Solitude
Today I walked around mulling over this question of life: What is it? Why do I sometimes feel very much alive and sometimes I feel hardly alive? Do the dead still feel, to themselves, as if they lived? And as I mused I noticed a bumper sticker that read simply: "Smile. You're Alive!" And so I smiled. Because I'm alive. And I can.
Then I came home and looked up the following poem by Pablo Neruda. While this is called Ode To Life, Neruda also wrote another poem that is much more well known and has the same title. I'll post it tomorrow.
Ode to life
The entire night
armed with a hatchet,
has broken me with grief,
but sleep
Then I came home and looked up the following poem by Pablo Neruda. While this is called Ode To Life, Neruda also wrote another poem that is much more well known and has the same title. I'll post it tomorrow.
Ode to life
The entire night
armed with a hatchet,
has broken me with grief,
but sleep
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Your Book, Just As You Laid It Down
Interim
The room is full of you! -- As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick! --
Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed
Each other room's dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers, --
The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death --
Has strangled that habitual breath of home
The room is full of you! -- As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick! --
Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed
Each other room's dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers, --
The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death --
Has strangled that habitual breath of home
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Oh Death, Set The Dying Free!
Written by Christina Rossetti on the fourth (or fifth?) anniversary of the death of her dear friend (and old beau) Charles Bagot Cayley.
Bury Hope (originally untitled, title added by later editors)
Bury Hope out of sight,
No book for it and no bell;
It never could bear the light
Even while growing and well:
Think if now it could bear
The light on its face of care
And gray scattered hair.
Bury Hope (originally untitled, title added by later editors)
Bury Hope out of sight,
No book for it and no bell;
It never could bear the light
Even while growing and well:
Think if now it could bear
The light on its face of care
And gray scattered hair.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Old Aunt Mary's
James Whitcomb Riley would have been my neighbor, almost. Just a few short miles between our homes. A few short miles and about a hundred years. But, had our times coincided, we might have met. And he would have been glad to meet me! He was just that kind of person, the kind of person who when he meets you he really meets you. When he sees you, he really sees you. When you talk, he actually listens. He was a truly unusual person in this regard.
He has few if any rivals to the title of America's humblest poet. Nearly as popular in America as Mark Twain for their humorous lectures, in personality and biography the two could hardly be more different. The one arrogant and self promoting, the other intentionally introspective and self effacing. The one ostentatious to the point that he bankrupted his own millions, the other frugal and generous and simple in his habits.
Don't get me wrong, I love Mark Twain also, but for a neighbor or a friend I'd always choose James Whitcomb Riley!
OUT TO OLD AUNT MARY'S
Wasn't it pleasant. O brother mine,
In those old days of the lost sunshine
He has few if any rivals to the title of America's humblest poet. Nearly as popular in America as Mark Twain for their humorous lectures, in personality and biography the two could hardly be more different. The one arrogant and self promoting, the other intentionally introspective and self effacing. The one ostentatious to the point that he bankrupted his own millions, the other frugal and generous and simple in his habits.
Don't get me wrong, I love Mark Twain also, but for a neighbor or a friend I'd always choose James Whitcomb Riley!
OUT TO OLD AUNT MARY'S
Wasn't it pleasant. O brother mine,
In those old days of the lost sunshine
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Like A Rhythmic Fate Sublime
In the final stanza of the prologue to the Rhyme of the Dutchess May, Elizabeth Barrett Browning explains exactly what she is doing with the rhymic interlude in the midst of each stanza. This is a longish poem, and the short line, "Toll slowly," disrupts the otherwise standard rhythm of all 112 verses.
The scene is that she is reading a very sad tale, a tale of death, in a churchyard, while the church bell continuously tolls for a funeral. As Browning explains in the prologue, "The solemn knell fell in with the tale of life and sin, like a rhythmic fate sublime."
The scene is that she is reading a very sad tale, a tale of death, in a churchyard, while the church bell continuously tolls for a funeral. As Browning explains in the prologue, "The solemn knell fell in with the tale of life and sin, like a rhythmic fate sublime."
Thursday, May 14, 2009
On Some Fond Breast The Parting Soul Relies
Despite its name, the following was not written in a country churchyard, but was painstakingly written and re-written over the course of at least six years, maybe as long as nine years. (Why is it that poets like to create the illusion that poems spring fully formed from their pens?) Just for fun I've added in a stanza that was in the poem for awhile, but that Gray ultimately eliminated before publication. Those of you who already know the poem, can you spot the one that didn't make it past his final re-write?
Ellegy Written in a Country Churchyard
by Thomas Gray
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea
Ellegy Written in a Country Churchyard
by Thomas Gray
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Let Love Clasp Grief
Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote a long poem, or perhaps a series of poems, to mourn the loss of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam. Although Hallam died less than four years after they had met, both the length of In Memoriam and the depth of loss expressed in it show how close their friendship had grown in that short time. And Tennyson did not mourn for himself alone, for Hallam had been engaged to Emilia, Tennyson's sister, a union for which Tennyson longed.
Most poeple are familiar with the prologue to In Memoriam. It includes the famous stanza:
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Most poeple are familiar with the prologue to In Memoriam. It includes the famous stanza:
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Lads That Will Never Be Old
If one were to make a list of the greatest works of literature in the history of the world, what would we find on that list? Certainly The Iliad and The Odyssey would be there. So would The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment would have to be included. Others might be Job and Isaiah and Lamentations from the Bible. I would include Moby Dick and Great Expectations although some others would not. The collected works of Basho, the wandering Haiku master had better make the list. Shakespeare would be there multiple times, with Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and MacBeth. Paradise Lost, certainly! There are many others, our list could go on and on. These are works that everyone should read, not out of duty, but for the joy and beauty they make available to us.
But how many of these have the average person read? These (and others that would be on such a list) are among the greatest literary works ever written, yet they are read so much more rarely than lesser works such as Stephen King novels, or John Grisham. One reason is that they seem forbidding. The size alone of many of them can be overwhelming. Until one gets some way into them one can be afraid that it will be work to finish. And then there is the fear of archaic words and of feeling dumb if we don't understand absolutely everything. We sometimes fear that a "great work" or a "classic" will be over our heads. Of course, nobody who has read them retains this fear. We all discover that the very reason they have become classics is that they are able to speak to us, normal people, in ways more powerful than lesser works can.
But there is another book that would make my list that fits none of these objections: A Shropshire Lad, by A. E. Housman. It is a very small book, less than 100 pages, with plenty of white space even then. Very few of its words will be difficult to anyone. "Mind" is used for "remember." A "jonquil" is a daffodil. But none of them require looking up because the context supplies what we need.
Housman is a poet. I say this because he is not a philosopher or a theologian. He is disoriented by death, and by love. He can't quite make them meet. He can't quite make them make sense in the same universe. He is puzzled by young men in their graves just at the time when they should be flirting with young women. But he is not a philosopher; if he were he would not be able to resist attempting to "explain" the meaning of death. He would try to make sense of love and death. A theologian would start with a doctrine of sin . . .
But the wisdom of Housman is that he instead spends his time being perplexed by death. It somehow doesn't fit. Seeing a young man from his country town going off to war, he puts the phrase, "Come you home a hero, or don't come home at all," into the mouths of the townspeople. He honors brave soldiers, but seems to somewhat envy the heroic slain. Yet in the same breath he seems to be asking what the rural English folk have to do with Egypt or Turkey that their young men are sent there to die. How incongruous it all is.
When the young men from outlying areas come into town for the county fair, his mind is again perplexed: "The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there, and there with the rest are the lads that will never be old." "I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell . . ."
While in the abstract a theologian can help us to better understand death, in particular instances of death (such as a parent, a child, a friend) understanding can prove a poor comfort. Even theology has its limits. With or without understanding, with or without faith, sadness remains, and fear and perplexity. And while I contemplate my own death, though there is little fear, there is still a strong sense that it doesn't quite make sense.
That is what Housman captures.
XVII
Twice a week the winter thorough
Here stood I to keep the goal:
Football then was fighting sorrow
For the young man's soul.
Now in Maytime to the wicket
Out I march with bat and pad:
See the son of grief at cricket
Trying to be glad.
Try I will; no harm in trying:
Wonder 'tis how little mirth
Keeps the bones of man from lying
On the bed of earth.
LIV
With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I've had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.
By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.
1887
From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
The shires have seen it plain,
From north and south the sign returns
And beacons burn again.
Look left, look right, the hills are bright,
The dales are light between,
Because 'tis fifty years to-night
That God has saved the Queen.
Now, when the flame they watch not towers
About the soil they trod,
Lads, we'll remember friends of ours
Who shared the work with God.
To skies that knit their heartstrings right,
To fields that bred them brave,
The saviours come not home to-night:
Themselves they could not save.
It dawns in Asia, tombstones show
And Shropshire names are read;
And the Nile spills his overflow
Beside the Severn's dead.
We pledge in peace by farm and town
The Queen they served in war,
And fire the beacons up and down
The land they perished for.
'God save the Queen' we living sing,
From height to height 'tis heard;
And with the rest your voices ring,
Lads of the Fifty-third.
Oh, God will save her, fear you not:
Be you the men you've been,
Get you the sons your fathers got,
And God will save the Queen.
Tomorrow I will post a couple more from this book that deal with his parallel theme of the briefness of love. Then the next day I will post a wonderful counter-argument from Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
But how many of these have the average person read? These (and others that would be on such a list) are among the greatest literary works ever written, yet they are read so much more rarely than lesser works such as Stephen King novels, or John Grisham. One reason is that they seem forbidding. The size alone of many of them can be overwhelming. Until one gets some way into them one can be afraid that it will be work to finish. And then there is the fear of archaic words and of feeling dumb if we don't understand absolutely everything. We sometimes fear that a "great work" or a "classic" will be over our heads. Of course, nobody who has read them retains this fear. We all discover that the very reason they have become classics is that they are able to speak to us, normal people, in ways more powerful than lesser works can.
But there is another book that would make my list that fits none of these objections: A Shropshire Lad, by A. E. Housman. It is a very small book, less than 100 pages, with plenty of white space even then. Very few of its words will be difficult to anyone. "Mind" is used for "remember." A "jonquil" is a daffodil. But none of them require looking up because the context supplies what we need.
Housman is a poet. I say this because he is not a philosopher or a theologian. He is disoriented by death, and by love. He can't quite make them meet. He can't quite make them make sense in the same universe. He is puzzled by young men in their graves just at the time when they should be flirting with young women. But he is not a philosopher; if he were he would not be able to resist attempting to "explain" the meaning of death. He would try to make sense of love and death. A theologian would start with a doctrine of sin . . .
But the wisdom of Housman is that he instead spends his time being perplexed by death. It somehow doesn't fit. Seeing a young man from his country town going off to war, he puts the phrase, "Come you home a hero, or don't come home at all," into the mouths of the townspeople. He honors brave soldiers, but seems to somewhat envy the heroic slain. Yet in the same breath he seems to be asking what the rural English folk have to do with Egypt or Turkey that their young men are sent there to die. How incongruous it all is.
When the young men from outlying areas come into town for the county fair, his mind is again perplexed: "The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there, and there with the rest are the lads that will never be old." "I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell . . ."
While in the abstract a theologian can help us to better understand death, in particular instances of death (such as a parent, a child, a friend) understanding can prove a poor comfort. Even theology has its limits. With or without understanding, with or without faith, sadness remains, and fear and perplexity. And while I contemplate my own death, though there is little fear, there is still a strong sense that it doesn't quite make sense.
That is what Housman captures.
XVII
Twice a week the winter thorough
Here stood I to keep the goal:
Football then was fighting sorrow
For the young man's soul.
Now in Maytime to the wicket
Out I march with bat and pad:
See the son of grief at cricket
Trying to be glad.
Try I will; no harm in trying:
Wonder 'tis how little mirth
Keeps the bones of man from lying
On the bed of earth.
LIV
With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I've had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.
By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.
1887
From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
The shires have seen it plain,
From north and south the sign returns
And beacons burn again.
Look left, look right, the hills are bright,
The dales are light between,
Because 'tis fifty years to-night
That God has saved the Queen.
Now, when the flame they watch not towers
About the soil they trod,
Lads, we'll remember friends of ours
Who shared the work with God.
To skies that knit their heartstrings right,
To fields that bred them brave,
The saviours come not home to-night:
Themselves they could not save.
It dawns in Asia, tombstones show
And Shropshire names are read;
And the Nile spills his overflow
Beside the Severn's dead.
We pledge in peace by farm and town
The Queen they served in war,
And fire the beacons up and down
The land they perished for.
'God save the Queen' we living sing,
From height to height 'tis heard;
And with the rest your voices ring,
Lads of the Fifty-third.
Oh, God will save her, fear you not:
Be you the men you've been,
Get you the sons your fathers got,
And God will save the Queen.
Tomorrow I will post a couple more from this book that deal with his parallel theme of the briefness of love. Then the next day I will post a wonderful counter-argument from Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
A Hope Deferred
After her death, Christina Rossetti's brother wrote an introduction for a collected volume of her works. In it he made a statement that has been often quoted, and that I think is entirely wrong. He said that her poetry is often morbid. This, together with his assessment that she was Roman Catholic at heart, has led me to think that while he knew his sister, he had little understanding of her faith.
He is quite right that her poems deal extensively with the subject of death, and they continue in this vein for around five decades. Not that death is her only, or even her main topic, but it does pop up more often in her works than in most writers of her time period.
But consider her life and faith. As a child she became very ill and was periodically confined to bed for months at a time. From this illness neither she nor her doctors expected her to recover. Religious before her illness, it was during her illness that the future hope of life in Christ became absolutely focal in her mind. While her body largely recovered (although she remained weak and somewhat sickly for the next fifty years) she herself was unwilling to give up the comfort that she had found in keeping the future life always before her. To a large extent she felt that recovery had robbed her of the goal that she had almost reached; it had shut the door (temporarily) on her foot that had been eagerly stepping into eternity.
Was she imperfectly satisfied with life here and now? Yes, absolutely. But it was not a morbid desire for death, a desire to "end it all" as people dramatically say. It was much more a longing for what she saw as the true beginning of life. And for her the door to that real life, life with Jesus in a world of no more illness or pain, the door to that was death here. So, yes, she longed fervently for her own death. That sounds morbid, but when understood in the context of her life, her faith and her poetry I think it is actually very far removed from morbidity.
She lived constantly in the hope of finally gaining what for now was to her a hope deferred.
Now I confess that I have some problems with a life so utterly focussed on the future that the present loses its own peculiar glory. And this does indeed appear to have been the case with Rossetti, at least intermittently.
However, I think most of us do much worse than to have the radiance of heaven outshining our desires here and now.
And her future focus did not hold her back from working here and now, for she devoted herself to helping prostitutes regain their lives. She wrote prolifically in more different styles than any other writer of her time, including even a commentary on the book of Revelation (is that the first by a woman?). And despite being rather bashful she was very social and was at the center of a very large body of friends. So her life was not simply a waiting to die. She eagerly anticipated the inauguration to life that lay through her own death. Meanwhile, she lived.
LAY UP FOR YOURSELVES TREASURES IN HEAVEN
Treasure plies a feather,
Pleasure spreadeth wings,
Taking flight together,-
Ah! my cherished things.
Fly away, poor pleasure,
That art so brief a thing:
Fly away, poor treasure,
That hast so swift a wing.
Pleasure, to be pleasure,
Must come without a wing:
Treasure, to be treasure,
Must be a stable thing.
Treasure without feather,
Pleasure without wings,
Elsewhere dwell together
And are heavenly things.
WHO WOULD WISH. . .
Who would wish back the saints upon our rough
Wearisome road?
Wish back a breathless soul
Just at the goal?
My soul, praise God
For all dear souls which have enough.
I would not fetch one back to hope with me
A hope deferred,
To taste a cup that slips
From thirsting lips:-
Hath he not heard
And seen what was to hear and see?
How could I stand to answer the rebuke
If one should say:
"O friend of little faith,
Good was my death,
And good my day
Of rest, and good the sleep I took"?
AFTER COMMUNION
Why should I call Thee Lord, Who art my God?
Why should I call Thee Friend, Who art my Love?
Or King, Who art my very Spouse above?
Or call Thy Sceptre on my heart Thy rod?
Lo, now Thy banner over me is love,
All heaven flies open to me at Thy nod:
For Thou hast lit Thy flame in me a clod,
Made me a nest for dwelling of Thy Dove.
What wilt Thou call me in our home above,
Who now hast called me friend? how will it be
When Thou for good wine settest forth the best?
Now Thou dost bid me come and sup with Thee,
Now Thou dost make me lean upon Thy breast:
How will it be with me in time of love?
He is quite right that her poems deal extensively with the subject of death, and they continue in this vein for around five decades. Not that death is her only, or even her main topic, but it does pop up more often in her works than in most writers of her time period.
But consider her life and faith. As a child she became very ill and was periodically confined to bed for months at a time. From this illness neither she nor her doctors expected her to recover. Religious before her illness, it was during her illness that the future hope of life in Christ became absolutely focal in her mind. While her body largely recovered (although she remained weak and somewhat sickly for the next fifty years) she herself was unwilling to give up the comfort that she had found in keeping the future life always before her. To a large extent she felt that recovery had robbed her of the goal that she had almost reached; it had shut the door (temporarily) on her foot that had been eagerly stepping into eternity.
Was she imperfectly satisfied with life here and now? Yes, absolutely. But it was not a morbid desire for death, a desire to "end it all" as people dramatically say. It was much more a longing for what she saw as the true beginning of life. And for her the door to that real life, life with Jesus in a world of no more illness or pain, the door to that was death here. So, yes, she longed fervently for her own death. That sounds morbid, but when understood in the context of her life, her faith and her poetry I think it is actually very far removed from morbidity.
She lived constantly in the hope of finally gaining what for now was to her a hope deferred.
Now I confess that I have some problems with a life so utterly focussed on the future that the present loses its own peculiar glory. And this does indeed appear to have been the case with Rossetti, at least intermittently.
However, I think most of us do much worse than to have the radiance of heaven outshining our desires here and now.
And her future focus did not hold her back from working here and now, for she devoted herself to helping prostitutes regain their lives. She wrote prolifically in more different styles than any other writer of her time, including even a commentary on the book of Revelation (is that the first by a woman?). And despite being rather bashful she was very social and was at the center of a very large body of friends. So her life was not simply a waiting to die. She eagerly anticipated the inauguration to life that lay through her own death. Meanwhile, she lived.
LAY UP FOR YOURSELVES TREASURES IN HEAVEN
Treasure plies a feather,
Pleasure spreadeth wings,
Taking flight together,-
Ah! my cherished things.
Fly away, poor pleasure,
That art so brief a thing:
Fly away, poor treasure,
That hast so swift a wing.
Pleasure, to be pleasure,
Must come without a wing:
Treasure, to be treasure,
Must be a stable thing.
Treasure without feather,
Pleasure without wings,
Elsewhere dwell together
And are heavenly things.
WHO WOULD WISH. . .
Who would wish back the saints upon our rough
Wearisome road?
Wish back a breathless soul
Just at the goal?
My soul, praise God
For all dear souls which have enough.
I would not fetch one back to hope with me
A hope deferred,
To taste a cup that slips
From thirsting lips:-
Hath he not heard
And seen what was to hear and see?
How could I stand to answer the rebuke
If one should say:
"O friend of little faith,
Good was my death,
And good my day
Of rest, and good the sleep I took"?
AFTER COMMUNION
Why should I call Thee Lord, Who art my God?
Why should I call Thee Friend, Who art my Love?
Or King, Who art my very Spouse above?
Or call Thy Sceptre on my heart Thy rod?
Lo, now Thy banner over me is love,
All heaven flies open to me at Thy nod:
For Thou hast lit Thy flame in me a clod,
Made me a nest for dwelling of Thy Dove.
What wilt Thou call me in our home above,
Who now hast called me friend? how will it be
When Thou for good wine settest forth the best?
Now Thou dost bid me come and sup with Thee,
Now Thou dost make me lean upon Thy breast:
How will it be with me in time of love?
Friday, July 25, 2008
Life and Death
Often I think the presentation of the Gospel gives the impression that on the Cross Jesus purchased for us future life in Heaven. Life after death. And this is of course true. But it is not even close to all that he bought on Calvary.
More and more I am impressed with the need to accentuate the life that he brings us into here and now also.
In focussing primarily on the future aspect we seem to have abandoned the sense of reality for the life in which we now find ourselves. If I am content to know that I will be saved on that final day, and this verdict is sure, then it is hard to fathom the purpose of leaving me here on earth for the next twenty, thirty, fifty years. Often, to see Christians live and to hear them talk, I think that they are just living humdrum lives waiting to die and be ushered into "real" life.
There are very many factors that may contribute to this attitude. I won't analyze them all here, but merely mention a couple. One is perhaps the emphasis in some circles on the fact that God accomplished all the work of salvation. And he has given it all to us as a free gift. While this is true, in its extreme form it can lead to a distrust of claiming any work as our own. And claiming that we need to live the Christian life could be construed as a work. Also an over emphasis on what is sometimes called "eternal security" can lead one to wonder why one should bother because the outcome is the same whether one matures as a believer or not.
But Jesus did not simply purchase for us a Get-Out-of-Hell-Free card. His life will not be imparted to us after death if it was not imparted to us before our death.
No, there is nothing I ever did our could have done that would have gained for me the life that Jesus bought for me on the Cross. It was all a free gift, given to me for no reason that I can discern other than the love of God working through his Son. In absolutely no way did I manage to earn his love; in no way did I manage to acquire the benefits of Jesus blood. He did it. All of it.
But, and this is a very big "but," what the Father sent his Son to Calvary to do, what Jesus sent his Spirit to seal me into, is LIFE. And because I have been given life, I must LIVE.
It has been said that life begins at fifty. I don't know, I'm not there yet. But if a child is born, not breathing, temperature falling, no pulse, etc., the family mourns the loss of their child. They do not put it in storage waiting for that magic moment, on it's fiftieth birthday, for the child to suddenly spring to life with grey hair and a bum knee from an old football injury.
Likewise, when we see conversions, or when we ourselves are converted, we should expect to see and experience life. We may not be able to adequately describe all of the signs of life, nor can we say that they will all be always discernable in each living member of Christ's body. Neither are they all and always discernable in our human bodies. All living humans breath, but when I hold my breath that does not mean that I am dead. Living humans feel warm to the touch. But not when they are climbing out of the ice after one of those crazy "polar bear swims." Nevertheless, any mature living human can distinguish another living human from a corpse. Just so in the community of believers there are signs of life.
This is not at all a call for us to "weed out" the "false brothers" from among us. Rather it is a very simple reminder that we were not brought from death to life so that we might sit in some Limbo until our bodies die so that our spirits can then float off into real life. Rather we were given life so that we would live it.
For some this earthly life is the beginning of eternal life, while for others it is the beginning of eternal death. If eternal life does not begin here it will not begin. Rather at the ends of our lives we will find that we move from life to life, or from death to death. "For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him."
More and more I am impressed with the need to accentuate the life that he brings us into here and now also.
In focussing primarily on the future aspect we seem to have abandoned the sense of reality for the life in which we now find ourselves. If I am content to know that I will be saved on that final day, and this verdict is sure, then it is hard to fathom the purpose of leaving me here on earth for the next twenty, thirty, fifty years. Often, to see Christians live and to hear them talk, I think that they are just living humdrum lives waiting to die and be ushered into "real" life.
There are very many factors that may contribute to this attitude. I won't analyze them all here, but merely mention a couple. One is perhaps the emphasis in some circles on the fact that God accomplished all the work of salvation. And he has given it all to us as a free gift. While this is true, in its extreme form it can lead to a distrust of claiming any work as our own. And claiming that we need to live the Christian life could be construed as a work. Also an over emphasis on what is sometimes called "eternal security" can lead one to wonder why one should bother because the outcome is the same whether one matures as a believer or not.
But Jesus did not simply purchase for us a Get-Out-of-Hell-Free card. His life will not be imparted to us after death if it was not imparted to us before our death.
No, there is nothing I ever did our could have done that would have gained for me the life that Jesus bought for me on the Cross. It was all a free gift, given to me for no reason that I can discern other than the love of God working through his Son. In absolutely no way did I manage to earn his love; in no way did I manage to acquire the benefits of Jesus blood. He did it. All of it.
But, and this is a very big "but," what the Father sent his Son to Calvary to do, what Jesus sent his Spirit to seal me into, is LIFE. And because I have been given life, I must LIVE.
It has been said that life begins at fifty. I don't know, I'm not there yet. But if a child is born, not breathing, temperature falling, no pulse, etc., the family mourns the loss of their child. They do not put it in storage waiting for that magic moment, on it's fiftieth birthday, for the child to suddenly spring to life with grey hair and a bum knee from an old football injury.
Likewise, when we see conversions, or when we ourselves are converted, we should expect to see and experience life. We may not be able to adequately describe all of the signs of life, nor can we say that they will all be always discernable in each living member of Christ's body. Neither are they all and always discernable in our human bodies. All living humans breath, but when I hold my breath that does not mean that I am dead. Living humans feel warm to the touch. But not when they are climbing out of the ice after one of those crazy "polar bear swims." Nevertheless, any mature living human can distinguish another living human from a corpse. Just so in the community of believers there are signs of life.
This is not at all a call for us to "weed out" the "false brothers" from among us. Rather it is a very simple reminder that we were not brought from death to life so that we might sit in some Limbo until our bodies die so that our spirits can then float off into real life. Rather we were given life so that we would live it.
For some this earthly life is the beginning of eternal life, while for others it is the beginning of eternal death. If eternal life does not begin here it will not begin. Rather at the ends of our lives we will find that we move from life to life, or from death to death. "For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him."
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