End of Life

Warning (and I mean this earnestly): this article carries existential themes which I would encourage you to pause and check if you’re feeling in an okay space to contemplate before reading.

What might it be like when it finally comes around to the time you know is coming… when you know you are dying.

In my experience with people at this time, we are either looking really hard and fully at our life, or we are trying really hard not to.

It can be really poignant, or really painful, and often it’s a mix of both.

We don’t have to wait to load it all up on this time…

we have the option to take time out to ponder this potent mystery and develop and practice our skills with it now.

I’ve always been intrigued by death and the ultimate mystery lying behind it.

I heard an older man say the other day there is only one thing worse than getting old, and that’s not getting old!

We may crave the idea of springy, eternal youth when we’re feeling all kinked and creaky and bent up.

We might think twice however, if it was really offered to us.

Imagine taking that final decision to live forever?

It’s similar to the other final choice,

which is available to us,

to consciously and intentionally end our lives.

Neither, would you want to make in a rash impulsive moment!

– because they are so final and irreversible!

Limits, although limiting, are good.

They give us something finite… this to, and not forever – good and bad.

Imagine taking a sip of the finest ambrosia (divine wine) you could ever hope to experience.

The initial swelling flood, and swoon of delightful and consuming sensation –

if it went forever,

would just become, flat, tasteless and empty.

That is how we sense.

We sense because of changes, differences and contrasts... limits of things

If something stays the same, we lose contrast and it merges into the background.

Think of the last time you walked into a room with a strong distinctive smell,

or heard the constant noise of traffic and how it eventually fades.

Sensation is sensing ever shifting and changing difference…

I digress…

Back to our death, the ultimate ending of our lives.

Mary Oliver -  "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Yes, we do have to stoop and toil through the day to day mundane

helping us and our loved ones in our aliveness,

and manage the pipeline of existential doom and dread flowing in from our devices and wherever else.

And of course, there is often more –

that which carries meaning for us,

that which we will face, or will try not to face,

if we enter a period of knowing we are dying.

We can seek and cultivate meaning

and sometimes meaning just happens to us – we feel moved, touched, stirred.

I think when we look back on our lives

the deepest part of ourselves sifts through all the moments,

 looking and feeling for the meaning

 – what we saw, what we cultivated, and what by grace happened.

There is good news –

we don’t have to wait to do this in our lives

and we will probably be richer if we don’t … wait.

Warmly, Andrew