Monday, January 23, 2023
Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Living right on
It is appointed that human beings die once, and after this the judgment.
This day is more about life than death, in honor of children yet unborn. But there is excitement among the faithful for the day of death as well … because after this, the judgment.
I don’t mean to say we shouldn’t strive to live as long as we can. Up to a point, of course. That “point” might be very subjective; one of us will use every medical means possible to keep breathing here on earth, while another might choose to die what is sometimes called “naturally,” with little or no medical intervention. One of my very very favorite literary passages comes from Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry. Hannah and Nathan have been married more than fifty years. Now Nathan has cancer.
The truth came to him, and he faced it. After that he was loitering, putting us off, giving himself a chance to be captured by his death before he could be captured by the doctors and the hospitals and the treatments and the tests and the rest of it.
They saw the doctor, and came home. Nathan did his barn chores, came in and sat by the stove. He began to read the newspaper.
I was beating the hell out of a dozen egg whites in a bowl. Why I had started making a cake, I don’t know. It was what my hands had found to do, and I was doing it … My tears were falling into the bowl of beaten eggs and then my nose dripped into it. I flung the whole frothy mess into the sink.
Will Nathan settle for medical treatment of his cancer, or settle into a “natural” death?
“Well, what are you planning to do? Just die? Or what?” I couldn’t turn around. I heard him fold the paper.
After a minute he said, “Dear Hannah, I’m going to live right on. Dying is none of my business. Dying will have to take care of itself.”
The next day after breakfast the couple talked some more. Nathan explained himself.
“I have had a good life. I have liked it and am thankful for it. I don’t want to end up as a carcass for a bunch of carrion crows, each one taking his piece …” He didn’t want to be going someplace all the time for the sake of a hopeless hope. He wanted to die as himself out of his own life. He didn’t want his death to be the end of a technological process.
Later, Hannah told the doctor, “He doesn’t want to die of a cure.”
Over the next few months, as Nathan lived right on, he did fewer chores and gradually stopped getting out of bed. He took pain medicine only at night.
“Death had become his friend … and when the time came to go, he went.”
I imagine the way you live is also the way you die. As much as hard-working humility and honest generosity mark my life, so they will mark my death. And although I’m in no hurry to die, I cannot say I will not welcome it.
But for now, as David prayed:
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord (Psalm 27).
Hannah learned from her husband’s death. She found a way to express some of what she learned:
I want to leave here open-handed, with only the ancient blessing, “Goodbye. My love to you all.”
Sometimes Hannah sees Nathan walking toward her through the morning mist, or the darkening at dusk.
He looks at me with a look I know. The shiver of the altogether given passes over me from head to foot.
(Hebrews 9, Psalm 98, 2 Timothy 1, Mark 3)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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