Death As Transformation

FRI., MAR. 26, 1993, 6:55 AM
FARM, STUDY

Two men have died. This is certainly not unusual. Every day countless men of their ages die. (I say countless because only in your technologically developed country, and ones like it, is every death registered. In many parts of this earth men die unrecorded.) You did not know these men, but you are well acquainted with a daughter of each… and each was an excellent student in Death Education classes, in different, separated years. They were about your age, so such deaths do cause you to consider your own mortality, both the threats to it and the positive health you enjoy.

Yet because your own father is still actively living it is easier to be the son who will some day have a father die than the father who dies, with middle-aged children. Teaching this course each semester means that you have to think about death rather constantly. What is your current thinking? Do you truly see death as transformation?

You have just written and soon will send out another Ruminations, this one on both/and thinking. Death is certainly a human happening that should be thought of in several ways. You are human, and you are a middle class American, so you must think of certain deaths as being premature, tragic, and undeserved. Yet in this same mode you read about deaths, hear deaths reported nightly, and see death depicted in a variety of ways as part of entertainment. Death is an inherent part of life as you see it portrayed. On film you’ve experienced the last year of John Baker’s life many times, though you realize this actually took place over 20 years ago, and you were not aware of it then.

In other films, some of your favorites, the principal characters face death in dramatic ways and survive. Is it always a positive human experience to survive a threat to your life? You wonder what Russ Oakes’ life would have been like if he had not had so many close encounters with death in war? Would your life have been different if such had been your lot? You can’t imagine it being better, but could it have been?

You also are a Christian, and one who hears Me, the Holy Spirit, speak to you of life at this time. You are not limited to interpretations of Scripture, valuable as these may be, enacted and written thousands of years ago, in quite a different culture. In the orthodox Christian view death is a time of judgment. The criteria are fairly clear, but it is not at all easy to determine how the judging is done. You all have sinned. You are forgiven if you truly believe in Me, as the Christ… the One who can take your sins away and count them as naught. What are the actual standards? Are only a few actually chosen for eternal life close to Me? Even good Christians should have some doubts about how they will fare if judgment standards are high.