Humans are finite beings, and that is to our advantage. If we knew everything, experienced everything, and could do everything, our lives would be too burdensome and painful. Many experiences simply pass us by, and the ignorance of it all makes life a little blissful.
Last week, the new media broadcast news of sudden death and extraordinary grief. Scores of people killed in an Italian town in a matter of seconds, and a poor man in India walking to the crematorium with the mortal remains of his wife on his shoulder because he couldn't afford conveyance. Intense grief for some fellow humans, yet I remained unfazed. But as I was in the process of getting my car out of the garage Thursday, the sight of police vehicles having cordoned off our block caught my immediate attention. In the distance, at the heavily trafficked junction where 15th meets Carney, a body lay covered in white cloth. It took only a couple minutes for me to respond to the sight. I was melting away within, broken, tearful, and speechless. We spend a lot of money on soft beds and comfort. But here lay an hitherto unknown gentleman from my small city, on the hard surface of a heavily traversed road, exposed to the summer's heat.
Life is cruel, I thought. Nature humiliates us whenever it can overpower us. It incapacitates us, hurts us, and defeats us in death. Joshua, my son, who now stood with me in our front courtyard staring at what was happening said: "This man may have set out early in the morning hoping to get some exercise and stay fit; but least did he know that it was to be the final hour of his entire life on earth."
I let Josh know that he had beautifully summed up the extent to which we humans are vulnerable. That vulnerability has also been recorded in ancient texts: "Man is but a mere breadth of air; his days are like a passing shadow" (Psalm 144:4). "Like grass and flowers, in the morning he flourishes, but by the evening he has withered away" (Psalm 90:6).
One of the reasons I melted within was because I felt deeply for the dear man who lay alone under the scorching sun on that hard and dusty road. Everyone around him was alive and here; but he lay still and was gone. It occurred to me that this earthly life could leave us with many unanswered questions and unresolved problems. While fully alive we chase perfection, exactness, accuracy, and control. But life will be out of control sometimes; accidents will happen; sicknesses will come; sorrow, poverty, misery - these and other woes may befall us - for we are but human.
Humans may have lived for several millennia, and we may have evolved over time to overcome many challenges, but we are yet to fully come to terms with our own death. Though death is inevitable and it occurs around us always, we still do not accept it as normal. It shocks us; puts us off the rhythm and course of life we make pains to establish. It hurts us; makes us question our own existence - its meaning, value, purpose, power and future. Death is that big enemy which embarrasses us, humiliates us, defeats us, makes us afraid, makes us cry, makes us angry, disillusioned, broken, vengeful and sad. Death is the ultimate foe. Death permanently breaks our connections, our relationships, our love, our strongholds and our fortifications.
But would life be as meaningful and enjoyable if we could just keep living? Maybe not. For all our failures, our weaknesses, our wrongs, death comes as a reprieve, an escape, a solution. Our successes become even more successful because of death. Just think about it. A good parent, husband, or friend, becomes better in death. In life, however good and profitable, relationships can stagnate. They become immensely valuable in death. Life here is time bound, and a realization of that makes us live responsibly and make the most of it.
Hence even death is a good thing.
My thoughts and prayers today are with the bereaved. My respects pour out of a grieving heart for the man who may have lived in our vicinity, who suddenly left us. But in leaving, he made me think; he made me do that which I love to do most - think about life, think about the ultimate questions that relate to this life.
-- Reuben Gabriel
