An End, a Beginning, a Transition

It probably sounds like a pretty morbid theme we've selected for this noon. I promise you it won't be. I settled on this topic really as a follow up to the reflection we did at this time last year. We spoke about assisted suicide and asked if there is any place in the makeup of a Christian stance toward life for such a thing. My point was that there is not, and the reason for that was based on what I believe to be true about death. And, not surprisingly, that is the heart of it, really. The way we experience death, either our own or that of someone dear to us, what we accept as right about death, and what we condemn as terribly wrong, all of it flows immediately from what we believe to be true about death, what we believe happens to us when we die.

I think there are three words that apply to the way people think about death — end, beginning, and transition — and depending on which word plays the stronger role in a person's understanding, the experience of death is considerably changed.

"End," that is the experience of those whose attachment to or investment in this life is especially strong. Perhaps a person who has no belief at all in an afterlife or a person who has a basic faith, but never really reflected on it, never applied that faith to their own personal life. For whatever reason, a person who believes that this life is all there is will experience death as an end, and it will be an experience of losing something. If such a person has been utterly miserable here, then perhaps that end will be welcome, like someone who is terribly depressed... but usually not. Usually those who think of death as an end will fear it, not even think about it, and dying will be a struggle. There is something in us that doesn't like to see good things come to an end. And for most people, to be alive is if not always great, at least good, certainly better than the alternative.

Another experience of death is that of a "beginning" — one life is over but a new life is starting. This is a stance taken by people with some sort of religious faith at least. This stance is more likely to contribute to a more positive experience of death especially if a person has had a full, good life, maybe even a little tired... ready to start something else... can look forward to death, not morbidly but with some real anticipation, lets get on with it, ready to try something new, better, but even here... can be a struggle, a real reluctance, fear... life is good, I'm not tired, lots more I want to do. If life here has been good leaving it can be a very fearful thing or more likely, if that new life is such a vague, thing, so unknown so new, that I really don't know what to expect, that newness can be fearful... part of the very human fear of the unknown.

The third word, "transition," comes closest to describing the Catholic understanding of death. Here faith leads a person to see death as one in a series of changes that takes place in a person's on-going process of living. A change that certainly alters the way that process of being alive feels, what it feels like to be alive but certainly doesn't end it, and doesn't even alter it all that much. And I think that is the Catholic view of death. It is a change, but after all, probably not that terribly big a change, really no bigger than lots of other changes a person goes through in the process of living.

This view of death can be summed up in an impressive sounding phrase "the unique immortality of the individual." Immortality means literally to live forever. Once a person is brought into existence by the will of God, that person is maintained in existence by the will of God... forever. God has an infinite design for human beings, an infinite future in mind. So once a person is brought into existence, that person is immortal... he will never cease to exist.

But the immortality of the person is a unique and individual one. And this is the heart of it... the person will exist, forever, as that person. It is the individual that is immortal, not some sort of vague, spirit, or soul that floats around somewhere.

And it isn't just a human being that is immortal, it is this human being, Joe Smith, who was born a unique person and will remain so forever. Whatever makes up the person that unique combination of qualities, strengths, weaknesses, that mysterious thing we call the person will exist forever. So you are you and you will be you forever. You will never be an angel, never be a rock, will always be you. And I think getting a sense of that is really the basis for all the rest.

So we've got a person born. There exists in the mind of God a design for that person, a design for the perfect Joe Smith. What God intends Joe Smith to be like. God could have created a perfect Joe Smith right from the start, but He doesn't want robots, he wants human beings who themselves take an active part in realizing that design. He wants Joe Smith to play a role in becoming the perfect Joe Smith. He wants Joe to share in that perfection by bringing to bear his own ability to make conscious, free, trusting choices.

So by God's design the process by which Joe becomes the perfect Joe is a process best understood as human growth... becoming other than he was, better than he was, by choosing to do so.

Well, growth means change, so in order for Joe to become God's notion of Joe, he will have to undergo a number of pretty major changes in his life. Actually, as to change, Joe really doesn't have any choice. Life means change, so like it or not, free trusting choice or not, Joe will change. His involvement in that process will make the difference as to whether that change is growth or not. And death is one of those changes, part of the process of becoming the perfect Joe Smith. What new perfections does that change bring into Joe's life?

Well, I don't know. I can guess, because I can get from Scripture something of a notion of what God means by a fully grown human being, but that's a fairly vague picture and certainly not one particularly of Joe.

So I don't know for sure, in any concrete detail what dying does for Joe's growth, because I just don't have that clear a picture of the mind of God. But that is precisely what makes my acceptance of death as growth a matter of trust, and trust after all is one of the perfections into which God calls us to grow. If I knew with a perfect clarity the mind of God and what specific qualities of growth to perfection that death brings to Joe then I wouldn't need trust. It would be science, not faith. But really none of that should be very surprising. It has after all been true for a long time. It has been equally true of every major change that Joe has undergone, not just death. And there are a lot of them.

The movement from childhood to adolescence, the movement through puberty, a major, even wrenching change. Changes how we experience the world, other people, ourselves, gives us a whole new experience of being physical... pretty fair bet that not even death changes us that much. Then movement into adulthood, and into old age. All of these alter the way we experience life, what it feels like to be alive, to be physical, to be spiritual, to be emotional.

I think that is a helpful way to look at it. God, after all is consistent. He doesn't change his mind much. If we want to know what He has in store for us, it helps to look at what He has already given us, already led us through. And that I think is a pretty accurate Christian view of death. Nothing is ending, and really, nothing all that radically new is beginning. Just more of Joe's life as he continues on growing toward what God intends for him to be.

Well, with all of that as a background, we can do some speculating as to what the change of death might actually feel like. What about us becomes different as a person and I remind you, at this point, we are dealing pretty much with speculation. There is very little revealed to us either in Scripture or in formal church teaching in this area. But even if not revealed there are a few hints, a few things suggested, and on the basis of that we can speculate.

To my mind part, at least of the change in us brought about by death will be a great leap forward in integrity... the ability to make clearer, stronger choices, and the ability to involve much more of ourselves in that choice than we do now... the ability to put really everything that we are, physically, intellectually, emotionally behind that choice. And that enhanced integrity, ability to choose, will be based, as it always has been, on a much clearer grasp of reality... what it is that we choose, why it is good to do so and so on. We will have a considerably sharpened insight into what we are, what we are about, what everything and everyone around us is, God, people, things and what all they are about. That much is pretty solidly scriptural. Paul says now I see like through a dark glass, then I will see face to face.

And because of that clarity of experience, choice making, or better, self-disposition, the way I orient myself towards reality, God, people, things, will become much simpler, and involve much more of myself with less effort than it currently does. That orientation will necessarily be a positive one, towards, in accord with God, people, and things. It will be so virtually automatically, almost more a reaction than an action. After death we really aren't believers in nearly as precise a sense as we are now. As I said, the more we know, the less we have to trust. And that is certainly not new with death... in some circumstances it is clearly already the case. After death I will not turn away from God in precisely the same sense that right now I will not sit on a hot stove. There really is no debate about that. I don't think, "should I shouldn't I, what are the pros and cons." The decision not to sit on a hot stove is so immediate and so irrevocable that in experience at least it is really not even a decision. I'm just not going to.

But that kind of self-disposition is something of the exception right now. For the most part we don't experience ourselves, our surroundings, God, people, things with nearly that much clarity, and our response is not marked by nearly that much integrity. Now, for the most part, we experience our lives and all that make them up in a wide variety of ways, an almost infinite range of mixtures of understanding and misunderstanding, satisfaction and frustration, harmony and disharmony, pleasure and pain. Now our experience, and so our response, is much more fragmented. It can change from day to day, hour to hour even. One minute life is this much bad, and this much good, and the next it is this much good and this much bad... and so our choices, our self-disposition is now, for the most part, just as fragmented.

If we stop to think of it, a movement away from that fragmentation has marked our major growth changes all through life. If all goes well, an adult does make better, wiser, more lasting choices than does an infant... based on better, clearer insight into reality. So it really is consistent that death be experienced as that same kind of a change, only more so. Well, if that is the nature of the change I will experience with death, the next question might be, what will it feel like, what will my actual human experience be after death.

Revelation, Sacred Scripture and Tradition, speak of three possible experiences. One will be an experience of life that is marked by perfect satisfaction and perfect harmony, inner and outer. Spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, physically... in other words across the total range of human experience. The second would be an experience of life that is one of absolute imperfection, dis-satisfaction, dis-harmony inner and outer. Spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, physically. And the third is an experience of life really which is still a process of growth towards perfection, towards satisfaction... a state in which one at the same time experiences one's perfections and one's imperfections, in a way like right now, though with much greater clarity and so greater integrity. The choice, the self-disposition will be toward perfection and away from imperfection. And that, of course is as good a way as any of talking about heaven hell and purgatory.

A Lenten Luncheon, March 18, 1998, Church of the Nativity, Fargo, North Dakota Fargo, ND.