A Word On Statistics by Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska:
"Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.Unsure of every step: almost all the rest.
Ready to help, if it doesn't take long: forty-nine.
Always good, because they cannot be otherwise: four - well, maybe five.
Able to admire without envy: eighteen.
Led to error by youth (which passes): sixty, plus or minus.
Those not to be messed with: four-and-forty.
Living in constant fear of someone or something: seventy-seven.
Capable of happiness: twenty-some-odd at most.
Harmless alone, turning savage in crowds: more than half, for sure.
Cruel when forced by circumstances: it's better not to know, not even approximately.
Wise in hindsight: not many more than wise in foresight.
Getting nothing out of life except things: thirty (though I would like to be wrong).
Balled up in pain and without a flashlight in the dark: eighty-three, sooner or later.
Those who are just: quite a few, thirty-five.
But if it takes effort to understand: three.
Worthy of empathy: ninety-nine.
Mortal: one hundred out of one hundred - a figure that has never varied yet."[1]
A word on statistics by American clergyman Richard Gilbert: Death happens. We're all temps. We are, all and each, merely guests of existence.
To dramatize that truth writer Elie Wiesel tells the Hassidic tale of a 19th century tourist from the United States who visited a famous Polish rabbi, Hafez Hayyim. He was astonished to see that the rabbi's home was only a simple room filled with books. The only furniture was a table and a bench.
"Rabbi, where is your furniture?" asked the tourist.
"Where is yours?" replied Hafez.
"Mine? But I'm only a visitor here."
"So am I," said the rabbi.[2]
Only two problems really exist, and neither one can be solved. One of them if life. And the other is death. As my colleague Forrest Church puts it, "When we die, everyone else's story goes on, but we are not there to discover how they turn out. . . . But that's the way it is. Our lives stop in the middle. They don't reach a conclusion, they simply stop. The middle of the story is where all our stories end."[3]
Not a day goes by in my life that I do not think of death - memorial services to prepare and conduct, the dying and the bereaved to counsel. Not incidentally, I think of my own demise - I can't help it. I'm not especially morbid, but apart from undertakers, doctors and nurses, and perhaps lawyers, ministers probably deal with death more than most. Death comes in so many ways - over a three week span I will have conducted memorial services for a middle-aged man who committed suicide, an older woman who lived a rich and full life, and a 21-year-old man who drowned. That can drain the spirit and wound the soul.
One might think this would lead to depression - even despair. After all, it takes something out of me when I am so constantly dealing with it. How do I explain the great variety of forms which death takes? When will my death come and how? And why bother with living, since the odds are 100% that one day I won't be?
On the one hand, it is possible to become preoccupied with one's own mortality. Mary Moody Emerson's nephew, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote of her romantic obsession with death --a typically 19th century attitude: "For years she had her bed made in the form of a coffin. She made up her shroud, and death still refusing to come, and she thinking it a pity to let it lie idle, wore it as a night-gown, or a day-gown, nay, went out to ride in it, on horseback, in her mountain roads, until it was worn out. Then she had another made up, and as she never traveled without being provided for this dear and indispensable contingency (i.e. her death), I believe she wore out a great many."[4]
On the other hand we can be in denial, so enraptured by our own existence the thought of our death is unreal. After all, when we are alive, it is extremely difficult to imagine things happening without one's being present to experience them. While this may seem a typical example of youthful exuberance, it also afflicts those of us older souls who are overwhelmed with the wonder of ourselves. We forget the words of playwright Arthur Miller: "Immortality is like trying to carve your initials in a block of ice in the middle of July."[5]
However, I take a third way. I look upon death as a great gift, because it means if I must die, then I must be alive. I have life - a great gift which is mine though I did nothing at all to deserve it. In the words of my meditation-become-hymn, "Thanks be for these, for birth and death; life in between with meaning full; holy becomes the quickened breath; we celebrate life's interval."[6]
In a way I am blessed to be thinking of death and dying so often. Why? Because that very reflection reminds me of the precious time that has been allotted to me - that I use that interval between birth (over which I had no control) and death (about which I have no choice), and use it wisely. Time waits for no one - not even me - especially not me. As some wise soul said, "God created time so everything wouldn't happen all at once." We have the opportunity to live our lives not all at once but over a brief but precious interval between two eternities.
If we lived forever, we could constantly postpone everything. However, given a finitude of time we cannot - we must do something. As we accept life we accept finiteness as part of the bargain. And so death becomes as much a part of life as birth. We are obliged to render something of meaning out of that finite piece of eternity. Length of life does not matter if we cannot create something significant out of our years. If our life is meaningless, it doesn't take on meaning by being immortalized.[7]
These past months I have been especially cognizant of death. In January I had back surgery - a lumbar laminectomy. It wasn't really major surgery as it turned out - though any time you have an operation with a total anaesthetic, it is not a trifling matter. But having undergone surgery only twice previously - a youthful tonsillectomy and repair of a torn tendon in one finger - it was not to be taken lightly.
It was really quite amazing: I was given a shot, wheeled on a gurney to the operating room where I was surrounded by several people in gowns and masks. It was, as I remember, rather chilly, because as I later learned, under the hot lights the surgeons need that coolness. Then I was out like a light, waking up in the recovery room relieved and without pain.
It wasn't as if I thought I would die, but when you give your body completely over to others, it does remind you that you are quite finite, quite dependent on the skill and caring of others. It is a very humbling experience, and while I don't recommend it as something to be sought out, it was a learning experience.
For one who has been blessed for 60 years with robust good health, it was a quiet but powerful reminder that there is a certain inevitable deterioration of the body. Death eventually happens - even to me. That knowledge of mortality adds urgency to life. My surgery, like Samuel Johnson's words about the prospect of hanging, greatly concentrated the mind.
It reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon that has special significance for me.
The Grim Reaper comes with robe, hood and scythe, saying, "Gilbert, your time has come."
Dilbert: "Gilbert?! My name is Dilbert! You have the wrong guy!"
The Grim Reaper: "Oopsl! Sorry. Mind if I just wait around until your number comes up?"
As a matter of fact, I do. I'm not quite ready yet. I have a great deal more living to do. Get out of here! Now, I'm in denial mode.
Death may seem a depressing subject, but I really don't intend it to be. In our Building Your Own Theology class last week we had an animated discussion on the meaning of suffering. As a reward for their enthusiasm I gave them another assignment for our last week together. We will explore the meaning of death. Their task, should they choose to accept it, is to create their own memorial service. How do they want to be remembered?
I told them that, while this seems a daunting task, I have worked with a number of people who knew they were dying, and knew that I knew they were dying, on their memorial services. It is sobering to speak about such matters when it is not a seminar exercise, but a real life situation. It is an awesome privilege to be with such people, and I marvel at their courage. If only they knew how much they had ministered to me.
Creating one's own memorial service reminds me of another Hassidic story of a rabbi who was being formally installed in his position. While notables and dignitaries were extolling his virtues at great length and with excessive eloquence, a strange expression came over his face.
What are you thinking of?" he was asked.
"I have the odd feeling I am attending my own funeral," he replied.[8]
I believe one of the best ways to understand Unitarian Universalism is to attend our memorial services. In them we acknowledge death as a natural part of life; recognize the uniqueness of the deceased; and remind ourselves that the cycle of living and dying goes on. Often we have an open mike and invite worshipers to speak of the one whose life we have come to celebrate. Stories, happy and sad, anecdotes revealing the best and the not quite best of the person are shared. There is laughter; there are tears; it is in every sense of the word a celebration of life. "In the presence of life we say no to death; in the presence of death we say yes to life," words with which I introduce every memorial service and announce every death in our community of life.
I think of this celebration of life in contrast to my uncle's funeral some years ago in a highly liturgical church. Though he had been a doctor for decades, had a host of friends, had died of a heart attack on safari in Kenya - there was simply no inkling of his individuality. It was a prayer-book service - lovely in its ritual language, acknowledging the great democracy of death, and I am sure comforting to people in that particular tradition.
But for me it was utterly devoid of the warmth and love which should be brought to such an occasion. I read a psalm when I would love to have spoken about him - his gentle and ironic sense of humor; his calm manner. I remember his poise when I, his eldest nephew, athlete and minister-to-be, nearly fainted when he took blood for my pre-marital blood test in the presence of my slightly embarrassed intended and my aunt. He was calm as he suggested I put my head between my knees to keep from fainting. Instead of memory pictures like this, it was "thy servant Edward" this and "thy servant Edward" that. I was spiritually hungry, and I was not fed.
In any case, my Building Your Own Theology students will, I hope, wrestle with how they wish to be remembered. It can, and probably will be, a sobering and poignant experience. It is, at its best, however, simply an exercise in values clarification. The question we'll be discussing is not really why or how we die, but how and why we live. And living is not in having life, but in giving life.
If you have attended a memorial service here you will remember the opening and closing words. "We light this chalice in memory and in hope." At the conclusion of the service we say: "We extinguish this flame but not the memory or the hope - they live on in that great mystery of things in which we live and move and have our being." Death is not defeat. Paradoxically it is the culmination of life, that which helps life take on meaning.
The words of the late Roman Catholic priest Henri Nouwen sum it up for us: "Yes, there is such a thing as a good death. We ourselves are responsible for the way we die. We have to choose between clinging to life in such a way that death becomes nothing but a failure, or letting go of life in freedom so that we can be given to others as a source of hope. This is a crucial choice, and we have to 'work' on that choice every day of our lives. Death does not have to be our final failure, our final defeat in the struggle of life, our unavoidable fate. If our deepest human desire is indeed to give ourselves to others, then we can make our death into a final gift. It is so wonderful to see how fruitful death is when it is a free gift."[9]
That was the way my ministerial colleague Joe Bartlett accepted his fate. I had known Joe, not terribly well, for a number of years - roomed with him during one conference - spent time with him at a ministerial retreat shortly before his death. One could see he was old and tired, though occasionally that spark I had observed over the years was in evidence. His dying words are memorable: "And with deep satisfaction of my work completed - no gnawing 'might have beens' or guilt that in any but forgivable ways, I've let people down. . . . Yet I feel a certain euphoria. What a launching pad into The Yonder! . . . So this is my farewell to you, to say - yes, really! All is well with me."[10] So may it be for you - and for me.
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