CHAPTER 1
THE REALITY OF DEATH
Death, for Christians, is understood not merely as an event that we must undergoat the end of life but also as an ever-present accompaniment to the story of ourlives. It is an integral part of life, a mystery to be contemplated as we live.Here we consider the awesome force of death, exploring the import of therealization that we will die for all of us, but especially for those within theAnglican tradition. We then turn to consider the significance of death as aspecific event in our lives. For Christians, the actual experience of death isreal, but not ultimate; it does not speak the last word about our humancondition. This exploration of the significance of death is not merely aphilosophical bypath or theological nicety but is forced upon us by the oftendifficult decisions—medical, ethical, personal, and spiritual—that we must makewhen death appears on the horizon. Therefore, the task force reflects here uponhow the Anglican perspective on the meaning of death can illuminate the concernsand realities that we face today near the end of life.
DEATH AS A PART OF LIFE
Throughout our lives, especially as we grow older, we are aware that someday wewill die. This awareness is not often conscious but lies just beneath thesurface, ready to emerge again and again. Many things can call it to mind. Thedeath of someone whom we know well and love reminds us that we, too, must die.The death of a person our own age makes us pause, abruptly bringing our ownmortality into focus. News headlines of a massacre, a plane crash, an epidemic,or an accident bring our awareness of the inevitability of our own death rushingto the fore. Even the change of the seasons reminds us that our lives, like alllife around us, are caught up in a cycle of birth, growth, decline, and death.Aging makes the reality of upcoming death even more vivid to us as time becomesetched in the lines on our skin. We feel our mortality in our bones and in ourdiscernibly diminishing capacities.
Thus, the awareness that someday we will die accompanies us throughout ourlives, waiting to step out of the shadows of our absorption in the activities ofdaily life. And, in the Christian understanding of death, this is not a badthing. We are taught by these recurring reminders of death to "number our days,"that is, to contemplate that our lives have a limit. We have but one life tolive and one life to offer. We can resist this awareness or we can consent toit. For Christians, the awareness of death can be a spiritual discipline, a partof the schooling that teaches us to mature in our faith. Indeed, within theAnglican tradition, a consciousness of the fact that we will die someday is anecessary accompaniment to faithful living.
Yet we receive little support from contemporary society for our Christianendeavor to face death in life. Our culture conspires against acknowledging itsinevitability. Death in our secular society typically provokes fear and denial,rather than contemplation and reflection. And so our society deals with death byevasions and lies. Advertisements abound for products promising to hide orremove the signs of aging. Older persons who are approaching death are concealedbehind the walls of institutions whose corridors we grace as little as commondecency allows. The words "died" and "death" do not pass our lips; we speakinstead of someone "passing away" or of "losing" those we love. We flee fromacknowledging the reality of death.
Even as our culture conceals death in a heavy cloak of silence, it is obsessedwith death. This is because it recognizes it as a power that is out of ourcontrol, one for which we have no effective response. To keep death at bay, wetreat it as if it is only a fantasy played out in wars in distant lands or afictional focus of entertainment for us in "gun em down" movies, killer videogames, and horror houses at Halloween. Death is, for us, an unmentionablesubject and yet a source of endless fascination. Our denial of its reality inmodern Western culture is, paradoxically, heightened by our refusal to let go ofit. Thus, death retains its terrible importance and meaning for us even as wepretend to ignore it.
Commentators have described our culture as "death-denying." Death and dying,this culture teaches, are unspoken terrors that will make their appearance atsome far-off time. Therefore, we need not think about them today. It has becomemore difficult to acknowledge explicitly the reality of death in our societybecause we press it into a medical model, reducing it to a merely biologicalproblem. Our culture has "assigned" such biological problems to medical expertswhose training has taught them to see decline and death as signs ofmalfunctioning, and finally nonfunctioning, organ systems. Thus, death becomesan untoward biological accident that medicine, with its technological prowess,must attempt to avert. In such ways, our society brackets our awareness of deathas an essential part of the story of our lives and makes it increasinglydifficult for us to have a "death of our own."
True, there has been a relatively recent movement in Western societies urging anincreased awareness of death. A drive toward consumer awareness is one piece ofthis movement. This drive is designed to help us protect ourselves fromexploitation at a particularly vulnerable moment in our lives—the time when wepurchase professional services related to dying and death. Such consumerprotection requires us to acknowledge at some level, no matter how far removed,that we will die. Another piece of this contemporary death awareness movement isfound in alternative, or holistic, medicine, a growing field that appears inpart to be a reaction to the dominant medical model of illness, dying, anddeath. The holistic approach, which views the person as a whole being of mind,body, and spirit, counters our cultural tendency to perceive those who are sickmerely as malfunctioning organisms. In so doing, it opens the door to therecognition that, as whole human beings, we are mortal.
The patients' rights movement of recent years provides yet another facet of thisthrust toward death awareness, as it calls for respect for patient autonomy andchoice in healthcare decisions, especially for those near the end of life. Tohave the responsibility of making difficult choices about our own treatment isto be forced to face the reality that some therapeutic options will beineffective and end in death. Still another factor creating greaterconsciousness of death today is the growth of novel psychological programs thatpaint dying and death as opportunities for creative self-expression. They directtheir clients' energy toward such projects as planning their own pre-deathfunerals, celebrated while they are still alive, or creating unique forms ofceremonial body disposal on land, sea, and air. Clearly, in order to makearrangements to "die with style," we must face the fact that we are dying.
Although this death awareness movement opens us to the reality of death anddying in some of its manifestations, it fails to capture the dread and loss thatdeath conveys for most people in our society. The medicalization of deathoverlooks that death is not a mere biological accident. It is an event thatovertakes us while we are living, creating in us mixed reactions of fear, love,dread, hope, and flight, long before the event itself arrives. The contemporarydrives for consumer awareness and patients' rights, with their focus onprotecting and empowering patients in the here and now, seem to disregard thisawesome and often terrifying power of our awareness of death. Moreover, a dangerof contemporary programs that seek out creative ways of dealing with dying isthat they add yet another burden for us to bear. For if our lives are not rightin the first place, dying "in character" and "with style" will not be anurturing act that heightens our awareness of death but a fruitless effort toconform to a frivolous standard that conceals the full reality of death.
In the passive acquiescence of our society to the concealment of death, not onlydeath is being denied. Life also is being denied. We deny that death is anindissoluble part of our lives. We deny the meaning of human life and of humandignity, framed as they are by the reality that, as mortal beings, we can chooseto live bravely and faithfully in the face of death. Finally, we deny that weare bound to one another in community by our common mortality and vulnerability.As a result, there is a profound disequilibrium in the way that our societyapproaches death that, in turn, creates a deep imbalance in the way that itapproaches life.
As Christians, we find that an awareness of the certainty of death is uniquelyimportant throughout our lives, an integral part of faithful living. The Biblespeaks of death utterly factually, forcing us to recognize our mortality. Thereality of death is an unavoidable focus of Christianity, whose Savior, standingat the center of Christian faith and trust, suffered death. The Christianconviction of resurrection underscores the call to accept the inevitability ofdeath, even while affirming that it is not the final word about human life. TheBook of Common Prayer of the Anglican Communion offers a rich liturgicaltradition that sets death within the framework of God's creating, reconciling,and redeeming work. On Ash Wednesday, we engage in preparation for death whenashes are imposed on our foreheads with the words, "Remember that you are dust,and to dust you shall return" (BCP, 265). Our prayers for the ministration tothe sick recognize that death is one of the possible outcomes of illness (BCP,458, 461). In the burial service, we are reminded that "In the midst of life weare in death" (BCP, 484). The reality of death has always been embedded in theconsciousness of Christians in such ways.
In earlier centuries, paintings of saints revealed that some kept a human skullamong their daily possessions and even placed it before them when theymeditated. Macabre as that may seem to our modern sensibilities, such a practiceemphasized the truth of their mortality, a truth that no amount of freneticbusyness could eradicate from their awareness. Such an intentional reminder ofthe reality of death in the midst of life helped these Christians to understandthat faithful dying is as much a part of the Christian pilgrimage as faithfulliving.
Jeremy Taylor, an Anglican divine of the seventeenth century, wrote what hassubsequently been recognized as a classic on preparation for death, The Rule andExercise of Holy Dying. It begins with "Reflections on the Vanity and Shortnessof Man's Life," in which Taylor compares the world to a storm in which our humanlives rise up in each generation like bubbles. Although some lives last longerthan others, they all disappear, giving place to others. In this context, Taylorrecalls the New Testament Letter of James, which asks, "What is your life? Foryou are like a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James4:14). Thus, he encourages each Christian to acknowledge the sober reality ofdeath. This can serve as a bracing and even creative awareness. Knowing that wemust die can make us grateful for the days of life we have now. Indeed, a majorcontemporary American novelist, Tom Wolfe, recounted in an interview that he hadsuffered a nearly fatal heart attack. After bypass surgery, he figured that ifhe could live to be eighty-five, he would have a specific number of days to livebetween his present age and his death. That calculation, he said, made himintensely thankful for and aware of the fullness of each day he now could live.
But death is not only a limit that can teach us to live each day more fully. Itis also a mystery that brings a darker side of human existence to the fore. TheNew Testament, Christian theology, and Christian spirituality have always seen amysterious link between human sinfulness and death. St. Paul speaks, forexample, of sin as "the sting of death" (1 Corinthians 15:56). Paul's meaningmay be that sin is separation from God, and that the reality of death,therefore, threatens to make that separation from the source and goal of ourlives total and eternal. The sting of death, then, is the dread of eternalseparation from God.
If Paul is right, it is natural that severe illness and the thought of death,whether imminent or in the future, should lead people to think seriously abouttheir important relations, especially their relation with God. The Christiantradition has always seen life-threatening illness and the approach of death asan appropriate time for addressing our faithfulness to God. Thus, the GreatLitany contains the petition that we not meet death unexpectedly and unprepared(BCP, 149). Jeremy Taylor gives considerable attention to the relation betweenillness, death, and repentance in Holy Dying. When we are ill, especially whenseriously ill, he says, we are forced to recognize that we are mortal. This inturn spurs us to respond to the immortal and infinite God whom we will meet injudgment and in grace. As we do so in the Anglican tradition, we are aware ofour separation from God and our need for repentance. Because of this, many ofthe prayers in the Office, "Ministration to the Sick," refer to sin andrepentance. We find in the anointing of the sick with oil, for example, that theaccompanying prayer reads, "May [God] forgive you your sins, release you fromsuffering, and restore you to wholeness and strength" (BCP, 456).
An awareness of death not only prompts us to examine our own sinfulness but alsoforces us to confront the truth that there are tragic deaths and suffering inthe world. Theologians term this the "problem of evil." Some deaths are moreuntimely than others; some seem inexplicable and call into question the justiceand love of God. When a child or a person in the prime of life dies, we findourselves asking: how could a good God grant life to a young person, only to letit end in illness or accident? Tragic death, abruptly bringing a life to itsend, brackets and highlights the whole of that life and opens the question ofits meaning. Indeed, our realization that everything that has breath will dieleads us to ponder the purpose of existence for any living being. Although weresist the idea that death is a punishment for individual sin, we must honestlyrecognize that the world in which we live, while essentially good, is also aworld of death and suffering.
Such darker facets of human life and death lead us to question life's purpose.Ultimately, they may bring many of us to a strengthened faith in a God who ispresent with us now and forever. Christian faith, in affirming that ourexistence is meaningful, exposes the powerlessness of death before God's self-expendinglove. The Book of Common Prayer declares: "The liturgy for the dead isan Easter liturgy. It finds all its meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesuswas raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised" (BCP, 507). Moreover, wealso recognize that death, even when premature and unwelcome, can bring relieffrom suffering for a person. And so, as sad as the death of someone we love whois infirm and experiencing suffering can be, it can also be an occasion to thankGod for taking that person into God's loving arms, rendering that person "alive... with Christ" (Ephesians 2:5). Even as such a death creates in us sorrow,relief, and thankfulness, it heightens our understanding that death opens thedoor to new life with God in community with others. Thus, an awareness of life'sfleeting nature and of the sometimes tragic intrusions of death can often be thestarting point of a life of faithful living, a life filled with meaning andpurpose that ends in faithful dying.
DEATH AS A SPECIFIC EVENT IN OUR LIVES
Death not only brackets and informs our whole life, but becomes a present andinescapable reality at some crucial point for all of us. It moves into thecenter of our lives when we learn that we are terminally ill or chronically illwith a condition that will advance inexorably to the event of death. Knowingthat we will die impels us to accept that our remaining days are numbered. Thesedays can be, as Jeremy Taylor reminds us in Holy Dying, ones of dread or else ofeager expectation—or perhaps both intermingled. And, as he and modern writershave observed, they can be days in which we suppress and avoid the truth of theapproach of the event of death or ones in which we accept and embrace thattruth.
