To: Steve, Bob, and a Local Columnist
From: John
A few days ago a columnist in our local paper wrote a column about the challenges of aging. He seemed to be sincerely pondering and wrestling with his own mortality. He's still a fairly young guy (40s I think). I was moved to write him a letter in response to his column. In doing so, I touched upon some of the themes of this blog, and also found myself summarizing my current thoughts on various mortality-related issues. So, I am sharing it here with you guys:
To [local columnist]:
Ya know, I probably disagree with about 70% of the things
you say in your columns, but I keep reading, because: (a) there is something about your writing style I find
interesting, (b) in your photo you have an certain resemblance to a friend of mine, and
(c) I detect in you a sincere desire to know truth. Since I have the advantage of reading YOUR stuff frequently,
here’s an opportunity for us to be on more equal footing. Your latest column on facing one’s mortality
(and seeking ways to live with that) moved me to write this letter.
I’m a retired guy in my 60s, so judging from your picture I
think I’m about 20 years ahead of you on the aging issue. And yes, it is a hard thing to feel yourself
losing (hopefully gradually, but even that remains to be seen) the strength and
vigor and optimism of youth. I fear
that process is becoming more and more difficult for us all, because of how our
culture is evolving. A couple
generations ago, it was much more typical to have three generations living
under the same roof, so we were close witnesses to the aging process in our
parents. It was also far more typical for families to provide elder-care from
within the family, to the bitter end. These days, the children leave home
(often for distant places) in their 20s never to permanently return. The lack of intimate contact with the
elderly robs us of realistic expectations for our own aging. So when it starts to hit us, it’s a shock. And on top of that, we are expected to plan
for our own demise through assisted living, long-term care, etc.
The aging process forces us to consider our own mortality,
and exactly how, you seem to be asking, does one do that and still retain one’s
sanity? What tools or helps can we
find to make the going less unpleasant?
You mention several: love, work, humor, faith. Those are wise answers, though of course each one requires
considerable enlargement. I want to talk about that last one a bit.
Philosophers have debated the meaning of life for thousands
of years. But for me, their discussions
inevitably leave me cold and unsatisfied.
I’ve spent considerable time and effort investigating their theories,
but it seems obvious to me there is only one true answer to the question of
life’s meaning: Nobody knows. Neither have I found typical religious
approaches all that helpful.
It seems to me that that each of us has to make peace with
our mortality in our own way. But that
requires that we actually invest time and effort in doing just that. It requires that we actually think
about it, sort through our own experiences, consider what conclusions other
(hopefully wiser) people have reached, and try and nail down what we actually
believe (whether or not it agrees with conventional religious dogma) while
still being open to new ideas and information.
I think we have to believe that there are people out there
who have wisdom to share. We have to
believe there are people who are more spiritually advanced than we, else how
can we ourselves expect to make any progress?
Some people who have influenced me personally over the years come to
mind: C.S. Lewis, Alan Watts, Ram
Dass. More recently, I have been very
impressed with Eckhart Tolle. I highly
recommend his first book “The Power of Now” and his recent release, “A New
Earth” (especially in book-on-tape form as read by Tolle; there is just
something about his voice). If I had
to summarize his work in a single sentence it would be this: he teaches that the way to inner peace is
through (a) breaking the bonds of the ego, and (b) learning to embrace whatever
we find on the immediate path before us.
I have found this man’s work very very helpful.
As for my own personal philosophy, I offer this. The first issue is whether one believes in
God. All I can say is, God help those
who don’t! To approach the end of one’s
life and not believe in God is the recipe for the worst possible misery: a descent into meaninglessness. I guess, however, that I am one of the fortunate
ones with regard to that particular, foundational issue. I simply feel it in my bones that this
incredible universe and this journey we call life, with all their complexity
and variety, cannot be meaningless.
There has to be a reason, a meaning to it all, a creator of it.
There has to be a God.
Given that, my next thought is:
could God be unjust? An unjust
God is such an oxymoron that I immediately discard that proposal as ridiculous;
there is a God, and God is just.
Yet obviously the world we live in is NOT just. One daily look at your newspaper shows many
forms and degrees of injustice -- obesity in one country and starvation in
another, children dying of disease and accident, criminals going free while
innocents are murdered, terrorism, ethnic cleansing and genocide -- just to
scratch the surface.
So how does one reconcile a just God with the tragedy and
suffering all around us? Why is it this
way? The answer, again, is nobody
knows. Or rather (and to me this is a
critical difference) nobody knows during their lifetime. The fact that we are not allowed to know why
does not mean there isn’t a reason, and a reason that – if we could know it –
would satisfy our deepest yearnings for an explanation and justification.
So far I have this, then:
There is a just God, a meaning to life, and a reason for the suffering
we see in the world. Next, it seems to
me, is a leap, but a rather small and logical leap, of faith: If there is a reason for suffering, and we
are not allowed to know it in this life, then there must be something beyond
this life. Call it an afterlife (or
perhaps afterliveS). Further, the
suffering in this world serves some purpose.
And finally: eventually we will be reconciled to that suffering and its
purpose. To put it another way, there
is a destination which, when at last we reach it, will more than reconcile us
to the difficulties we encountered on the way to it.
What is that destination?
Nobody knows. But I can live
with that. Which hopefully speaks to
the questions you posed.
This is all just one guy’s point of view, but he sincerely
hopes it might be of some comfort to ya.
