re: Coming to terms with your mortality

“Of all the wonders that I have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
(Act II, Scene 2)”

Shakespeare

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This practice seems to be bleeding over into our politics

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When was it not into politics?
There has been religion as long as there has been recorded history?
Its been used by politicians as well as businesses as an excuse to fight wars?
"Send your young men to battle to make the world safe for (religion of choice).:

Its been a comfort to millions when there was hardship and death.

this past January i had a heart attack.

i’m 40 years old in decent shape and had absolutely zero health issues prior.
also had no warning signs or even any of the classic heart attack symptoms.

all i felt was a slight dizziness and like i might pass out. almost like if i was overheating and needed to sit and drink some water. but i had been sitting in an air conditioned office all morning.
a co-worker convinced me to go to Dr.
family doc convinced me to go to hospital.

had an emergency procedure that evening to put a stent in one blockage. about a month later, i had two more stents put in.


the kicker was when the Cardiologist told me i sailed under a lucky star.
if i hadn’t gone in to the hospital, i may not have made it through the night.

that part really fricked me up mentally for a while.

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Find Jesus. All your fears will go away.

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They do? Huh...news to me.

IMO,as a rule, that is a load of crap. Life was never meant to be a luxury: it is futile, scary and hard. It is composed of the good times that are to be had while we're recovering for the hard times yet to come. We make the good times, but the hard times make us, and this is our biggest folly of all: That we somehow tricked ourselves into believing life is here for pleasure 1st and pleasure last. Prove that wrong and you will be the 1st man to escape death.

I contemplate my death and of those I love (pets included) multiple times daily, and have done so from childhood by being introduced, accustomed if you will, at an early age to the possibility-turned-fruition of the end of life and its embedded reality. I grew up going to many different kinds of churches, including Catholic, as I had many moving parts to my family, but by my junior year of HS I was done with it all. It was nonsense- at least as it was taught to me.

I never was (and still am not) afraid to die, necessarily, but I am afraid to die without the confidence instilled in me upon the moment the fear of God was revealed to me. I'm not not afraid to die, and for what little I'm not afraid, it's not because of my faith; it is because of the hand dealt to me early in life far before I had faith. I don't pray for a long life, immortality, riches, land or herds of goats, but I do pray that, before my time of dying, I'm given even a smidgen of a mustard seed's worth of faith. If so, I will have of been the most blessed man that ever lived.

Somewhere along the way the American evangelical church (albeit not necessarily & always THE Church) gave many connotations (and to it's own demise) to those within its walls and also, even more damaging, to those outside of them, that, among other things, if you "find Jesus" (so much for Jesus finding you) that all your troubles, worries, fears and sins of the flesh will fall away, for good, and if not...well then, check yourself.

Count yourself blessed (or cursed with being a fool) if you die without regard to your mortality and the impending doom that you. WILL. meet. because ignorance is bliss- and dangerous. And don't get it twisted: Just because a man prays to Yahweh and has filled the void in his soul with His Son does not mean he isn't afraid of the end of his days. Many of us (most, in fact) whose souls yearn for what Jesus gives us, don't do it as a crutch, a cure, against the fear of death; otherwise we would drop our faith, en masse, like a bad habit: We wallow in our faith in Jesus because our person is drunk with something that cannot truly be explained- not even with others drunk on the same thing. That still doesn't mean that we want to die.

The following link is to a Bible Gateway page of Ecclesiastes chapter 9. Coming from an imperfect sinner yet person of faith, it is my favorite chapter (and book) of scripture- key to me beginning my journey of searching for Truth. It showed to me how relatable this "God" could be without yet being MY God. Then an now, to me, in my walk, it is the most "humanizing" passage of the Holy Bible.

No man will ever find complete peace and absolute happiness, no matter his attendance record at Sunday services or number of servants: Life's circumstances will always be a thorn in the side of that type of pursuit. Life is futile, our days under the sun will be hard, and we will all die- dead,forever, to who we are in the here and now.

So enjoy your woman, your food, your drink, but always- always- give thanks for it: It is our undeserving reward, our lot in life, but yet still, death will come and it'll come shortly. Be wary of it, it keeps you human, and me too.

As one who has "found Jesus," I certainly wish it wasn't that way, but it is, and it's okay to not be okay with it. If an immortal God in the Garden of Gethsemane wasn't welcoming the gates of death in his dying hour, then neither should you and I. Our reality is that this reality is finite, and therefore it is not real at all, and that, quite frankly, kinda sucks.

I would be happy seeing all of my kids live to become functioning adults. I'm 38 and my youngest is 3 months. I don't have any parents or grandparents, and I only have one uncle alive. I have one brother, and a select few cousins that I am close to. All I have is myself, my wife, and kids. It's a cold world, but having a special significant other make things better.

Bigbee, great explanation. I agree completely.

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The only thing that really helped me cope with it is seeing other people die on the internet. Burning, decapitation, hanging, shooting, smashing, drowning, people falling to their death, crashing air planes, lethal injections, snake bite, suicide, mauling, people being blown up in war, listening and reading to peoples last words. watching people decay over time, reading about other people losing family members. people recording themselves dying to poison. Having my own family members die. Visiting graves of other people that have died. Seeing all of those people die has helped me be OK with dying and understand that it wont take that long and not to be afraid.

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dafuk...

YouTube - Tulane Scientist teach Gorilla it will die

All I know is that there is NOTHING fake about me..... what you see is what you get..... and I have the most important thing a human can have.......integrity..........

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All I know is that there is NOTHING fake about me..... what you see is what you get..... and I have the most important thing a human can have.......integrity..........

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And if you don’t believe him, ask his sister-in-law.