This thing we call death and what we do about it.

I believe that life is about letting go; letting go of things like materialism, ego, fear, resentments, blame of others, loathing of self, and any belief that separates us from one another.  And our last letting go will be that last breath which we then call death.

Beyond that, I will not speculate.  But I will tell you what I suspect.  Because hope always arises daily amongst our failures, losses and short falls, I suspect that death will rise up with a continued consciousness with no end to the river of life; even without another breath.

I have a dear friend who has confided in me that she sincerely believes that she will not die, contrary to the experience of those she has known.  She does not celebrate any birthdays since this would be an admission of a beginning and for her, since there is no beginning, there is no end, no death, no beyond; just eternity now. 

For myself, this barking body would lead me to believe that it will yet have its way with me.  Besides, the evidence that life is liquid and impermanent at every turn makes me admit that I have little influence over this mortal temple even with the “green smoothies” and ginger root that I drink daily from my Vita Mix. 

At an early age, I thought cremation seemed the most natural of ways to deal with death.  But my parents were critical of such a view and felt it unnatural.  And like their church, it was thought that it was not allowing the body to return to its original form of “dust to dust”.  But what is so natural about embalming the body with formaldehyde, placing it in a metal box which is hermetically sealed and then placing that box in a cement box in the ground? 

Reminds me of the young boy who went to church and learned that Adam was made from the dust of the earth and that when he died, he returned to dust.  When the young man arrived home, he turned to his mom and said; “Mom, there is a man under my bed but I don’t know if he is coming or going.”

Ultimately, it would seem that it is the intent of the living that determines if what we do with the body is a form of defilement or not.  Allow me to offer an example.  When Gandhi died, as a beloved soul he was cremated and his ashes spread on each of the rivers in India and some of his ashes are kept in various areas of India that he may be with us all to this day.  Ironically, when Eichmann was captured, tried and hung by Israel for his atrocities to mankind in World War II, he too was cremated and his ashes spread at sea so that he could never have any peace.   

With either way or means, I really don’t care; for me it is all a case of mistaken identity anyway since I am not my body.   Today, I believe the lesser of two evils is cremation and hopefully with what the wife saves in costs, she can book a cruise through the inner passage to Alaska with a room that has a balcony.  I would like that for her.  Better yet, maybe I should pay for the cremation now and then I can go on that cruise with her.  Surprisingly, I learned the majority of burials in my state are cremation.

However, my real preference is to lay the body out on the dinning room table as I have seen done in Argentina for friends and family to visit and to show their kids what death looks like.  Then wrap the body in my favorite area rug I like that is in the dinning room so Beth can later go to Lowes and get a new rug to go with her seasonal changes of the house.  And I would hope that each of my sons would go to the Dollar Store and buy something made of plastic like whirligigs that would last at least a thousand years and wrap it up with the body so that when some archaeologist runs across the burial, he will be completely flummoxed wondering what the hell kind of traditions we had in our day.

Karen Dinesen, a Danish author, whose writings spawned the movie Out of Africa, once wrote; “God made the earth round so that we cannot always see where we are going and our final destination.”   And while death’s final breath can be anticipated, it cannot be predicted for when and how.  So we return to our breath right now and again let go of our contemplating, ruminating, and conceptualizing what might happen beyond the breath.  Because that is how life is lived, one breath at a time.

"this is the only day I have, let me use it to best advantage."                                 Ayya Khemma

A Case of Self-lessness, A DooLittle Raider

While we publicly honor and remember the acts of heroism in war on our behalf, yet it is the private quiet acts of self-lessness that touches my heart even more; acts that we can all do on a daily basis for those around us.  This article was especially noteworthy.

As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February, Tom Griffin passed away at age 96.

The name may be familiar to those of you who regularly readthis column; in 2011, 

What a man he was. After bailing out of his plane over a mountainous Chinese forest after the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria, and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions. He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp.

The selflessness of these men, the sheer guts ... there was a passage in the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin that, on the surface, had nothing to do with the war, but that emblematizes the depth of his sense of duty and devotion:

"When his wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited her every day. He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed his wife and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At night, he washed and ironed her clothes. Then he walked them up to her room the next morning. He did that for three years until her death in 2005."

How Many Me’s Are There?

The Ego would have us believe that there is a “me” that is unique, special, and gives purpose to our lives.But is that really true?  And do we really need a “me” to make sense of our lives?  It kinda runs counter to our other efforts to become “selfless” in our service to others.  And the paradox teaching of Jesus when he said,  “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”  How important am “I”?  And what must I say or do to affirm my value or how many people need know me to confirm the “me”?  The social media of Facebook and Tweeting and You-tube would have us believe that being heard and seen offers us greater self importance and American Idol it’s pinnacle. 

Here is my premise.  There are many “me’s”.  And there is no just one me.  Our lives constantly evolve and unfold and that to define ourselves by some past bad or good experience is futile and just plain an illusion. Life is fluid and not solid.  Like a kaleidoscope, every changing moment and turning event is different and we are never the same.  Our self importance lies elsewhere. 

With laughter, I love to read the story in John chapter 9 of the bible where Jesus heals a blind man and then the town cannot figure out who the blind man is now.  They cross examine the man, then his parents, and then again the man.  And he kept telling them, “It is me!  It is me!”.

The neighbors therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.   John 9

Some years ago I sat across the table  at a family dinner from a favorite cousin with whom I had spent a lot of my teen years.  He hadn't  a clue who I was.  Half way through the meal he was shocked to learn it was “me”.  Where was the “me” that he knew twenty years before?  So I must ask; if the “me” is constantly changing, which “me” is really “me”?  I don’t say this to confuse anyone.  I raise the point to suggest spending any time in thought and energy trying to invent or reinvent who we are is wasted.  All part of the illusion that Ego would have us believe.  Just about the the time we decide we can define who we are, it changes.  Again!

One of my favorite movies is The Natural with Robert Redford and Glen Close.  Redford plays the role of a young aspiring baseball player that wants to be known as “the best that there ever was.”  But that dream was destroyed when he was shot by a strange woman.  Sixteen years later, he is still haunted by the loss of this goal that would have affirmed the “me” he always wanted to be.  

In a scene in the hospital where Redford is lamenting his loss of the “me” he always wanted to be, Glen Close gives a wise and telling response to Redford’s self-pity.  She says, “I believe we are all given two lives.  The one we learn with and then the one we live with afterwards.”  Only later does Redford learn that Close had given birth to his son and then had gone about the work of raising a beautiful son in a self-less manner for the past sixteen years. 

For a long time, I bought into this “two lives” concept.  But now I realize that it is much much bigger than just two lives.  There are many ‘me’s”; hundreds, if not thousands; and defining that “me” loses all importance.  That letting go process allows us to Be Here Now and celebrate the true gift of being alive and sharing it with one another.  It changes our daily experience.  And the wisdom we gain and the path we walk in Being Nobody & Going Nowhere, leads us on the most noble exciting discovery and journey of all.