Comments on: Death Denial

By: wknelsen

wknelsen — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:53:00 +0000

William :)

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 06:25:00 +0000

BJ: Do you still go by BJ or are you Will or Bill or William now? Thanks for your thoughts. You sure are right that this death denial vanishes once you leave the comfy confines of affluent cultures.

Ben: Thanks man. Good to have you around.

By: Ben Lindwall

Ben Lindwall — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 02:15:00 +0000

Cool Blog.

By: wknelsen

wknelsen — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 07:14:00 +0000

I am thinking of India as I read this entry. I know many people personally in India and I work with a ministry that runs camps in India. The Christians in India live life very different than we do, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that death is intensely real to them. Their lives are full of simple joys and a type of care-free lifestyle that displays their desire to live every day to the fullest.

It’s so easy to forget that God chose to put us on this earth for a reason, and that He could have just as easily stuck us up in Heaven (or Hell for that matter) and skipped the whole earth part. God wants us to do something to display that we recognize His provision. Trying to stay young and youthful simply is not how we honor God’s blessing of time and wisdom. Focusing on how to stay young prevents us from growing into what God wants us to be.

Cheers Matt for the excellent topic!

By: Marnie

Marnie — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 09:29:00 +0000

I think the best thing to do is hang out with those who are dying. It’s the place I have had my head twisted into perceiving life differently, in a very good way.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:56:00 +0000

Cam: I agree. It is unhealthy to consider grief something to move through mechanically and orderly. An excellent book on the topic is Jerry Sittser’s A Grace Disguised. Not that you need any more books in your queue.
Trav: Good input. I’m not advocating an obsession with death, not by any means. But I do believe that our society has and is systematically trying to forget about and deny death’s existence. Recognizing our mortality is a necessary part of any sane life philosophy, but this is made difficult by the pervasiveness of its denial within contemporary culture.

I agree that there does come a point when grieving should ease up and the person comes into some sort of healthier balance in life again. But I would say that the general pressure in our culture is to try to push grief away much more quickly than is healthy. Still, that isn’t license to wallow indefinitely.

By: trav

trav — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 06:28:00 +0000

I’m going to die - so what? Would you rather we all dwell on it and obsess over our mortality? We call people who do that ‘morbid’, or ‘goths’ or assign them some other such suitably negative label.

Trouble is that it’s hard to tell those who have realised and come to terms with their mortality from those who avoid it altogether. For non-believers, all they can do is believe in their own immortality; the alternative is just too frightening.

And Cam, there does come a point where continued greiving is unhealthy. I agree that the amount of time required may vary greatly from person to person, but when grieving turns into clinging onto, it’s time to set aside our own sorrows and live how our loved would like us to.

By: Cam

Cam — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 05:27:00 +0000

One thing that comes to mind is encouraging healthy grieving. I’ve heard some horror stories of putting time-limits on others’ grieving process. As if we need more fake happiness!

Church is a fake-happiness free zone. Amen.