GITTIN ‘ OLD

It would appear that Darwin never wrote on the subject of old age.  Whether he did or not, I am about to dare to do so.  Cicero, in “De Senectute” (“On Old Age”) did (it was one of the texts for the L.C. in 1952), so “cur non ego ?”, why, oh why, can’t I ?

I am four score and two, and not at all sure that I’ll make it to one hundred.  My Dad hit eighty-four, Mum only seventy-six.  But my grandchildren have a 50/50 chance of becoming one-hundred-year-olds.  The demographic, social and economic implications of this are enormous.  They will be their and their children’s problems, not mine.

The Bible (Gen. 5:27) tells us of Methuselah, who lived for almost one thousand years (969, to be precise).  Exegetes suggest that he did in fact have a long life, even if, at the time the story was written, a year seems to have meant twenty-nine days.  A respectable score anyhow.  The point is, does God have anything to do with our span of life or current generations’ increase in longevity ?  For atheists the answer is obvious.  But what sense do believers make of this ?  Some of them presumably think that God, in His goodness, has allowed, intended, that people live longer now than in the recent past.  But give or take fifty, even a hundred, years, what difference does it really make in terms of God’s presumed intention ?  The question will always remain, why we were born, and above all, why we are condemned to die.  “Condemned” is the right word, if you take the Bible at face-value.  For rationalists and Darwinians, it’s a question, as we have already suggested, of space and resources.

Death is inevitable, old age and its extension perhaps a mixed blessing.  It will remain the ultimate mystery of the accident which is life.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

” UPON THIS ROCK . . . “

Jesus, not exactly a stand-up comedian, (is said to have said), in His one and only pun, that He would build His Church on the foundation that was Peter the Rock.

“Upon this rock”, in an entirely different sense, expresses the terrestrial destiny of every one of us, condemned – or blessed with the chance – to live on this lonely, perhaps unique, rock-planet, lost in a corner of a vast Universe, which may contain countless other such rocks endowed with living creatures like, or entirely different from, us, or no other such life-bearing rocks at all.

We will never, I’m afraid, know whether or not we are alone in the Universe.  Even if scientists are convinced that there is other life out there, chances are we will never discover it.  Meantime, we personally have life upon this rock, and can expect no other elsewhere – or, above all, after we die.

In many respects, this IS a “wonderful world”.  But it was never a Paradise.  The majesty of mountains, the beauty of magnificent rain-forests and waterfalls, the awesome spectacle of erupting volcanoes, the might of the oceans, the splendor of sunsets and the heavens at night, the multiple manifestations of the miracle and variety of life on this planet, that make some believe in God and in supposedly Intelligent Design – all these are marred, nonetheless, by natural cataclysms, disasters of all sorts, and by the ever-present slings and arrows which all of us regularly experience, to say nothing of the crimes we commit against each other.

But this rock and this life are all we’ve got.  We have succeeded over the centuries in making life pretty intolerable for most of its inhabitants, vegetal, animal and human.  We may soon even succeed in achieving the suicide of our own species and the destruction of the others.  The choice is ours.  But upon this rock we still have the chance to build fruitful, useful, meaningful lives worth living.  If we cannot be grateful (there’s No One to thank), we should at least be conscious of our good fortune.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

FROM DENIAL OF DEATH TO DENIAL OF AN AFTER – LIFE

I once witnessed the terrible shock experienced by a little girl of four, when her cousin, just two years older, innocently told her that both of them would die when they got old.  The recent death of their great-grandmother no doubt precociously taught the older child the inevitability and universality of death.  It is a hard truth to accept, even for people many decades their seniors.  The denial of death, the expectation that it would not, could not, happen to oneself, is childish, acceptable in children, pathological in adults.  (Woody Allen – my age – is in for a disappointment.  He famously said that for himself he expects God to make an exception . . .)

Equally childish, in my mind, is the denial that death is the definitive end of personal existence.  And yet it is safe to say that the majority of the seven billion human beings that we are firmly believes in an after-life.  Freud was right to suggest that the human race is still in its childhood days.  Even the adolescence of humankind is a long way off.

How long will it take that four-year old to accept the reality of her own future death ?  How long will it take believers to accept that an after-life is a blind and baseless illusion ?

The little girl has no doubt since realized – twelve years later – that pets and people, and even parents, die.  But like most people she will, very rightly, put the thought aside and get on with her life.  She may very well become part of the majority which finds comfort in the illusion of death as a passage to eternal life.  It is hard enough to accept death.  It is too much to resign oneself, most feel, to the fact that death means the end of existence, the disintegration of personal identity, a return to the nothingness from which we came.  All things considered, why not leave such illusions intact ?  It’s bad enough that we have to discover that Santa Claus is a fabrication of well-meaning, sentimental parents who cultivate and exploit children’s delightful credulity.  To discover that life after death is also a myth is more than most people can stand (Bertrand Russell’s “not enough evidence” will suffice as justification for calling it a myth – and don’t give me that nonsense about the “Resurrection” !).   In one form or another, religious belief will be around for a long time to come.  But the atheist can count him/herself lucky to have realized that life is worth living precisely because there is no other.  Atheists are adults.  Believers are naïve children.

Jesus Himself said as much : “I assure you, unless you change and become little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God” (Matt. 18:3).  Paul of Tarsus made more sense by suggesting that we “act our age” : “When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, think like a child, reason like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways aside” (1 Cor. 13-11).

I am happy to have put aside the fables and fantasies I entertained as a child.  It’s called growing up.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

THE WAY TO DIE

Garrison Keillor said it better than anyone.  His “novel of Lake Wobegon”, Pontoon (Viking, Penguin Group, New York, 2007), is centered on the life and death of Evelyn, her cremation and the burial of her ashes in a bowling ball, dropped into the lake.  She was a refreshing rebel in a conservative community in an imaginary town in the northern United States.

” ‘It was  how she wanted to go, in her sleep’, said Myrlette, and they all knew that was true.  No sickness, no decline, no hobbling around the Good Shepherd Home looking cadaverous and dribbling coffee down yourself, peeing your pants, rocking back and forth, a caged animal in the zoo, your mind turned to sawdust and your hip shooting with pain at every step – not for our Evelyn !  A rousing good time at Moonlite Bay, a couple of drinks, some laughs, come home, wave goodbye, go to bed and don’t wake up”  (pp.82-83).

Fear of flying, fear of dying.  The former makes more sense than the latter.  I would prefer not to die in a plane crashing into a mountain or plummeting into the ocean, but in my bed, in my sleep.  Will I wake up tomorrow morning ?  I already know that if I don’t, I will be among the lucky ones.  When you realize that there is no after-life, no God to judge, condemn or reward us, the only problem with dying is the pain, the indignity, the dependence which so often accompany it.  Dying in your sleep is the best way to go.  Euthanasia is second best, and a right worth fighting for.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

 

FINIS CORONAT OPUS

It was 1961.  I had, just a few days before, been ordained to the priesthood, had celebrated (concelebrated, in fact, with my two brothers) my First Mass in the parish church of Kogarah, and was now appearing as, yes, a celebrity at my Alma Mater, Marist Brothers Kogarah.  I was not alone.  There on the elevated steps in front of the school’s one thousand students (on average only ten years younger than us) were two other recently ordained ex-students, one a diocesan priest, the other a member, like myself, of a religious Order, but neither of them nearly as impressive as I, in my Franciscan habit, bare feet and sandals.

Each of us gave a speech.  I took as my theme the school motto, “The End Crowns the Work”.  I gave the kids lined up on the asphalt playground, the scene of my eight years of “recreation”, violent games and Army Cadet drills, an exegesis of “Finis Coronat Opus”, the origin of which I did not know then, and still do not (apparently, according to the Internet, no one does).

Latinist that I had become, I pedantically made the point that “finis” is ambiguous : it means “the end” in both senses : “terminus”, but also “purpose”.  Fifty years ago, I had no idea that I was touching the heart of the question of the “why”, the finality of  life and of the Universe.  God knows what I said then, but it certainly was not what I would say now.  The Universe, humankind, you and I, have no finality.  We were not made on purpose.  We and our world came to be by accident.  Most people cannot tolerate such an idea, and so imagine that everything, including ourselves, was purposefully created by a Supreme Intelligence to become what we presently are, and what we are expected to become : sons and daughters worthy of God our Father who gave us life and the chance to share with Him eternal beatitude – which implies that our personal death is not the definitive end of our existence, but a mere passage to an after-life.  Sorry, but as the cartoon says : “That’s all, folks !”.  Death is the end and there ain’t no more.

Fifty years ago I believed in God and His supposed purpose for each of us.  The reality is that I am the result of a cosmic fluke.  We all are.  We won the lottery of life.  Let’s enjoy it while we can.

At the age of twenty-four, a newly ordained priest, I had no idea that one day I would finally understand that the end, the terminus I am almost at today, indeed crowns the work and the trip we call life.  Mind you, I’m not quite there yet.  You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

FEAR NOT !

Jesus may have been the first historical figure to be remembered for His famous “Do not be afraid”.  Mind you, seeing someone actually walking on water (Matt.14:26-27) would give most of us the heebie-jeebies (except perhaps in Las Vegas or a special-effects movie).  Pope John Paul II will not have been the last to encourage people with the same words, in his inaugural address on October 22, 1978.

Powerful words, if spoken by a credible, sincere, disinterested leader.  Empty words in the mouth of anyone else.  The rabbi, the priest, the pastor encourages people about to be gassed in Dachau or Auschwitz : “Fear not !”.  What, after all, do they have to fear ?  Yes, they will choke, suffocate and spend their last moments in agony and anguish.  But then it will be … all over.  For atheists like me, never was a truer word spoken.  For the faithful believer, his/her certain death and short or even long-lived pain are the prelude to an eternity of bliss.  So, in either case, fear not.

But many believers, and even some unbelievers, continue to fear death.  Any number of people can try to comfort, console and encourage them.  But death is either passage to a new life, or going to sleep forever.  Either way, we have nothing to fear (unless, of course, you buy that crazy bit about Hell).  Personally, I find it more credible to believe in the motto of the Marist Brothers School which I attended for eight years : “Finis coronat opus” (“The end – death – crowns the work”).  This is the end and there ain’t no more.

Some prefer to believe in an after-life.  Atheists consider that this is wishful thinking.  Until some dead person, perhaps the Man who died on Calvary, or His Mother, gives us irrefutable evidence (not the myth of meeting Mary Magdalene or the disciples after Jesus’ supposed Resurrection, or the “apparitions” at Lourdes and Fatima) that they are still alive “up there” – if they were, they surely could let us all know – I prefer to think they are still dead and that their death was the end of it all for them, as ours will be for us.

So not only is there no reason to fear death.  Its very definitiveness induces us to profit as much as we can from the life we still have.

Good night.  See you in the morning.  If not, so be it.  Amen.

RIDENDA       RELIGIO

FRIGHTENED ?

Sure, I’m frightened.  Of all sorts of things.  I can’t imagine what an imaginary,  supposedly benevolent Intelligent Designer had in mind in creating these horrors, but yes, I am scared of spiders (especially Australian redbacks), sharks (all of them), snakes (idem), salties (though I have never been anywhere near these ferocious sea-crocodiles in northern Australia), and other animals and reptiles for which I could be part of the food-chain.  More seriously, I am afraid of muggers, murderers, terrorists, burglars, con-men, the Mafia, people who would not hesitate to do me harm, in the most creative ways.

Death ?  No, I’m not in the least afraid of death.  Perhaps I have the advantage of having had to face it once – peacefully, mercifully with adequate, immediate effective medical care in the form of a triple bypass, after a near-fatal heart attack.  Even before that I was not afraid of death.  For this I thank my discovery of atheism.  I could croak tonight.  No worries, as we Australians infuriatingly say all the time.  It will be The End.  The movie “Harry Potter 1” was the first but far from the last of the series.  My life is highly unlikely to be the subject of a movie.  If it were, the film “Frank O’Meara” would no doubt have no sequel; my earthly life will most certainly have none.

Afraid ?  Of torture, yes.  Dependence, yes.  Pain, yes.  Alzheimers, yes.  Being a burden to my family, yes.  These are the things I fear most.  As for dying, I couldn’t care a fig.  How many Darwins, how many Dawkins will it take to get people to realize that God is a myth, that an “after-life” is a fairy tale, that death is the end of personal existence ?  It is no more worthy of fear than dozing off to sleep.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

SIX SACRAMENTS , NOT SEVEN

Most devout Catholics hope to receive six of the seven Sacraments available to them.  No one asked them to agree to receive the first, Baptism, nor the second, third and fourth (Penance, the Eucharist and Confirmation).  But they did have their choice about the fifth – admittedly limited in the Catholic social environment in which they grew up; it would never have occurred to them to “get married outside the Church”.  The Sacrament of Matrimony, they were told, was in fact the only Sacrament (apart from Baptism, in case of emergency) that they could themselves administer (in the presence of a priest, of course).  With five Sacraments up their sleeve, and with little (up recently from no) prospect because married – there have long been exceptions – of receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the sixth and last would be Extreme Unction, the Final Anointing, symbolizing the strengthening of the soul for the final journey at the hour of their death.

Although I am not on my death-bed, my sacramental score is already six out of seven.  And it will remain so.  I had the rare “privilege” of receiving the Sacrament of Matrimony, officially sanctioned (but “sub rosa”, secretly) after my dispensation from the obligations attached to my earlier reception of the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  There remains only one for me to have the full sacramental deck.  I can understand the desire of some well-meaning, sincere relatives to facilitate my crossing of the Styx.  But when the time comes, whether I’m conscious or not, I want nothing of the “Extra Munction”, as we used to call it as kids.

Vikings put their dead on a drakkar, pushed it out to sea, then shot lighted arrows to set it alight : more dramatic than a priest’s discreet anointing of the body of the moribund in a hospital or at an accident in the street.  Kirk Douglas’ cinematic passing was far more moving than our Last Rites, tombside funeral included.  The only trouble is that neither Valhalla nor Heaven exist.

The Church used to forbid cremation, long considered a denial of physical resurrection, and to impose burial, along with some other obligations like no meat on Friday and no work on Sunday.  Holy Mother Church has become far more liberal and no longer insists on certain of the obligations I grew up with.  About to end up six feet deep or burned to ashes, I do not need or want Extreme Unction.  On principle.  It will be my formal statement of my firm belief that death is the definitive end of personal existence.  I need no help for the “journey” to another, imaginary life.  But I would appreciate it if my loved ones, when I die, revived the Irish wake.  Leave out the religious trappings, just break out the Guinness and the Tullamore Dew (“give every man his Dew”), Frank’s dead and gone (“Thanks be to God”, some will say).  He had a good life, a life worth living.  May we all be as lucky.  May he rest in nothingness (I will), but for a while at least, remain in our memories (I might).  “For he was a jolly good fellow” – or perhaps “For he was a damn lucky bastard”.  The lyrics chosen will depend on the amount of liquor consumed.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO

 

DEATH : WHERE IS THY STING ?

Christian saints were often portrayed contemplating a human skull.  They knew, and apparently were determined never to forget, that before long they too would be nothing but dry bones.  Death awaits us all.  “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” ?  Not at all !  On the contrary, their message was “walk the line”, “clean up your act”, “stick to the straight and narrow”.  Before you know it, you’ll be facing your Judge.  Put your life in order.  Sin no more.  We will soon be the ones for whom the bell tolls.  More importantly, here come da Judge !  Johnny Cash said it best in “Riders in the Sky” : “Cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride, a-tryin’ to catch the Devil’s herd, across these endless skies”.

“Pilgrims and strangers on this earth” is the way Paul of Tarsus and the Poverello of Assisi put it.  And they were dead right.  Four score and ten, max.  For Francis, a lot less.  But then he was never kind to Brother Ass, his own body, aged prematurely and weakened by constant “mortification”.  Of course, he was dead wrong about death, “Sister Death” as he quaintly called it, her.  That skull was meant to remind us of the folly of wasting our lives in wastrel ways.  “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his immortal soul ?”  Is life worth living?  Of course it is, so long as you use it to ensure beatitude in the next life, after our brief sojourn in this ante-chamber which we call, contrasted with the eternal bliss that awaits us, a vale of tears.

Most people believe in the immortality of something they call the soul.  All our religions are sources of consolation precisely because they would have us believe that though our body will rot, our soul will not.  Make the most of the short time you’ve got to make sure that your eternal life is spent in Heaven and not in Hell.

Faith in eternal life is an illusion we can understand, up to a point.  It would be wonderful, if it were true (a trifle long, perhaps ?).  The Faithful Departed are in the bosom of Abraham (frankly, I’d prefer not), or at least up there behind the Pearly Gates.  We know that our Redeemer liveth, and that our deceased loved ones are in His hands, living in one of His many mansions (Netflixing day and night ?).  We ourselves will one day join them, after this short pilgrimage and brief life in the foreign land we call Planet Earth.  Pilgrims and strangers, on our way home !  Believe it if you like.  I cannot.

                                               RIDENDA      RELIGIO    

 

DEATH IS REAL ; AN AFTERLIFE IS NOT

Death is a universal, inescapable phenomenon, that marks “finis” not only to every living creature’s life, but to its, his, her very existence.  It is at the center of the reasons for the creation of religions, which offer both the imagined assurance that our death – good news-bad news – is but a passage to perfect, eternal happiness as a reward, and the terrifying threat of equally imagined eternal suffering as a punishment.  Its implications deserve at least the reflections suggested in the posts that follow.

RIDENDA      RELIGIO