Death be not proud
08/04/13 05:15
Sometimes I am surprised at my own though processes. I find myself thinking about a particular topic and I wonder why. At other times I have an idea and I can trace the roots of that particular idea, but how I get from one topic to another seems like a strange route. We humans are like that. Our brains make connections that we aren’t always aware they are making. Here are some of the things that lead to this morning’s blog topic:
Towards the end of a Bible Study in which I participate on Saturday morning, we got talking about the topic of pride and humility. The main focus of the study had been points where our lives take unexpected turns. We had taken a look at the conversion of Saul. Anyway, we were noting how many times the word pride is used in a positive context in our society such as, “Take pride in your work.” It was our general conclusion that humility shouldn’t be used as an excuse for doing a task haphazardly or not investing enough of yourself in a task. Even menial tasks are worthy of care an attention and it isn’t wrong to take credit for a job well done. It was a normal sort of conversation and I moved on from that topic to another as my day progressed and I hadn’t been thinking of that conversation.
Then yesterday, I had the joy of listening to the premier performance of a new Wind quintet by Richard Toensing called “Cloud of Witnesses,” performed by the Antero Winds. The piece is unique with unexpected tonal patterns and moments of silence that last just a bit longer than the audience expects. It was pleasant to sit alone in a pew near the back of the church and close my eyes in meditation as I listened. I was thinking of a colleague who is out of town to attend the funeral of his brother, and perhaps remembering the trip that I took to attend my brother’s funeral a couple of years ago. It was not a sad or morbid feeling. It was just an opportunity to meditate on how life takes unexpected turns from time to time. The music embraced my meditation and shaped it.
This morning I woke with the phrase “Death be not proud” on my mind. It comes from the opening line of Holy Sonnet X by John Donne:
“Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.”
I don’t know if I would have become familiar with a metaphysical poem of the 17th Century, however, if the poem hadn’t given the title to a memoir by John Gunther, published in 1949 and made into a TV movie in the 1970’s. I didn’t ever watch the movie, but I know the story line of the memoir. It is a father’s true story of his teenage son’s battle with brain cancer and this untimely death at age 17. As any parents would do, the parents sought every medical treatment available. The son fought valiantly to live. But in the end a sudden cerebral hemorrhage brings the untimely death.
I think I understand Donne’s poem and why Gunther chose a line from it for the title of his memoir. It isn’t that death isn’t real. It isn’t that we can somehow escape death. It is just that when we face the stark reality of death we are surprised to discover that it is not the end. Nor is it the worst thing that can happen. In anticipation we think of death as so final. When we contemplate the lives of those we love we are so resistant to death. When we contemplate our own death we are filled with anxieties and fear.
But I have sat with the dying on many occasions. I have gone to the scenes of tragic and sudden death and viewed corpses. I have been the one to take the news to family members. I have watched as grief rolls over individuals in waves so powerful that they literally sink to their knees. I have seen more of death than many others. And I am certain that death is not the victor. There is so much more to this life than death. There is so much that is good that survives an encounter with death.
Perhaps it comes from being a preacher. I am a eulogist. After death comes, I get to say more words. I don’t allow death to have the final word. I continue to speak of the one who died and remind the world of her or his contributions and legacy. But there is more to it than language. There is a reality that even in the face of death life goes on. 1 Corinthians 15:55 asks, “O death, where is your victory?” I often quote that brief verse as I point out to survivors the signs of life that surround them in moments of intense grief: the hills, the trees, the flowers, the birdsong – and most importantly – one another drawn together in care and concern. I have seen the most powerful demonstrations of love and community in moments of grief. Death doesn’t win. Love wins.
Donne’s sonnet continues from the lines I quoted earlier, to a powerful conclusion:
“From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”
Yes, it is true that the paths of my thoughts are strange and often surprise me. But it is also true that I occasionally have ideas that seem to me to be important. As I listened yesterday it occurred to me that long after my life has ended, long after the lives of everyone in the room have come to their conclusion, centuries from this time, people will still listen to the haunting strains of Toensing’s quintet. The music is far too powerful to be contained in a single generation or even a single century.
The cloud of witnesses is eternal.