Life & Death: what should we make out of them

Harriette Cole's column Sense and Sensitive, had an interesting post appeared on the last Tuesday [1].

Lori, Harlem, NY writes:

Dear Harriette: A woman I admire from distance for many years suddly died. I got word of it but remain somewhat in shock. She really did have a good life, but there something about death that is so final. It is end. And it makes me think about the what-ifs. I know life isin't promised, but I don't have my stuff together, if you know what I mean. If somebody who seemed to have her life together just suddenly lost it, what hope is there for me?

Note the Harriette's response:

Dear Lori: Use this time as an opportunity to look at your life differently. No moment is promised other that the one you are in. Are you living to your potential? Are you cherishing the happy times learning from the challengers before you? Are you welcoming each moment Or are you worrying yourself sick?

You have the power to choose to welcome every day with greater clarity and forcus. Get your life in order. Organized your home, your finances, your friendships, and your relationships. Get clear so you can be ready for anything, including death.

What a shallow answer is this. Many think if you lived a life to its full potential, that would be a great success. This is the classical response of Ecclesiastics.

Few Months back I read a book from Bart Ehrman named God's Problem on the theme of suffering. He was a "born-agin" believer converted through Youth for Christ and then in his later years of theological studies became an agnostic. The book was unfortunately, a superficial handling of the subject. He has not covered all the biblical aspects of suffering including the fall of humanity. However, he also comes to the same conclusion to which Harriette Cole has arrived.

He conclude his book:

"We should love and be loved. We should cultivate our friendships, enjoy our intimate relationships, cherish our family lives. We should make money and spend money. The more the better. We should enjoy good food and drink. We should eat out and order unhealthy desserts, and we should cook steak on the grill and drink Bordeaux. We should walk around the block, work in the garden, watch basketball, and drink beer. We should travel and read books and go to museums and look at art and listen to music. We should drive nice cars and have nice homes. We should make love, have babies, and raise families. We should do what we can to love life-it's a gift and it will not be with us for long.

[tell this to majority world (third world) suffering people like who are living in Sri Lanka]*

But we should also work hard to make our world the most pleasing place it can be for others-whether this means visiting a friend in the hospital, giving more to local charity or international relief effort, volunteering at the local soup kitchen, voting for politicians more concerned with the suffering in the world than with their own political future, or expressing our opposition to the violent oppression of innocence people. What we have in the here and now is all that there is. We need to live life to its fullest and help other as well to enjoy the fruits of the land.

In the end, we may not have ultimate solutions to life's problems. We may not know the why's and wherefore's. But just because we don't have an answer to suffering does not mean that we can not have to respond to it. Our response should be to work hard to alleviate suffering wherever possible and to live life as well as we can"[3].

What about the words of Jesus:

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:34-38 NRSV).

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[1] The Dallas Morning News, "Comics and Puzzles" Tuesday August 5, 2008.

[2] Picture: "The Cup of Death" (1885) By Elihu Vedder (American artist, 1836-1923)

[3] Bart D. Ehrman, God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question-Why we suffer (New York: Harper One, 2008), 277-278.

*comment is mine