What happens, after life on this world has run its
course, is something that I would predict almost everyone has a belief or at
least an opinion about. Is there life after death and if so, what form it
takes is a part of all the Abrahamic religions and many others – although my
knowledge of other religions is not sufficient to make a statement about
beliefs in the multitude of religions that people profess.
Even within religions, if I can take Christianity
as a model, there are many beliefs in how life after death will manifest.
Probably the most comprehensive exploration of this in the popular culture of
the time was the Divine Comedy by Dante who began that journey in a dark wood
in middle age and was guided through the three parts of the afterlife; hell,
purgatory and heaven or paradise.
That being said, I want to explore another aspect
of death – what might be called a death in life. The question I want to
explore is, ‘is it necessary for something to die if something new is to be
born?’ This question has arisen from a couple of sources that I have been
engaged with this week. First, the New Testament passage for this coming
Sunday is from Paul’s letter to the Romans in which Paul opens with this
question, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into his death?” The implication of this in Christian
faith is clear. In baptism, people die to their old life and are born
into a new life as Christians. To do this we must die to be born
anew. This is symbolized traditionally by immersing the person in water
where they symbolically drown, and raising the reborn person from the water to
new life as a Christian.
This is all well and good (and a blessing) for
Christians, but does this understanding of dying to an old life and being
reborn anew occur in other places? Well, this is certainly true when we
turn to exploring our dreams. The motif of someone dying in a dream is
not an uncommon occurrence. It can be very disconcerting to dream of
someone dying – particularly if it is someone you know in waking life. As
with most aspects of dreams this should not be taken literally – at least most
of the time. It is unlikely that the person you know in waking life is
going to die or has died. This can happen; however, it is often more
meaningful to understand the dream as being a statement that something in the
dreamer’s life has died or needs to die. This old attitude or way of
living has died to make room for something new to be born.
I am currently rereading Care of the Soul,
by Thomas Moore. As the subtitle states, it is a guide for cultivating
depth and sacredness in everyday life. In the book, Moore explores, among
other things, a number of myths in exploring how to care for the soul. In
the myth of Narcissus, Moore notes, “We are led to a mystery that is embedded
in all initiations and in every rite of passage; the end of a previous form of
existence is felt as a real death.” This is true in the case of the death
of a loved one. The loved one has died but it is also a death of the
relationship and all that the relationship was to you.
Personally, in our lives, there may be parts of our
life personally or parts of institutions that need to die to enable something
new to be born. Often, we will spend a great deal of energy fighting the
death of something in your life or some aspect of an organization or
institution that is preventing new life from being born. We need to ask
ourselves, what needs to die in us so that we can live more fully God intends
us to live?
May you be blessed on your journey to enable new
life to be born in you.
No comments:
Post a Comment