Let\u2019s set aside the knowledge that there exists little agreement among different religions and even little agreement from two sides of the Christian religion \u2013 that the Bosom of Abraham is actually a place and where that place is believed to exist. Islam doesn\u2019t mention it in texts and Elvis Presley in providing a rousing version of a song that uses the phrase over and over, clearly never clarifies exactly what the lyrics are talking about. Let\u2019s set this aside and for now we will define the Bosom of Abraham as the place we go when we die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Small animals of the woods, and larger animals on the farm had taught me the time before I could barely speak. As a young boy, I had multiple dogs. We lived in a large house on a hill that sat beside a road where cars moved fast and routinely struck and killed most if not all the dogs I considered as my own. When an animal finally breathed its last breath, I felt as if its \u201cbattery had stopped working\u201d. The first thing I studied was the drying of the surface of the eyes. I knew that there was no revival to take place, when the first signs of stiffening occurred in the arms and legs of the beasts. The thing that made the most impact on my reflections was that in a small amount of time, after the last breath, the creature did not look like they did when they were alive. Their eyes saw nothing and their limbs were frozen in a position they certainly would not have maintained in life. Death in this animal world was the same to a six-year-old as when it arrived in our human world. I knew that my father was not coming back. I knew that what was left was simply an inanimate container. It was not my father. I could not cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reading this book when I was a teenager made it almost frightening to think that Johnny Gunther, Jr. could suffer and die so easily and so young as he was also a teenager. What still clings inside some corner of my mind is the feeling I had (even as I realized that a courageous and hopeful message within the story had been successfully put forth), it was obvious to me and clearly shown that at the point of diagnosis the youth began his march to death. He began to die many months before he actually did. This was the first time in my life where I began to think of death as a result that constituted not only the final removal of life (more like the result of a fatal accident), but it was also made up of the time involved to progress or tick away towards its eventuality. If death lasted longer than the time after the last breath is taken then that could mean that death is not viscous. Death is not the villain. Death is simply the eventual result of life and therefore starts at birth. It cannot be proud. It cannot be admonished. It cannot carry a scythe and travel the earth with a black cloak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is however possible to understand how its duration can be gauged and is very much like a season for each of us. Seasons are cyclical. Although we have no certain evidence of rebirth within this life, if death and life are cyclical we can take comfort in strengthening our faith in continuing into a next life. Death be neither proud nor humiliated but instead venture to see life as purely hopeful. Life can be interrupted in his place but hope cannot. It is hope that bridges us into what continues and it is by faith that we develop profound hope. Even though I don\u2019t think death can be proud it is useful to observe the sentiment the memoir reflects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee \u2014 John Donne<\/p>\n\n\n\n THOSE AROUND US BEGIN TO LEAVE THIS LIFE<\/strong> I would follow these collections and while still young would remark that the people that were dying were the heroes and celebrities of my mother and her generation. I thought it slightly humorous to remark to people my own age that when Brad Pitt or Michael Jackson die we had better start to pay attention. Today Brad is still alive but Michael Jackson did indeed die and he and I were born in the same year. So now I pay attention. When celebs and important people who are younger than me start to die, perhaps it\u2019s time to take better care of my health!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kidding aside, I\u2019ve seen a tremendous level of unsustainable sorrow for one man in this first half of 2017. My half-brother died this year. We were not close but the blood in my veins was similar at least by half to the blood in his. My cousin, a few years older than me, also died. When we were children he was my best friend. He did not die suddenly but he did die way before he should have. A friend who I had known since being eleven years old, and probably my second oldest school friend did just die a few weeks back of a heart attack. And most devastating is the standing memory that my own mother died on July 2nd<\/sup>, exactly twenty years ago. The notifications are like punches to the gut. Some are like whiplash and the concept of twenty years of sorrow chipping away at what has been good in my character and my spirit is equally damaging. Death be not proud and grief — please let me alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n GRIEF CAN CHANGE YOU<\/strong> I attempt to scrape up small bits of wisdom as I study the words of Christ, the texts of great populations from the Abrahamic, the Quran, the Talmud all the way into the Upanishads and just beneath the lyrics of Zen I am reminded of my hubris. However, I still tend to calcify unproven beliefs as I age. I am beginning to give up on a stubborn hope that as we live we can change. We can, without much incentive or persuasion become better people. In effect become closer to what God expects of us. Unfortunately, the same conclusion rears its ugly head. We as humans are not inclined biologically or even socially to change for better or moral ascension. We instead die as stubborn and as stupid as when we are born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the true sadness of the eventuality of death. Without great turmoil, we are likely to see nothing new under the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I believe that there are three large types of events that can truly alter the makeup of a human spirit. They are destructive injury that removes a portion of the body, especially trauma to the brain or life altering illness. There is also tolerance of abuse whether addiction to substances that start us young on an earlier than necessary greeting with death or abuse of one person controlling another. That type of abuse starts the death of a person\u2019s humanity. And then there is the one we are discussing now. The profound torture of sorrow from the loss of someone we love. It is this grief that can change you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do not fear the cessation of your life. Be selfish and fear the cessation of the lives of those you love. You need not worry about respecting the dead. They are safe within the bosom of Abraham. Steel yourself. Do not let grief create scar tissue. There are strategies to deal with grief and there are many to offer advice and counsel. All may help you counter the effects. However, what you should focus on is the danger of the natural defenses. These are the routine changes after tragedy that lower your humanity and destroy your capacity to love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is natural to harden your emotions so as not to have to go through \u201cthis again\u201d. It is natural to lessen your sympathy. Your empathy will fall quickly away. Your hope and your optimism will wither. But you must remember this is a disease. It will eventually subside. It may never go away but the symptoms can be controlled. Be careful though to not abandon grief too quickly or it may leave you with too little positive goodness of your own. Remember that love is very much like hope. It continues. And it is Grief that should not be proud. It will not follow you into your next life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I encountered this stand at the edge of the next life on two distinct occasions. The earliest could have been the hallucinatory results of a severe throat infection as a teenager. I remember it only as a surge of sunlight so bright and hot that it drove me to not let go. The last one was when I was forty-three years old. I suffered from adult onset chicken pox. As it onset it knocked me down for multiple days of deep sleep where I had no sense of time. I struggled to climb up and out of dark rocklike blackness with slippery walls that dripped with tepid water. I had little to no physical strength and I slipped deeper when I tried to climb. I awoke and discovered I had been asleep for days. One time I discussed this with an elderly stranger on a train years later. He too had nearly died, believed he did die. As we compared notes, it was clear that both of us agreed. There was to be no bright light. There was no tunnel of peace with our loved ones waiting for us at the far end. He described it exactly as I had done. It felt as if our batteries had almost run out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Someday we all will return to the bosom of Abraham. Experts may not agree on where that is. The ancient Greeks believed it to be a description of taking children into the arms of the parents to enjoy the rest and security that can be found there. Early Judaic references point toward the practice of dining while reclining on deep couches where the person lying in front of you had their head near your own bosom. The righteous that died were welcome at a banquet with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Third century Christians refer to it as the place where the dead shall await the return of Christ. This is slightly different from the concepts of eastern Christians who decided that it represents an area in hell for the dead that will only be resurrected when Christ returns. This area is set aside from the tortures of hell where it is safe to await without punishment, the time of redemption. Since the first century AD the bosom of Abraham represents purgatory to Catholics and plain old heaven to most protestants. As far as Elvis Presley\u2019s interpretation, I just think it makes a good lyric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For those who love truth I do believe you will find in this life great happiness by managing grief and continuing your own journey with love and broad hope. This strategy alone will help you keep your battery charged. You will be brought some day as those before us have, to the Bosom of Abraham. It is your faith that will help you to understand the path on the other side of whatever this place eventually is found to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This sermon Is dedicated to Kitty Evelyn Johnson. She was born on October 12th<\/sup> in 1921. She died twenty years ago on July 2nd<\/sup>, 1997.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Returning to the Bosom of Abraham Let\u2019s set aside the knowledge that there exists little agreement among different religions and even little agreement from two sides of the Christian religion \u2013 that the Bosom of Abraham is actually a place and where that place is believed to exist. 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DADDY AND THE FARM ANIMALS
<\/strong>Death was introduced to me via family tragedy very early in my life. So early in fact, that I have taken it for granted it is as normal as colds and the flu. My father died suddenly when I was four years old. Upon hearing this news in a room full of adults some weeping quietly and other\u2019s set stoned face in solemn despair, I marveled at the level of silence and could not understand the cause of a situation I had never encountered. He was dead. Apparently dropped dead from a brain aneurism while at work. His body would be coming home soon on a train. My attitude was not one of an unconcerned child who lacked basic sympathy. It was simply something I understood as part of this life that cannot be avoided and obviously could not be reversed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DEATH BE NOT PROUD
<\/strong>A seminal memoir by author John Gunther which Gunther named after the \u201cHoly Sonnet X\u201d by John Dunne, affected me deeply as a teenager. It is one of the books from that time that I remember most of the details of even today. If you are unfamiliar with the book, it details the illness and death of a young man who suffered and succumbed to a brain tumor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we grow older it sometimes seems that each year, more and more of the people we know begin to pass away. Since we are not ready yet, it seems they do so abruptly we call this \u201cway before their time.\u201d As a young man, I remember focusing on the reviews of what happened each year as December led into January and the new year. The \u201cPeople we have Lost\u201d shows, and segments were always quite surprising because as those people died it never seemed like so many of them quite stacked up like these summaries would indicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gauge your capacity for sorrow carefully. Dyeing from a broken heart is a real medical condition. I make this point because it is important guidance as you prepare for the next notification, the next eventuality to make itself known. Grief is a dangerous disease. It is an unavoidable one. Prepare as best you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n