Statistically, people tend to die more frequently in the winter, especially during the holidays. Death isn’t the opposite of life, as our culture teaches us. Rather, death is a part of life. The opposite of death is birth. Both are a part of life. Unfortunately, our culture has an abhorrence of death and resists the process of death at every turn.
Rather than resisting death at all costs, perhaps we should think about what it means to die well? Catholics celebrate death very well. We know the importance of prayer, community, ritual, incense, candles, procession, music to help those who remain deal with the loss of someone close to them.
We also know that death is not the end. We believe that life continues beyond death. Consider the photo above as a metaphor for death. Is it a sunrise, a sunset or both at once?
The Japanese also have some beautiful traditional rituals surrounding death. Watch the Japanese film Departures to get a sense to the care and reverence given to those who die – and those who remain.
I spent time with a very close friend of mine who died too young from ovarian cancer. She was fully present to her life – even in her dying. I learned from her that if we live each day fully present, as if each day was our last, then we have learned to live well – and dying well is already incorporated into how we live.
Death changes us, but death is not the end. We are transcendent beings of love and depth. We exist beyond our death.
Click the link and listen to a short program from NPR’s Morning Edition, “Evangelicals Question the Existence of Adam and Eve” to see what happens when a modern, literal interpretation of sacred scripture is the only interpretation used. Interpreting biblical scripture, especially Genesis, as literal (meaning it actually happened just as written) requires one to abandon any ethical, moral and scientific integrity. More and more evangelical scholars are realizing this and questioning the purpose of a literal interpretation.
Just open any bible. Start with the very first book, Genesis. In reading the book of Genesis the reader encounters an immediate problem – there are two stories, two versions of Genesis – Chapter 1 and 2. These stories are not only different, they conflict. In the first story God brings forth all of creation, then creates human beings. In the second story, an older story, humans are created first and then God manifests the rest of creation in order that they will not be lonely. Which story is correct if a literal interpretation is all that is used?
The conflicting stories in Genesis is our first hint that these stories were not written to be a literal, historical video of the event. Rather, like the rest of the bible, myth, symbol, poetry, lament, narrative and historical memory create a tapestry – much like a painting. It is our job to locate God’s story within this recounting and to see the emerging themes of love, generativity, forgiveness and reconciliation. These stories tell us something about who God is for us and what God is like.
Using a literal interpretation – which is a very modern development – reduces all the depth and richness of this story to a recitation of facts. It is a flat, reductionist understanding of God and the relationship God has with us and with all of creation.
Nevertheless, one literal evangelical scholar protested that if Adam and Eve didn’t actually exist, then Jesus’ reason for dying on a cross to remove the sin of Adam – as St. Paul claims – is no longer valid. But truly, if God required Jesus to die a torturous death in order to redeem us, then that is a pretty small and vengeful god. Surely God can redeem anyone without requiring that someone suffer torture.
Jesus didn’t come to die, although he was willing to take that risk. Rather, Jesus came to teach us how to live – with each other in a way that is just and provides for all. But that’s a message we don’t want to hear. Religious authorities in Jesus’ time didn’t want to hear it either. In fact they killed him because of the inherent, subversive nature of this message. Others, even in our own time (Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, for example), have been killed for standing up for this very same message.
Of course, the trumped up “science vs. religion” conundrum all boils down to this; if you want to place human beings at the top of Aristotle’s Greek philosophical hierarchy of creation, thereby justifying laying waste to the environment and other creatures by virtue of divine decree – a literal interpretation will work very nicely, thank you.
Science and our own experience tells us that reality, including us, is an interconnected, interdependent web. To hurt one part of the web is to injure the entire web. A very catholic idea. How we speak about things is important in determining how we understand reality.
Always ask, “Who benefits and who is disadvantaged when one interpretation is chosen over others?”
This post is about what it means to live ethically. For example, what constitutes stealing? In the Ten Commandments, as in one of the yamas of yoga –asteya, there is the admonition “You shall not steal.” Is this only referring to taking something outright? That is a literal and shallow interpretation. As North Americans we may prefer the shallow interpretation because it suits our lifestyle. But we can go deeper. Stealing means having more than one’s fair share, when others have nothing.
Who decides what is my “fair share” or what is too much for me to have? Those living on less than $2 a day – two thirds of the human family – get to decide.
The gifts of our planet are for the use of the entire human family (and other species too). Morally and ethically, having more than we need when others have nothing is stealing. If society values human life, then based on that value, we provide social safety nets that meet basic human needs when necessary. We should speak about our refusal to meet other human beings’ basic needs truthfully.
The truth is that much of what I have has been stolen, then, from others who need it. This bothers me very much. I hope it bothers you too.
Again, language shapes how we understand. For example, we say “under privileged” but then we refuse (or are loath) to say “over privileged” because that would imply having what we did not earn or receive fairly.
And of course we like to refer to our stolen goods as “blessings” although they aren’t. Some of us are simple benefiting from an economy (set up by human beings – not by God) that privileges us over others.
We need to speak about reality as it really is so we can understand and think clearly. Then we can make choices that will bring true integrity and inner peace.
My students were discussing reincarnation. This topic came up in yoga study as well.
Much has been written on reincarnation. I put together some considerations below. You may find them useful. Caveat: What I write is from a theological stance (as I am a theologian) so the starting point is different for me (as a believer) than for non-believers.
Also, as an educator I believe that religious traditions have much to teach us. We can appropriate many things, even though we may not choose to use everything. However, the things we choose to appropriate or believe must further justice in the world, not diminish it. Otherwise that belief is, by definition, immoral.
So with these parameters in mind, here we go.
On Reincarnation: From time to time I am asked about my belief in reincarnation or whether or not we experience more than one life. Some religious and philosophical traditions believe in reincarnation – Hindu, Yoga and some Buddhist traditions for example. We can’t completely eliminate reincarnation as a possibility since we can’t really know for sure.
In the Judeo-Christian scriptures God is relational with the world and with God’s people. As theologian John Haught might say, it is a story that is unfinished. It isn’t perfect but with promise in order to draw us into a future. God is the lure. God promises creation a banquet of relationality moving from chaos to complexity & coherence. In this story time is linear – meaning it doesn’t repeat. Our experience of time is the basis for God’s story, this drama. Time has a beginning and a goal, purpose or end.
Logic & Reason. In the Catholic tradition science and religion are not opposed to one another. They ask different questions. Science asks, “How did the world and what we observe in it come to be?” Theology asks, “Why is anything here at all?” Because they ask different questions science and theology can actually support each other. This is why so many Catholics are also scientists, researchers, doctors, astronomers etc. This is why Catholics build universities and hospitals. We believe that because God created the world and called it “good” we are free to respectfully investigate and explore the world. So what does this mean for belief in reincarnation?
Science tells us that space and time are actually one continuum. We experience them separately – but they are one, nevertheless. Knowing this, it would be difficult to accommodate for a belief in reincarnation. Reincarnation says that I, as a person, could exist in multiple lifetimes. Stated another way, I could exist simultaneously in more than one place/time on the space/time continuum. In order for that to happen I would have to be not one consciousness, but many. I’m not sure that could logically happen and still claim that I am a unique person, a unique entity or consciousness with free will.
If we choose to believe that we are not unique persons with our own consciousness and free will, then religious traditions that believe in reincarnation would have to radically overhaul their understanding of personhood, self-understanding and choice in order to be consistent and not contradict their own teachings on the development of the personhood of each individual. If my consciousness isn’t unique to this time/space continuum and simultaneously exists elsewhere, then I’m not solely responsible for my decisions and choices in this local/time.
With this understanding of consciousness or personhood it would be impossible to uphold the rule of law, for example, as it exists around the world today.
Certainly, life experience has something to bring to this issue. The actual experience of reincarnation says that a child suffering horribly from disease or hunger today is simply experiencing the consequences from bad choices in another lifetime. Really? That a young child suffers without having any knowledge of these other decisions, means that the suffering happens without understanding, without hope for growth, without purpose. This won’t move us toward universal compassion but rather to abandonning it. To believe this is to believe that ultimate reality or God is cruel and capricious. This would be a horrible God or reality not worthy of union. This is untenable as an understanding of God or reality.
Conversely, I believe that reality (God) is good and loving at its core. My experience is that reality is intelligent, relational, generative and therefore it must be fundamentally loving – to us and to the entire universe. To believe otherwise one must ask, why continue living?
Further, my own life experience tells me that even I, as a human parent, would not punish my child for something they did long ago and had no memory of. But reincarnation says that God would do exactly this. Am I, a mere human, more compassionate or loving than God?
To attribute suffering to actions from previous lifetimes prevents us from going deeper to learn the true causes of suffering. This is the immoral or unethical result of believing in reincarnation. Suffering from disease, poverty and hunger are not the result of karma. We find new cures for diseases all the time – think of the March of Dimes and their progress curing birth defects.
Poverty and hunger are the result of our inability to distribute food properly to the human family. There is enough for all. Unfortunately we have created an economic system that favors some over others. But if we go deeper, educate ourselves and make changes we can make sure that basic needs (water, clean air, food, education, basic health care) are available to all. This is our task. This is what it means to become truly human. Belief in reincarnation too easily takes us away from this task.
So, to conclude, I can’t totally eliminate reincarnation as a possibility since we can’t really know for sure. But using heart (compassion) and head (reason), I draw different conclusions about the degree of its possibility and probability. Belief in reincarnation requires overcoming the objections described above in order to be an ethical or moral possibility that I could truly embrace.
On this day of remembering, do something for yourself. Listen to the best Catholic theologians have to offer. Click over to Catholic Theological Union’s Learn@CTU website and listen to talks or read articles by their world famous faculty.
