Hasta la vista

If you are present at the moment when a loved one passes away, it might be a good idea to speak to them in the moments immediately following physical death. Tell them you love them and that you are excited about the great adventure that is before them. I do not think that it would be inappropriate to ask them to pass on a message to someone. “Tell mom I love her and that I’ll be along soon.” Do not say goodbye. Tell them that you’ll see them later. We will have more to say about this in the upcoming posting on the vocabulary of death.

Act One

The apostle Paul reminds us that “we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:7) The book of Hebrews defines faith as being “certain of what we do not see.” (Heb. 11:1 NIV) At the time of death our physical vision actually makes the process of grieving harder because it is trapped by the great optical illusion. We think we are looking at the person and the person doesn’t look good. The person looks dead. Our emotions respond to what our eyes are seeing and this deepens our grief.

One of the best ways to deal with this is to create a vivid mental picture of what has actually happened, and then to play this little movie over and over again in the theater of your mind as you grieve.

On the basis of thousands and thousands of stories told by people who have had “near death” experiences, I think that it is safe to assume that the person regains consciousness in spirit form while still in the presence of their body. They can see their body and everything in the room around them, but no one else in the room can see them because they are in spirit form. Based on what you know about the person who you are grieving for, reconstruct their probable reaction to being dead.

I’m pretty sure that I will react something like this. “Oh my goodness, that’s my body over there! This must mean I’m dead!” Followed quickly by, “I knew it! I knew it all along! I’m still alive even though my body is dead. It’s all true!”

This is the first act in your little mental movie. Visualize the person trying to interact with others in the room. “Hey, look, it’s me! I’m alright! I’m still alive!” Visualize them as they begin to understand that you can not see or hear them. Don’t visualize them as being afraid. People who relate these experiences say that they had no sense of fear. Visualize this as vividly as you can as often as you need to.

The Great Optical Illusion

If you want to get the full benefit of this new thread of postings, please go back and reread the July 30^th posting about getting hit by a bus.

I once came upon a mountain lion while hiking in the Rockies. We approached him from upwind, that is the breeze was blowing from him to us so he couldn’t smell us as we approached. His reaction upon seeing us was interesting. He ran an almost perfect half circle around us through the woods in order to get downwind from us. With the breeze now blowing from us to him he was able to use his dominant sense, he sense of smell, to “see” what we were. Having taken a good whiff of us, he then bounded off into the woods. The important point to note is that he could see us and he could hear us, but in order to be really sure he had to smell us. His sense of smell was his main way of interacting with the surrounding world.

The sense of smell is the most important sense for most mammals, but not for man. We depend primarily on sight. You might hear the voice of someone coming up behind you, and you might think that you recognize that voice, but if you want to be sure you will turn around and look at the person.

This visual thing works to our great disadvantage when it comes to dealing with death. We go into a funeral home and view the remains of the dear departed. We look at the face and automatically compare the way that face looks now with the way that face looked while the person was still living. And as we do this, unless we are careful, we are fooled by the great optical illusion that is death.

Think of how many thousands of times you have looked upon this face while the person was still living. You could tell so much about the condition of the person by looking at their face. Was he stressed or happy? Did he look tired or sick? Every single time up to that first viewing of the body in the funeral home your eyes were telling you the truth about the condition of the person you were seeing. Your brain does this automatically; you don’t even have to think about it.

But when it comes to dealing with death, it is imperative that we do think about it. No matter how skillful the art of the mortician, the face that you are looking at doesn’t look good. It is lifeless and unresponsive. It looks like the person is dead. Let me say that again: it looks like the person is dead. So now, for the first time in the thousands, or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of times you’ve looked at that person, your eyes are lying to you. It’s an optical illusion. The person is not dead. In fact, you aren’t looking at the person at all. All your looking at is the body they used to live in.

My first encounter with human death was the passing of my grandmother. I remember being very angry and walking away from the group at the graveside service. I remember thinking to myself, people ought not to end up like this. I was fooled by the optical illusion. My mind interpreted the message from my eyes and my emotions responded to it. Grandma didn’t look right. She looked horrible. She looked dead. And so my emotions responded to what my eyes were seeing. Once again, we do this without thinking about it. But it is imperative that we do think about it.

My grandmother did not, in fact, look like she was dead. This is because she wasn’t dead. Grandma was alive. The only problem was that I could no longer see her. All I could see was her body. Her body was dead and so my emotions responded to what my eyes were seeing. I failed to analyze the situation and remind myself that for the first time in my life I couldn’t trust what my eyes were telling me when I looked at Grandma. That wasn’t Grandma any more. Grandma wasn’t there. Grandma was still alive.

It imparts life to me

God has spoken. Are we listening? Have you ever read the entire New Testament? If I spend even fifteen minutes reading the Bible, it imparts life to me. It can change the whole tone of my day. Only a lunatic would neglect the Bible.

Joy

A.W. Tozer described the three persons of the Godhead as living in a “bottomless, boundless, shoreless sea of perfect love and bliss.” (Tozer on the Holy Spirit, Feb. 2 reading) We are only whole when we are in His presence. He is the living water for which our souls so desperately thirst. Why do we spend so little time with Him?

Eternity

It is insane not to live with eternity in view. Every act of goodness, no matter how small, will be remembered and rewarded. I haven’t saved for retirement as I should have, but I have been a pretty good giver over the years. Recently God reminded me that I had my priorities in good order (which is not to say that I shouldn’t have saved more for retirement). Every penny that I have given away is waiting for me on the other side, with interest. Reread the Gospels and highlight every time Jesus references the important of the upcoming, eternal reward. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. As Jim Elliot said, “No man is a fool who gives up what he can not keep to gain that which he can not loose.” To put it another way, the Holy Spirit recently whispered this in my ear: “Ultimately, nothing visible matters.”

Fear

Worry is a waste of life and a denial of God’s love and power. Nothing that can happen to me apart from the presence and power of God in my life. There is always some kind of plan and provision for everything that happens. God may deliver me now, or deliver me later, or not deliver me at all, but there is always a plan and a provision. Always. What I have to do is to be still and silent before the Lord until He shows me the way. God intends that there should be a supernatural element to every part of your life. What you have to do is discern the way in which God wants you to flow with power and provision day by day.