Awaiting Death — The Great Un-American Pastime

Sometimes I write a blog and then don't push it live — usually for reasons that involve me hoping to avoid becoming a candidate for psychiatric evaluation and/or the object of a 24/7 suicide watch.

With this blog I break free from that tradition of silence and confess that I am awaiting death somewhat eagerly.

Having dropped that bombshell, I now rush to clarify.

For starters, I have been this way for more than 25 years and fully expect to put in at least that many more before my life comes to an end.

For seconders, there is an important distinction between those who are ready for death and those who are suicidal. Truly suicidal people by definition are ready for death. And not interested in waiting.

But the reverse need not be true. One can eagerly await death — and all the while have absolutely no plans to hurry the moment forward.

Count me in that latter, rather unusual crowd. Hopefully this clarification will keep the wailing sirens at bay.

So... why this break? Why this blog actually posted to a public website? Something I read this morning finally cemented a realization into place.

I do have a problem, but my problem is not that I am sick. I don't need Prozac, a shrink, or a stay in the white, padded room.

My problem is that I'm not American enough.

Additionally, all my heroes are certifiably insane.

I checked my blogs and see that I did indeed begin a blog series titled All My Heroes Are Certifiably Insane but I only finished one blog on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Father Jerzy Popieluszko.

I didn't get far on that series, but I intend to resume it here.

But before I proceed, I want to return to Dietrich. There's something I didn't put in my first blog on him, though it has stayed with me indelibly.

Bonhoeffer became not just a hero, but also a soul-mate to me.

It happened when I read this:

…Bonhoeffer chose Eberhard Bethge as his confessor. Bonhoeffer felt comfortable sharing with Bethge what he called acedia or tristitia – a ‘sadness of the heart’ that we might call depression. He suffered from it but rarely showed it ... And it’s doubtful that Bonhoeffer discussed it with anyone but Bethge. ... He touched on his depression years later, in a letter to Bethge from Tegel prison: ‘I wonder why it is that we find some days so much more oppressive than others, for no apparent reason. Is it growing pains – or spiritual trial? Once they’re over, the world looks quite a different place again.’

Days like those? I know those days. Story of my life.

But let's move on to my next hero: Dag Hammarskjöld.

It was while reading about him this morning that I suddenly kicked free from the notion that I'm completely sick in the mind to struggle as Dietrich did. (And won't Dietrich be relieved to hear that too!)

After I had read a few pages of quotes from Hammarskjöld's personal journals, I felt like I had read my own journals and my own words.

In 1950 Hammarskjöld initiates a practice "that he will follow for six of the next eight years." The New Year's Day entry began with with these words in all capitals. NIGHT APPROACHES NOW.

And by night? He meant death.

Hammarskjöld went on to jot down a poem that includes these words:

You would welcome death.
But when it slowly grows within you,
Day by day,
You suffer anguish
Anguish under the unspoken judgment which hangs
  over your life
While leaves fall in the fool's paradise.

In recent weeks when I ventured outside my home, I couldn't help but soak in the beautifully golden trees of our neighborhood in all their resplendent colors. But virtually every time I did, I also sang quietly to myself.

September, I remember.
A love once new has now...  grown old.
—Simon & Garfunkel (a.k.a. The Kings of Doom and Gloom...)

Yes, the world has beauty. A great deal of it. God's beauty.

But usually I feel like I'm watching leaves fall in a fool's paradise.

On New Year's Day in 1951 Hammarskjöld returned to his theme.

'Night Approaches Now. —' So another year it is. And if this day should be your last.... The pulley of time drags us inexorably forward toward this day. A relief to think of this, to consider that there is a moment without a beyond."

Death couldn't come soon enough for him. Move forward a year. In his journal entry for New Year's Day in 1952 Hammarskjöld again returned to his theme.

'Night Approaches Now. —' How long the road is.

How long, indeed, my friend.

But then things take a turn for the better. Much better. January 1, 1953:

'Night is drawing nigh —'
For all that has been — Thanks!
To all that shall be — Yes!

WOW! This is good news. Living water for a parched soul. Hammarskjöld eventually emerged from his dark night of the soul. For the remainder of his life his journals were peppered with the word Yes! — done in italics and with clarifying words to accompany. What's more, Hammarskjöld seemed to come to a point (and then passed it)... the point where he recognized...

Led by the Ariadne's thread of my answer through the labyrinth of Life, I came to a time and place where I realized that the Way leads to a triumph which is catastrophe and to a catastrophe which is a triumph, that the price for committing one's life would be reproach, and that the only elevation possible to man lies in the depths of humiliation. After that, the word "courage" lost its meaning, since nothing could be taken from me.

As I continued on the Way, I learned, step by step, word by word, that behind every saying in the Gospels stands one man and one man's experience. Also behind the prayer that the cup might pass from him and his promise to drink it. Also behind each of the words from the cross."

I bolded one sentence in the lengthy quotation above because it's a thought that has been rattling about in my head incessantly over the past few months. My version of that thought goes like this:

So, Pilgrim, if you're so ready to die, you ought to be as detached from this game as a father about to lose a game of Monopoly to his son. Losing the game matters not a whit. But loving the son during the process is priceless.

Are you so ready to die, Pilgrim? Live well because, while you have nothing to lose in this sometimes seemingly senseless game, there is much yet to gain by serving God faithfully until the last roll of the dice.

Ready to die, Pilgrim? Prove it by how you live.

LOVE! As if you have nothing to lose. Nothing at all.
LIVE! As if you have nothing to lose. Nothing at all.
GIVE! As if you have nothing to lose. Nothing at all.

Dag Hammarskjöld, my hero, has gone further down this trail than I have, and his NIGHT turned to Yes! That's immensely encouraging. In fact, the title of his published journals is Vägmärken, which translates to "Trail Markings."

"Perhaps it may be of interest to somebody to learn about a path about which the traveler who was committed to it did not wish to speak while he was alive."

Perhaps? Definitely. I myself am on a long journey between NIGHT and Yes! — with too much emphasis on the former and not enough on the latter. It's good to know where this path leads, provided I keep an eye out for the markings Dag left behind him. I think I'll buy a copy of his book.

How old was Dag Hammarskjöld during his long stay with NIGHT? I looked. In 1950 he turned 45 years old.

That's how old I am today. Hope.

To complete a train of thought, I return to my final, relieved conclusion. The one that set me free to write this blog and push it live.

I'm not insane.

I'm not sick.

I'm just not American enough.

And all my heroes are certifiably insane.

Bonhoeffer was a hero of the Christian faith. But he knew my NIGHT.

Dag Hammarskjöld? Best Secretary-General the United Nations has ever known. Wikipedia notes, "In 2011, The Financial Times wrote that Hammarskjöld has remained the benchmark against which later UN Secretaries-General have been judged. John F. Kennedy had this to say of him: 'I realize now that in comparison to him, I am a small man. He was the greatest statesman of our century.'"

If these two men were sick, then let me drink deeply of their disease.

In the footnotes of Streams of Living Waters Richard Foster adds these thoughts after quoting Hammarskjöld's journal entries at length:

These meditations upon death may strike the American mentality as a bit strange, even morbid. The Scandinavian mind would not find it unusual in the least, however; nor would most cultures throughout history. Indeed, one of the well-established Spiritual Disciplines is to contemplate one's own demise.