With the fear generated by the coronavirus pandemic shutting down the world, I think it is a good time to reflect on what we think about death.  Here are seven thoughts.

1 It’s inevitable.  Some years ago the British film director Nicholas Roeg (Performance, the Man who Fell to earth, Castaway etc.) was asked in an interview in Time Out why so many of his films ended in tragedy, he replied “I don’t regard death as a tragedy.  If it is, we’re all in deep shit.” 

2 It’s good for us.  Steve Jobs gave an address to students of Stanford University in 2006, when he had cancer, in which he said, “Death is very likely the best single invention of life. It is life’s change agent.”  But he also acknowledges that none of us want to die.  Do google the whole speech.

3 Do we want to live for ever?  My father died at over 100.  He did not want to reach 101.  And when his grandson Duncan died of spinal cancer in 2011, he wished he could have died in his place.  I think that is typical of a  grandparent’s generation.

4 Do we fear death, or the process of dying?  I remember when I had severe chest pains one evening over 30 years ago.  I wondered what I believed and I decided that I believed that when I died I would be in the hands of God, and that was enough. (Later my brother, a GP, said my symptoms were of indigestion, but that does not change what I discovered about my core belief).

5 Coming back.  Many people have died and been brought back to life.  Many  report an experience of light and welcome.  I knew two people who had gone through this.  One man was a soldier in World War II.  He was blown up by a shell, but rescued by a mate.  His first reaction was irritation at being brought back from such a blissful experience.  The other was a woman who lived in our road in Hackbridge who went through the windscreen of her car, but was brought back to life in hospital.  Through her experience she lost all fear of death.

6 Appearances.  Many folksongs such as ‘Lowlands Away’ are about a loved one’s appearing to their beloved when they are drowning at sea.  There are many anecdotes of people having the same experience.  Jane Goodall, the chimpanzee lady, tells that after her dearly loved husband Derek died,  he appeared to a 13 year old Downs syndrome girl they were both fond of.  The night he died, she woke her nanny up and said “Mary, please wake up.  That man has came and he likes me.  He is smiling… I don’t remember his name but he comes with Jane and he walks with a stick.  And he likes me.  He really likes me.”  Jane herself wrote,  “During the first six months after Derek’s death I often felt his presence… After a while, as though he knew that I was all right, I felt his presence less and less often.  I knew it was time for him to move on.”  (Reason for Hope p.165, 167)

7 The resurrection of Jesus.  Millions have had their ideas of life and death turned upside down.  As St Paul wrote in 57 AD: 

“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me… 

But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool!  What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body…  So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable… It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (1 Corinthians 15.3-8, 35-39, 42, 44)

Does this make sense to you?

So – is death the end? 

The eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell certainly thought so. “When I die, I rot.”  How could he be so certain?  When we look at all the evidence, a better position is surely to be agnostic until we do or do not have first-hand experience.

A final sobering thought:

We face a climate emergency which threatens the viability of all life on this planet as we know it.  If we don’t change enough and global warming reaches 3.5%, up to 70% of species could become extinct, the same figure as when the dinosaurs perished.   A key driver is human population growth.  World population was 1 billion in1800.  It was 2 billion in 1927 and 6 billion in 1999. It is now 7.8 billion  and will rise to 10 billion by 2050.  Schumacher of ‘Small is Beautiful’ said “It is of course nonsense to say population growth must stop.  Population growth will stop.”  It’s up to us (or is it?) to decide how.

What are your thoughts?  Do email me your comments and I will send out another email with your responses and thoughts.  Let’s have a debate!

I hope to start a monthly discussion on Zoom at the same time, 7.00 on first Wednesdays.  I will keep you posted.

You could also join me on my ‘Spiritual Exploring’ group at facebook/revandybooks.

God bless

Andy