The Mystery of Death

 In the Lenten spirit of self-reflection and repentance I confess to you that I hate blogging.

No, I really hate blogging.

I hate it for a number of reasons. First, I don’t think I am very good at it. I’m not an especially skillful or articulate writer. I tend to ramble on and only sometimes get to the point. Second, I don’t have the same desire to be heard that most bloggers seem to posses. Lastly, I am a journaler, which means that most of what I write is deeply personal and excessively flowery. Writing for a public audience puts me in the awkward position of walking the thin line between the private and personal, which frankly are subjective categories anyway.

I see the irony of confessing all of this to you in a blog post. However, I've done so because I’ve decided to take up blogging during the season of Lent. As many of you know, Lent is a liturgical season in the Christian year where believers prepare themselves for Holy Week, the week that recalls Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. To stand in solidarity with our suffering God, who —on the cross— stood in solidarity with us, we simplify our lives during this season by committing to fast from certain luxuries. By fasting we remember the frailty and finitude of our human flesh. During Lent we realize anew our fundamental need for a transcendent and eternal God.

The season begins on Ash Wednesday, a day when the church places ashes on our foreheads as a solemn reminder of human mortality. Throughout the 40 days of Lent, but especially on Ash Wednesday, we are forced to confront the reality of death so that come Easter we can fully embrace the victory of Christ’s triumph over death in all of her manifestations. 

Last summer, my Dad passed away unexpectedly after a long period of hospitalization. Beginning when I was a teenager, my Dad would regularly tell me that he was going to die. I think he told me this in part because of depression, but also because he was trying to overcome the fear of death, the paralyzing terror of the unknown that can stop you from living life to its fullest.

Even though he spoke of it regularly, I think both of us were unprepared for his death. We were unprepared because he also had a voracious appetite for life. He fought to live so that he could go on loving me.

As I’ve struggled this year to cope with his absence, a mentor and friend recommended a book called, “The Mystery ofDeath” by noted German theologian Dorothee Sollee. Finished only days before her own death, Sollee probes the meaning of death in history, literature and religious tradition. Clever, yet intensely personal, she revolts against our cultures denial of death as she herself comes to terms with it. 

So, as an act of solidarity with my Dad, with Dorothy, and with the “great majority” who are no longer with us, I've decided to spend the seven weeks of Lent publicly reflecting on the mystery of death. 

I want to explore the questions I never asked my Dad while he was sick. I want to honor the experience of death in stillness, silence, and prayer.  And I want to contemplate my own mortality in the defiant hope that life can still be born in death.