All the same, I'm stirred by these words, bewildered and stirred by the sense that dying is important. Not simply as a task at the end of life. But as a discipline throughout my life.
I attended a remarkable memorial service this week - for a man I knew just a little but respected very much. It was so clear, in his presence, that he lived by dying. He lived by surrendering, one day at a time, all the attachments that seduce the soul. The all-too-human need for control. Anger. Resentment. Pride. Certainty.
This guy pursued prayer like an old angler pursues the greatest catch - patiently, persistently. He found the best fishing spots and went back day after day after day. Because, at the end of the day, prayer was the only way he could be sure there'd food on the table. Food that mattered.
"Unless a grain of wheat falls and is buried in a field, it remains a single grain. But if it falls, if it dies and is buried in a field, it yields a rich and bountiful harvest." I looked around the church that afternoon; and I saw the gratitude in people's eyes, the joy he'd left behind. And it was oddly, strangely clear. Surrendering in prayer, all those days, all those moments, all those years, this decent man, this child of God yielded to the deepest grace imaginable, the pregnant mystery. What a harvest!
