Reflections for the Month of the Dead – Staying awake
I have to tell you that you are lucky – or unlucky, depending on your point of view – to have me as your parish priest. Because I should have died several years ago, on September 5th., 2002, at about 5pm.
One of the things I have discovered on the Internet – which I find to be a marvellous way of wasting time when I should be doing something more profitable like running a parish – is the number of sites which allow you to calculate your date of death. You put in a number of personal details, such as birth date, lifestyle, activity and income, and hey presto, you discover when you will die.
Unfortunately each site, rather like a series of rival astrologers’ booths, gives a different answer. An alternative date for my death (and one which will make it easier for Bishop Crispian to plan the staffing of his parishes) is March 3rd., 2023, at 7pm. Yet another site offers the choice of ‘chickening out’ and not knowing; you are presented with an image of a whirring clock and the motto “Face to face with Jesus”, and can choose “know” or “cancel”. Thinking that in my employment I should be happy about being face to face with Jesus, I duly clicked “know” and now I had an extension – to the year 2027.
A further site, not wishing to upset one with ghoulish predictions, offered a distant date: December 14th., 2112, with the words: “Probability of death by this date: 100%”. Fair enough.
No doubt many people really would like to know precisely when the grim reaper would wield his scythe (accidents not intervening, of course) and would, based on this knowledge, plan out their future years in intricate detail.
For the Christian, however, all this comes under the heading of “staying awake”. This does not mean having morbid, lugubrious premonitions of death, but living each day fully – not crammed with activity, but with crystal-clear awareness. This is not the same as the Roman poet Horace’s famous words “Carpe diem” - “seize the day” – for he had no knowledge of a union with Christ. Put simply, Christians are called to be aware. Jesus himself was totally aware: of himself, of others, of his Father.
The saintly Bishop Ken of Bath and Wells put it differently in his 18th century hymn:
“Redeem thy mis-spent time that’s past
Live this day as if ‘twere thy last”.
Unless, of course, one’s last day has already happened. One of the predictions had me already dead on Saturday, September 12th., 1998, and ended with the words: “I’m sorry but your time has expired; have a nice day!”