Posted by Pastor Steven on August 09, 2002 at 15:25:31:
In Reply to: Re: meditation on death changes us posted by jonvon on August 09, 2002 at 11:44:28:
: this is so funny cuz i totally took bob's post to mean its the meditation that changes you from the inside out. i have known bob 'le alien for a good while now. and he has been saying that he meditates on death a lot for as long as i have known him. so i believe him when he says he does that.
: what this means to me is that there are times when he actively thinks about dying. about what it would be like. about what would happen after. about what he would leave behind. about who might miss him, or be affected by his going. about what he would become next. about what pieces of his consciousness he would leave behind forever. you know, all that stuff. and as he thinks on these things, turns them over, something happens. he begins looking at the mundane stuff, the everyday stuff, in a new light. in the light of that midwife that is death, in the light of her shining lantern. in the end (i think for me) everything is emmanuel, everything is godiswithus, in the end everything is the perfect sweet narrow path, everything is the perfect one and oneness and light, everything is christ and messiah and god and transformation and sweet basket of complete mercy.
: and anyway back to the meditaion, then the light that shines on us out of this meditation on death gives everything a new sheen so that the stuff that isn't so meaningful after all begins to look a bit wan, and a bit distasteful. we lose our appetite to race down the highway at 75 miles per hour to get to our job hitting keys on a keyboard all day in support of some project we could care less about. or maybe we realize that the mundane things we are doing are just what we are supposed to be doing. whatever the case, somehow the truth that only sweet death can show us ought to enlighten us. we ought to know a bit better who we are in an eternal sense, and then we can pray for the grace that we need so that our life as it is lived in the field of time can be transformed.
: meditation on death = transformation
: meditation on eternity or eternal destiny or the destiny which is beyond time or SWEET DEATH = SUBLIMATION of the pedestrian the mundane the hopelessness the existential reality the life we live inside the FIELD OF TIME
: so that those we leave behind can shout for joy when we go, can weep golden tears, can float along the ceiling as they revel in the hope our lives have revealed
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Now this is a beautiful post, my friend, full of beauty and mystery and promise and power. I can live here; I can soar...
I will print this and hang it up. Thank you.