In this post we conclude our Lenten journey through life's five hard truths. These truths are explored in more detail in Richard Rohr's book Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation. Last week, we talked about the truth that you are not in control​. This week's final truth is that you are going to die. 

No one likes talking about death, particularly our own. Two of the most important liturgies we do all year revolve specifically around death, and unsurprisingly those services--Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, which bookend the season of Lent--are not as well-attended as some other days of special observance. I've talked to some people over the years who specifically avoid those liturgies. People have told me things like, "Why would I go to Good Friday? It makes me too sad." or "I don't see the point of spending that much time talking about death." There are certainly instances where I can sympathize with the avoidance--maybe, for instance, you've recently lost someone you love, and the pain is too acute. On the other hand, I've also encountered people for whom these days are incredibly meaningful. For many the observances help connect them to their own grief, help them see more clearly where they seek change, or help them experience God's solidarity with them in their own suffering even through the tragedy and reality of death.

The two things we have in common with every other human being who ever has or ever will grace this planet is birth and death. Death is simply a part of life, and it connects us with everyone in the world, past, present, and future. Death is something we can spend time being anxious about, or we can accept it in order to gain the freedom truly to live. There it is. Yes, I am going to die. You are going to die. BUT. Not yet. Which raises a big question for us that the poet Mary Oliver pointedly and beautifully asks in her poem "Summer Day":

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Accepting the truth that we are going to die sets us free to ask this question of ourselves: I've got one life to live to the fullest. What will I do with it? 

Richard Rohr makes a point about death that had never occurred to me in quite this way before. He writes, "If God is so patient and merciful and forgiving and accepting with us day after day in this world, which most religions teach, then why not believe the same is true after death?" We believe that "God is love" (1 John 4:8, 4:16). Why wouldn't a God who is love continue to show us love even after death? Rohr continues, "Yes, we are going to die, but we have already been given a kind of inner guarantee and promise right now that death is not final--and it takes the form of love. . . . Love knows love; it completes the circuit. Only love in us can see love over there, which is why God commands us to love. It is not a test or a trial; it is just that until you love yourself, you will not be able to see or allow or enjoy love over there. I call it the principle of likeness. Like recognizes like." In other words, as Rohr later says, "Most simply when we live in love, we will not be afraid to die. We have built a bridge between worlds." 

Maybe this is something like what Jesus means when, in his final discourse to his disciples before he dies in John's gospel account, he says, "“As the Father loved me, I too have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete. This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you" (John 15:9-12, CEB). Jesus commands us to love, always to love, because love is the bridge. 

It's also something like what Paul means when he wrote to the Romans, "I'm convinced that nothing can separate us from God's love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created" (Romans 8:38-39). The beloved (you and me!) cannot be separated from the Lover. 

To quote another poet, W. H. Auden, "Life is the destiny you are bound to refuse until you have consented to die." Acceptance offers perspective on what is truly important. It allow us to say to ourselves, "Yes, you are going to die. BUT. Not yet! You now know what to live for!" Our lives are meant to be lived for one purpose and one purpose only--to love. 

Let's do a quick recap of the five hard truths, and their corollaries which Richard Rohr calls "the common wonderful":
​

1. True, life is hard, BUT grace abounds. (Matthew 11:28-30)
2. True, you are not that important, BUT you know what is important. (Luke 10:20)
3. True, your life is not about you, BUT you are about life. (Colossians 3:4)
4. True, you are not in control, BUT you can trust your true self. (Luke 12:26)
5. True, you are going to die, BUT not yet. You now know what to live for. ​(Romans 8:38-39)

Now that you know the truth, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

We are continuing our Lenten journey through life's five hard truths. These truths are explored in more detail in Richard Rohr's book Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation. Last week, we talked about the truth that life is hard. This week's truth is that you are not that important. 

On my men's retreat last May, during which I learned about these five truths, I had a particularly powerful encounter with this truth. In the last part of the week the leaders sent us all out into the wilderness surrounding the valley where we were staying. Our task was to find a spot where we were completely alone--at least 100 yards away from anyone else. They handed us five envelopes, and every hour or so we were to open one, and to reflect on the contents. Spoiler alert: each envelope was a hard truth. Now, let me say, we'd been working through these all week, so we were somewhat prepared for this, but that didn't make the time easy, necessarily. Envelope #2 contained a card that said, "You are not that important." 

I'd found a nice spot on the slope of a hill that allowed me to see some incredible snowcapped mountains in the distance. Storm clouds rolled over them, and I could even see a little lightning. An awesome sight. Things were calmer in this spot, and I was surrounded by brightly colored yellow flowers that looked a little like sunflowers. As I sat with this truth, a bee would occasionally fly by my head. I'm not afraid to admit that I've not been much of an outdoorsy person, so the bees were giving me a little anxiety. Why were they bothering me? I was swatting at the air as I'd hear them, and it was really starting to get under my skin. I also started to wonder if they were bees at all because the buzzing sounded big! One of my teasing friends reminded me before I left for this trip that Washington state is one of the places people had found murder hornets during the previous year. I'm out there all alone, and I begin to imagine myself being attacked by murder hornets thanks to my good friend. What a friend, huh? And what a chicken I am, huh?

At some point, the bees got annoying enough that I got up off of the blanket I'd packed and walked around a little. I saw some of the bees pollenating the flowers and begin really to observe them. After stopping at a flower or two I'd see them fly off, and I noticed they were flying off in the direction of my blanket, and right over it. That is when it hit me. These bees didn't care about me. At all. They were not flying around trying to bother me. They were simply doing their job, and I was sitting in the flight path.

The Holy Spirit then lightly slapped the back of my head. "Guess what, Rob--you're not that important."

​That storm over those mountains, these bees, the flowers--you don't matter a whit to any of it. They're all on the "Be Team": "they be here before you arrived, they be here now, and they be here when you're gone." You are not that important. 

Two things washed over me during that hour, and frankly for the rest of the day and beyond: 1) in the grand scheme of God's wide creation, I am insignificant. Yet, 2) at the same time, I am a part of it all. More than one thing can be true at one time. It's true, then, that you and I are not that important. BUT, as a part of a creation that God calls "very good" (Genesis 1:31), as people made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), as God's beloved children (Galatians 4:4-7), you and I are infinitely important. 

The world tells us that life is what you make of it. Make your own way. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Your worth is in what you produce. What's one of the first questions we usually ask someone we've just met? "What do you do?" Our American culture in particular loves the self-made person. This world is all about doing in order to show our value. Spirituality is not about doing--it's about being. You are not valuable to God because of what you do for God or others. Your value in God's eyes is not earned. It's inherent. 

In Adam's Return, Richard Rohr writes, "If there is no list of names in eternity, we are burdened with making our own personal name day after day. Either we are made by another or we must be self-made. Then it is every [person for themselves], dog eat dog, as we vie with one another for a zero-sum dignity and importance. If you have it, then I don't, or I will use you for my measuring stick. In either case, I am lost in comparison, envy, competition, and codependency. Spirituality: if you have it, I do too, and if I have it, you do too. Authentic spirituality is an experience of abundance and mutual flourishing instead of scarcity. Material gifts and ego gifts decrease with usage, whereas spiritual gifts actually increase with each use, in ourselves and in those around us" (p. 155-156). 

I kept one of the yellow flowers from that hillside. A friend of mine is helping me to enclose it epoxy so I can keep it with me always. I need it to remind me of the truth: you are not that important. BUT, "you have been given new birth—not from the type of seed that decays but from seed that doesn't. This seed is God's life-giving and enduring word. Thus, 'All human life on the earth is like grass, and all human glory is like a flower in a field. The grass dries up and its flower falls off, but the Lord's word endures forever.' This is the word that was proclaimed to you as good news" (1 Peter 1:23-25). 

You are not that important. BUT. at the same time you are infinitely important. And as we grow, we discover what truly is important.