October 26 2019
DEATH.
If you don’t like reading about DEATH (and most people don’t), you can skip this, but you can’t skip death.
But first, some money-news.
Last week all the financial brains in the world were in DC: Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, Christine Lagarde, still head of the International Monetary Fund, but soon taking over from Mario Draghi, head of the ECB, the European Central Bank. Of course he was there too – as well as Jerome Powell, ruling the Federal Reserve in Washington, just to name the head ponchos in our financial world. They were there to listen to Mervyn King, he ruled the Bank of England for many years, which earned him the LORD title. Canadian Mark Carney succeeded him six years ago.
When I read the comments on his speech, I was astounded: he warned that unless we adopt policies that enhance growth, we are heading for collapse.
Lord King’s speech reminded me of a Latin saying: Pariuntur montes, nascetur ridiculus mus: The mountains copulated – the big shots of the world gathered – and a tiny mouse was born – and the result was a total flop.
In his speech Mervyn King did not mention the consequences of Climate Change but later Mark Carney did. He said that business as usual will lead to a temperature increase of FOUR DEGREES CELSIUS, in other words: COLLAPSE, DEATH.
We are caught in an impossible situation: the world economy will collapse if there is no growth. It also will collapse when there IS growth. Take your pick. Business wants growth. No economic school of thought, except Herman Daly, former economist with the World Bank, taught in the Universities, deals with a No-Growth Society.
Just imagine having TV commercials (paid by the government, of course) pleading not to buy automobiles, not to buy Jet Skis, or not to travel to exotic destinations. Impossible, of course, but having no TV commercials signals the death of TV. That’s alright with me, but it’s the life-line for most people – or should I say death-trap?
But I digress.
The economy will remain a competitive battlefield with one company vying to best the other, with GM vying for prominence over the Japanese manufacturers, while they will try to outdo the Koreans. And then there are the many billions who, exposed to the clamorous lifestyles shown on TV want to enjoy the benefits of the wealthy Westerners.
So brace for sudden collapse, something nobody is prepared for, just as very few realistically face the collapse of one’s vital organs, more commonly known as death.
You know what set me off to write an article on DEATH?
Well, it was an Israeli academic. He discovered that we mortals can visualize the death of others, but not our own going to the grave.
That’s because, researchers say, our brains do their best to keep us from dwelling on our inevitable demise. A study found that the brain shields us from existential fear by categorizing death as an unfortunate event that only befalls other people.
“The brain does not accept that death is related to us,” said Yair Dor-Ziderman, at Bar Ilan University in Israel. “We have this primal mechanism that means when the brain gets information that links self to death, something tells us it’s not reliable, so we shouldn’t believe it.”
We have that saying: ”Only death and taxes are sure.” We give credence to the taxes, but the reference to death we ignore.
I am not a psychologist so I have no professional qualifications to comment on this, but, with more than 91 years of living experience, it seems to me that the phenomenon not to dwell on death stems from what I could call the Paradise Syndrome, where people were initially created to live forever.
Sin and Death.
Sin and Death are intimately connected. The Bible says somewhere that “The wages of sin is death,” or in plain English, The wages, the true reward or compensation for going against God`s commandments is death: Sinning against Creation leads to death.
Why do I call it “sin against creation?”
It is curious that the Bible relates how sin involved two items: Trees and Food. The human pair mentioned in Genesis had been given specific instructions about fruit trees, described as ‘beautiful to look at and good for food.’ Their specific assignment was to maintain these standards, with enhancing the garden, making it more beautiful, having priority.
There were plenty of other sources for food in the garden, so abundant, in fact, that obtaining nourishment became a secondary matter, while creational enhancement was the divine priority.
BUT……..
But by preferring food over artful decoration this has become the original sin, now manifest in ‘the lust for money as the root of all evil’, and thus the true cause of death.
Sin and death are synonymous. We don’t like the word ‘sin’, that’s also the reason why we don’t like the word ‘death’ and avoid thinking about it, preferring to live in the present. That’s also why we don’t want to hear about the ‘death of nature’.
About 30 years ago Bill McKibben wrote “The End of Nature.” I bought the book in February 1990. All the writings, all the warnings, the ever more dire predictions, have made no difference: we refuse to think about death, we refuse to think about “The End, the DEATH of Nature, the agony and final gasp of Creation.”
That is also the reason why church has become so unpopular: if it is true to its calling, the church deals with death, the death of Christ, the death of humanity, the death of creation, the death on the cross, but also the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.
Today we live in a culture of death. THE SIXTH EXTINCTION, written by Elizabeth Kolbert, has been listed as one of the most important book of the 21st Century. It tells us that over the last half billion years there have been five major mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. We, you and I, we have induced the Sixth Extinction: we have altered life on earth to the point of death for everything that lives: we have created a death culture: death of insects, of birds, of mammals, of trees, the list goes on.
Where in Paradise, the Garden of Eden, food was for the taking, we have made it into an industry, but……… it now takes 10 carbon – death dealing – calories to bring one ONE food calorie to the table, unless you grow your own. The only way to stop Global Heating is to stop eating, which means that there is no solution, no matter what the politicians and experts say: we have created a culture of death, and it started with agriculture.
Today animal agriculture is one of the highest sources of greenhouse emissions. Starting a vegetarian diet is now our God-given duty. Sorry farmers. It’s also our future in the New Creation: cutting out meat is a simple, but necessary small first step toward eternity. And it ensures LIFE. We, my wife and I have avoided meat for more than 40 years and our physical health is excellent.
Yet we will die, but we live in the hope of eternal life.
I have tried to describe that phase in the book I wrote, DAY WITHOUT END. There I visualized the End of the World, an event coming totally unexpected, yet predicted in the Bible time and again: “like a thief in the night”, with “merchandize piling up – Revelation 18: 11 – and the Amazon warehouses and Walmart stores – the two main employers in the USA – chockful with stuff”. The drones still active, delivering stuff people don’t need, bought with money they don’t have, a typical description of the American economy.
Here’s how in DAY WITHOUT END – available at LULU.com for less than $10.00, – I describe this last day:
“Suddenly there was a blinding light, like lightning, but not one streak, thousands of them, surrounding us with streams of fire flashing to the earth. Trees were struck, but instead of bursting into flames they simply dissolved. Like a rapidly rewinding film, they shrank from full-grown to seedlings, dwindling to seeds buried in the earth. Uncreated. The highway along which we walked melted, not into a puddle of hot tar, but right to dust; concrete and asphalt reduced to their basic elements. Cars dissolved, even as they moved. And the people in them? Gone. Evaporated. A little wisp of smoke was all that was left. Or was it a trail of dust?
“We didn’t say a word. We didn’t even have time to wonder why all this was happening before the intense heat engulfed us, too. There was no pain, no discomfort, just purifying fire. I remember smiling as I faded away. My last glance was toward the sky, where I could see the sun, blackened as if all its fire had descended to earth, and the moon, too, was different: a dark, bloody red. I felt my body glow, and then I fell asleep, warm and cozy.
“All this was accompanied by glorious sound: the all-pervasive resonance of a trumpet. At least it sounded like the music of a single instrument. Some virtuoso player repeated the same theme in innumerable variations: wake up; reveille; rise from your sleep; the hour has come. It was as if the very energy of God was conveyed in these notes, penetrating to the very bottom of the seas and the very top of the mountain peaks: the universe was simply saturated with this utterly compelling rhythm.”
That’s how I envisioned what the Bible calls, The Day of the Lord.
THE DAY OF THE LORD!
Until now, on this very day while I am writing this, the day does not belong to the Lord, even as we used to call Sundays “The Day of the Lord”. 1John 5:19 unequivocally states that “The Evil One is in charge.” That’s why the Day of the Lord is needed to reclaim creation!” The Bible pulls no punches there:
“See, the day of the LORD is coming –a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger– to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it”, says Isaiah 13:9.
On Climate Change we are staring death in the face.
We all are somewhat acquainted with Handel’s Messiah, especially the Hallelujah Chorus. There also is another line in that oratorio: “But who can endure the day of his (Christ) coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire. (Malachi 3: 2).
Prepare the Way of the Lord.
Another musical comes to mind, God-Spell, in which John the Baptist sings: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”, repeating that line Twelve times, increasing the tempo and the music volume. “Prepare the way of the Lord”, the opening words of that enchanting and up-to-date melodious play, is s timely reminder to us, more urgent than ever.
How do we prepare ourselves for the most epoch-changing event ever? There’s nothing that even remotely compares to this literary world-shaking event.
Oh, yes, there already are many indications! Right now Climate Change is one of them. Another is the disappearance of organized religion, and the increasing godlessness. Also the deaths of wild mammals, as well as ….. you fill it in.
How do we prepare? Pray for the Lord’s coming: pray without ceasing, and believe that your prayer will be heard: THAT’s the only WAY to overcome DEATH AND LIVE!
Be faithful to his creation. The first human pair as described in early Genesis took God’s world for granted, preferring possessions over beauty. Nietzsche, that misunderstood genius, cried out in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “I entreat you, brothers, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of super terrestrial hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not…..To blaspheme the earth is now the most dreadful offence”.
We have not honored God in his creation, ensuring DEATH for all that lives: the wages of sin is death.
Loving Christ, who loved creation so much that he died to restore it, and for us loving Christ and his creation, is the only way to LIFE.