The Illusion of Life and Death by Clare Goldsberry;

Author:Clare Goldsberry;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)
Published: 2021-12-07T18:33:00+00:00

9

Learning to Embrace What Is

In the twenty-first century we die in the embrace of hope. It burns like a perpetual fire; we expect that somehow it will save us, heal us, and bring us back into a life that we desire, not the fearsome slipping and sliding into darkness that only holds the promise of light. Hope, not religion, is the opiate of human beings. In the face of terminal illness, this hope takes the form of pills, surgery, chemotherapy, and other manmade cures that often do not work very well and only cause more suffering. Hope stands just out of reach, yet we keep grasping at it, clinging to life even if that life is filled with pain, agony, and sorrow so deep that it pulls us into the pits of hell. With every pill, every surgery, and every round of chemo, we believe we finally have reached the end of our pain and sorrow. But not yet! The pain continues, and people endure it because hope hangs bright and shining as the evening star, just out of reach. We grasp for it and watch it fade.

Hope arises from the Judeo-Christian worldview. The apostle Paul says that faith, hope, and love are the three major attributes of the Christian, and he adds that the greatest of these is love. Where does that leave faith and hope? When we become ill, many people say that having enough faith will bring healing. But is healing always about getting well? Can people be healed and yet remain in their illness? Of course!

Hope is future thinking. It is a form of wishful thinking that takes us beyond the now into some undefined place in the future, where we hope things will somehow be better than they are today. Hope feeds our suffering when we want things to be different. Hope is ambiguous. We hope for the best. We hope for health and healing. “I hope that everything is okay,” we might say, when in actuality we need to shorten that sentence to “Everything is.”

I have a friend who is very tuned into the spiritual. Whenever I ask her, “How are you?” she replies, “I am.” I think that just about says it all. She is. No judgment about whether or not she is good or bad. She just is. Many times, particularly since Brent’s death, people have asked, “How are you?” and I’ve replied, “I’m doing well,” when I really am not. I’d like to scream, “I’m terrible! I feel sad! I’m feeling lonely!” But I don’t want to burden people with my feelings of sadness or loneliness, so I just reply, “I’m fine.” In reality, like all of the rest of us, I am.

Hope, as Pema Chödrön writes, is something to hold on to. It’s the offering of theism. “Theism,” she writes, “is a deep-seated conviction that there’s some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. It means thinking that there’s always a babysitter available when we need one.

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