Final endings. And new beginnings.

I’ve thought about grief and death a lot this year. Not by choice. Really, who would think about those things by choice? No, this year I’ve lost people who have impacted my life in a real and personal way.

Death is the last great taboo in my culture – at least one of them anyway. Talk about gay marriage, human cloning, genetically modified animals (even humans), that’s fine. Even vampirism (the real blood-sucking kind) has lost its stigma. But don’t talk about death.

The problem is, all of those other things probably don’t affect most of us in a very tangible way. But we all have to die someday. One day the world will remember us no more. And even if we do something so dramatic that it changes the face of the world as we know it, that’s no guarantee of our name living on beyond our mortal lives. How many young adults really know who the first person in space was, or who invented electricity? How many know who Stalin or Hitler were, or of the millions of lives they were responsible for extinguishing? You’d probably be lucky to find a teenager who knows the names of both our Prime Minister and our Premier – hey, I have enough trouble remembering!

Yes, we’re all going to die – and eventually be forgotten.

I was walking through St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne a few days ago, contemplating life after receiving news that morning that a friend had passed away two months ago. I didn’t know, and so I have missed the funeral. I’m not upset that I wasn’t informed – there were many others who knew him better than I. Probably not many people knew that he wasn’t just an old professor of mine, but that I once worked with him; or that over the last several years we caught up every few months or so for a cuppa and some wonderful conversation; or that he included me on his postcard list when he went away. Probably he impacted my life far more than I impacted his – that was the sort of person he was. He was exceedingly generous with his time and his knowledge.

He will be sorely missed by the academic community and he has left an amazing legacy of published knowledge and ground-breaking research behind. Having received official decorations, his name will probably live on longer than most. And I am struggling with the grief that I feel at his passing.

Maybe it is because of the wonderful person he was and how he touched my life. Maybe it’s worse because I have also attended the funerals of my 29 year old cousin and my father-in-law in the second half of this year following tragically unprepared for deaths. Maybe it’s because I am not able to share the grief with others, having missed the funeral, and having scarce contact with anyone else who knew him in a similar way. Possibly some may think my grief disproportionate to the situation.

We really don’t do death very well here. You’re allowed to cry for a while if it was an immediate family member, especially if they died ‘before their time’. But don’t show too much emotion if it’s not, and certainly not after the funeral. Pull yourself together and get on with it – at least in public.

We don’t know what to do with someone who is broken down and crying. We pat them sympathetically and look awkward. Particularly if it’s a year or two after the event, or if it was an unborn child that ‘never really was’ anyway. Allowing our grief to touch us means that we have to think about what is causing us to grieve in the first place.

It’s not just the confrontation of losing people deeply cared about, it’s the confrontation with death itself, and the reminder that everything is temporary. The world looks nothing like it did a few hundred years ago, and in a few hundred more it will look completely different again. That’s if it even lasts that long, if those apocalyptic films are anything to go by.

It’s not just about the loss of things that were and things that could have been, and things that will never be. It’s about coming face to face with the reality that our time here is brief and fleeting – dust blowing around in the wind.

And what are we here for anyway? Is it to build a multi-national business empire or invent something that will change the lives of people after us? People that will forget who we were anyway. In any case, will it REALLY change their lives? After all, they too will die one day. It could all seem quite pointless if you think about it too much.

That’s if this life on earth, ending in death, is all that there is.

If I believed that, I think I would sink into an irreversibly deep depression. People I love will continue to die. I will die. I will be forgotten.

No, there has to be more. I know there is more. I am not here by accident, but by design. I have been lovingly crafted by the Creator who Loves. Who loves me DESPITE who I am or what I have done. Who will be waiting for me on the other side of death’s door with open arms and a life that will never come to an end. So I have no need to fear death for myself.

But what of the ones I love? Will they be with me there when they pass through this door? More than the thought of losing them in this life, I fear the thought of not having them after death.

But God makes it very clear that we all have our own choices to make in this life, we all have a free will, and we all have the ability to choose well (Romans 2:14-16). God did not make us automatons, but agents of free will. God is the God of freedom, not captivity.

As much as I dread the thought, not everyone I love will choose the same path as me. I cannot make anyone choose my path – where would be the freedom in that? All I can do is live my chosen life in an exemplary way that makes people want what I have. I want people to hunger after the peace and contentment I’ve found even when things around me seem so rocky and full of despair. I’d be only too happy to share those things with them.

As we prepare for our ‘Mission’, this is what I think it really means. I do not plan to go anywhere to change people. I can’t do that, only God can. I set out to go wherever I go, being who I am. And who I am is someone who has found freedom, contentment and peace, knowing where my path is ultimately leading.