As my mom is approaching her 60s, I think she's more and more aware of her own mortality. My neighbour's family recently hanged a white cloth on the front door. I did not even realise this until my mom mentioned it. (This neighbour who died probably is of similar age to my mom, coz her daughter is around the same age as me.)
As I'm recently reading all these books on life and death, I'm thinking what I can do to help my mom. She's a Christian, but she's still kinda afraid of dying. (I guess everyone is, to a certain extent, worried about things we're not sure about.) The things I told her seemed to fall on deaf ears. (e.g. God is faithful, I'm sure He'll take care of us when we die.) She's a "better" Christian than me, in my opinion, maybe it's the age, if I were at her age, I might feel the same way?! I'm not sure.
In Down-to-earth Spirituality, Richard John Neuhaus was quoted, "It used to be said that the Victorians of the nineteenth century talked incessantly about death but were silent about sex, whereas today we talk incessantly about sex and are silent about death."
And R Paul Stevens suggested a few points on how to prepare for dying in our lives.
1. We must repudiate the death denial of contemporary Western culture.
2. The idea of dual citizenship in Christianity ( I like this in particular. "We are equidistant from eternity every moment of our life from conception to resurrection.")
3. Numbering our days means treating every day as a gift.
4. Everyday hardships give us an opportunity to learn to "die daily".
5. We can practise progressive relinquishment.
Are we ready to die today?
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