I'm Not Afraid to Die

“I’m not afraid to die.”  

How often do we hear this?  Have we said it ourselves?  

And smaller “passages”: Letting go of a possession can be, in a sense, letting go of a little bit of one’s life.  Are we becoming a nation of people clinging to money and possessions as some sort of entitlement?  

Let’s say we accept the idea that possession of many things separates us from genuine peace.  In moments like that we can say, from the heart, that we could part with these things and be better off.  

But watch what happens when the time comes.  

It’s entirely another matter when the doctor tells me that I have to give up salt, now, or die.  Perhaps I had been saying that I was cutting back, hopefully, eventually, to the point where I regained my health.  But now??  I’m not ready for that big step.  The time is wrong. 

Here’s where I discover that it’s not the intention that counts so much as the timing.  This has to be my idea.  I have to be ready. It is going to be dreadfully unpleasant, frightening, if I’m not prepared to some degree. 

A mortal injury, an incurable disease, unexpected loss of a loved one, the fire that destroys our property… let’s be honest.  The timing is never right.  I know of only one way to live with this.  

We have made all this stuff a part of ourselves, which is actually a good thing.  But in taking the next step, the feeling of possession, we begin to lose our spiritual health.  By “possession” I mean the exclusion of others.  

How about… making it a habit to pass things on, not letting them sit around and begin sticking to us.  Let’s not just accumulate things, let’s give things away more than we have been doing – a gift to a darling niece or a beloved charity.  Sell stuff, at a profit or a loss, as a frequent habit.  In this way we give of ourselves.  In this way the timing is frequent and joyful and that final act of giving up our life here, is just the last of many.  Perhaps then, when the time comes to go through the gate we won’t have so much baggage holding us back.

~ Neal