Faith and Values: Traditions, faith, lessons bring us on different paths to understanding and preparing for death
In March, I lost two longtime friends: one in Arizona, the other in Colorado. Bruce was my boss for several years. We’d remained friends for decades. Pete was a friend for nearly 60 years. The differences between their deaths was striking, partly, I believe, because of how their respective “faiths” may have influenced the way they approached death.
By coincidence, my wife Jolie (85) and I (88) completed our own funeral arrangements in March. We had a great time sharing each step with our three children and their spouses. For example, after getting a preliminary cost estimate, we decided to shop the internet.
After some research we had a casket shipped to our home, saving several hundred dollars. When it arrived, we checked it out – for quality, not for fit. The all-wood pine box seems perfect for our simple needs. A week later the company offered a Valentine’s Day special: Buy one for your sweetheart, use the code LOVED1, save $100. So we did. Both caskets, now in the barn, await future use. Then we finalized our arrangements and selected grave sites. All in all, we were able to shave several thousand dollars from the initial estimate for the two of us. We also relieved our kids of many decisions. And we learned the difference between “casket” and “coffin”: a casket has six sides, a coffin, eight.
John Donne’s 1609 meditation, “Death, be not proud,” explores why death is overrated. It concludes, “One short sleep past, we wake eternally / And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.” Emily Dickinson’s charming whimsey dispels death’s solemnity: “Because I could not stop for Death –/ He kindly stopped for me.”
These, and other, views of death from disparate sources, times and places seem to converge on a perspective that uplifts the soul. Baha’u’llah wrote, “I have made death a messenger of joy to thee. Wherefore dost thou grieve?”
As I contemplate my recent loss of friends, I don’t know what Bruce believed about an afterlife. He never discussed it with me or with his wife, as she explained during his last weeks. Pete, however, had a strong Christian faith.
Bruce, in his final months, endured multiple physical and mental problems, which made him uncooperative with caregivers. His wife and I believe his suffering was partly because Bruce appeared to have little or no faith. He seemed to be fighting death. At the end he was frightened.
Similarly, Pete’s health had been declining for several years. One night he and his wife were reading in bed. Pete turned out his light and rolled onto his pillow. When his wife noticed he didn’t look comfortable, she tried to move him. Pete had died.
What happens next? Jolie and I have made arrangements for our material bodies, but the overarching unknown is, “What and where is that uncertain world of joy promised by most scriptures?” Do we exist and reunite in a timeless, spaceless abode where past trillions of souls preceded us? We don’t know because we can’t.
Cultural traditions, learned as children, define and sometimes limit our vision and understanding. We learn of the Great Spirit, Allah, God, Yahweh, the Omniscient One, and infinitely more names and titles identifying the indescribable, each circumscribed by time and place of its origin.
Some of us follow the ways of our ancestral cultures. Others totally reject the notion of God, whatever the name. Still others test the waters of many faiths, eventually choosing one. Many seek until they die. Choosing the Baha’i faith six decades ago prepared us for arranging our first steps into the placeless.
Armed with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, Pete Haug plunged into journalism fresh out of college. That career lasted five years while he reported for a metropolitan daily, edited a rural weekly and worked in industrial and academic public relations. Pete’s columns on the Baha’i faith represent his own understanding and not any official position.