My Grandfather’s Column
What IS this Christian hope?
I ended my last piece by saying that Christians were supposed to live in hope as well as in faith and love. We hope that we are going somewhere, that we are on a journey which will in time lead us to unending joy. We, like our Jewish predecessors, have always though of our life as a kind of pilgrimage, a journey with a goal ahead of us. It’s not an easy journey that we take and we often take wrong turnings but we firmly believe that in spite of any failures on the way we shall at last reach the goal. The goal lies the other side of death.
My two favourite wise men have written more eloquently of death than I possibly could. Here are thoughts of the Christian mystic Anthony de Mello: “Why should I be afraid of death? I am happy that my candle should be extinguished when the daylight has come.”
A bit more extensively I quote from Kahlil Gibran (who was not a Christian): “In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid on him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?.. Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
When the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”
–Peter Graham
peter.graham[at]bucklandnewton[dot]com
David N. Scott:
June 17th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Anthony David Graham:
June 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Hello Dad
Your two quoted authors write with a poetic eloquence – but (for me) without any persuasive force.
I see the huge importance of hope – but feel that its greatest significance lies in its connection with attitudes and behaviour on earth. A wide range of goals and the jouney here, strike me as the challenge we face – while we are flesh. I can see a central importance to hope and love – but that relates to life before, not after my candle is snuffed. My incentive is to try to do what is right while I am alive
- not to be working towards some “unending joy” beyond the grave.
Love to you
Tony x
offpat:
June 24th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
My favourite mystic quote is from a living guy (liberation theologist as it happens) who was always being asked about life after death – he tended to look at the questioner with a quizzical smile – “just try and concentrate on living life here and now, life before death is what we need to focus on”…
wise words I reckon