Memento Mori

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, Ash Wednesday

Keep death daily before your eyes. That is what Saint Benedict wrote in his rule for monks. And early Christian monastics of all sorts found innovative ways to do it. Some took up a scoop of dirt from their eventual graves and kept it nearby. Some, in fact, slept in their coffins. Some built their own shroud, a few stitches at a time taken day by day by day throughout their adult lives.

 

These are memento mori. That is, reminders that they, we, and everyone are going to die.

 

In the Episcopal Church, we get ashes on our foreheads, but we only do it once a year. I’m not so sure that is enough. Indeed, I’ve really been struck this year by the understanding that many of our spiritual fathers and mothers taught that we need a daily reminder of our mortality.

 

I have long said I’m not afraid to die. I’ve lived a good life. Life doesn’t owe me anything. I know who I belong to and where I’m going… but not a clue, of course, as to what the next place actually looks like… Nevertheless, I’m not afraid to die.

 

At the same time, however, I struggle to conceive of the world without me. Maybe that’s because I’ve been pretty healthy all my life, but… somehow, it seems I’ll just go on and on, like the Energizer bunny! I cannot conceive of the world going on without me, but of course it will. 

 

Phillippe de Champaigne, Vanitas

 

So consider a Lenten discipline of giving yourself a daily reminder that you are going to die—a memento mori. Make it real. Write about it in a journal, or wear something—maybe a skull pin or pendant, or an hourglass to remind yourself that time is running out.

 

And why? Why should we remind ourselves that we are going to die? Why make it a daily spiritual practice?

 

We already know at least some of the answers to that. We are all in this room old enough to have experienced death—not yet of ourselves, but of someone close to us. And we probably know that it does wonders for focusing our attention on priorities. When death is before your eyes, we know at least temporarily what is important and what is not important.

 

Perhaps keeping our own death daily before our eyes will indeed rearrange our lives, teach us to make better choices about how we spend our time, and our talent and even our money.

 

Keeping our own death daily before our eyes is also a way of healthy and appropriate letting go of those things that are so destructive to living a full and rich life. How much time will we invest in holding onto a grudge, stubbornly refusing to forgive, beating up ourselves with regret… while contemplating our own death? Not much, I hope.

 

How about awaking us anew to the value of life itself and to the transient beauty that surrounds us? Like trillium, this most beautiful wildflower that blooms for only a few weeks in the early spring. Now! Go see it now, because by the middle of March it will be gone. Without a trace.

 

Trillium

The poet E.B. Browning said it like this:

 

Earth's crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God; and only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.

Another author whose reflections I often read in preparing a sermon is Suzanne Guthrie. She wrote:

 

But if I look at the life cycle of a butterfly, eggs in foaming spit, hatching to worm, to caterpillar (chewing my passion vine into lace!) to silky cocoon, to a completely new creature of iridescent color that flies to the nectar in the flowers, lays eggs and dies, I see a whole of which I am a part. As are my beloved dead. Everything interconnects. I remember I am dust.

 

Maybe keeping our own death before us helps us to be joyful, content and attuned to the present, to cherish every moment that we draw breath? To love God for God alone? For no other motive than to love for love’s sake?

 

Remember, you are going to die.

 

This Muslim prayer is mine today:

 

O Lord, may the end of my life be the best of it; may my closing acts be my best acts, and may the best of my days be the day which I shall meet Thee.

 

  In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.