Saturday, November 23, 2013
About Death
Here’re some thoughts / notes after
attended a talk “Christian Perspective on Death Preparation出生入死 岀死入生"
on 16th Nov 2013 by 庐惠铨牧师 – this is part of a series of talks on “Preparing for Death, Appreciating Life 生死预演”.
on 16th Nov 2013 by 庐惠铨牧师 – this is part of a series of talks on “Preparing for Death, Appreciating Life 生死预演”.
Death is a fact. No one is immortal. Nothing could guarantee
a person would escape bodily death. As
long as there is life, there will be death. And to dust we shall return (Gen
3:19). We cannot control how long or how
short we want to live. We cannot avoid the coming of death.
When a person passes
away, what really dies is the physical body. The soul 灵魂remains, the
soul is alive. The existence of soul explains the mystery of how two persons
can feel connected even though they are physically apart.
Death can be a learning lesson. Remind/teach others to value
life, to live in the present.
Since we cannot avoid death, let’s live fully活得丰盛. Let’s
live in the present活在当下. Living fully and in the
present is more meaningful than thinking of ways to die or ways to avoid death.
Often, a person commits suicide because he/she wants to reduce the pain or
avoid certain problem – it’s not really a desire to die.
Life is happy if we live fully in the present and we live with
hope and faith. Have hope and faith that
our soul lives on and will return to God, our Creator – thus we attain eternal
life 灵魂归属 得到永生.Even if we have to die
tomorrow, we will not be afraid or sad 迎向死亡 不再死亡.
Faith is the only and reliable way to eternal life.
Some interesting
and thought provoking questions/topics during Q&A session:
How and what do we look like after we die? Are we at the
same age and look at the time of death?
The speaker responded with: Does it matter? Are you really concerned about
your look? He then spoke about a dying
friend who refused visitation except visit by selected few people. The dying
friend even contemplated to do away with funeral ritual/memorial service as she
did not want to bother others. The
speaker asked his friend to reconsider: would she be denying the chance for
people who knew her, people whose life she may has touched, to accompany the
last journey with her, to say their goodbyes?
# posted by Mae @ 10:40 PM 
