Memento Mori

Eternal life or a good death?

We are not here to build nests.
The birds can do that.
Rather, we are here to take our nests
and make of them homes,
vibrant with the qualities of kindness, order, and stability.

We are not here to amass hoards.
The ants can do that.
Rather, we are here to take those stockpiles 
and release them 
into the energy of generosity and compassion. 

And we are not to live forever
but to die well,
releasing to the atmosphere
courage, dignity, and trust.

–Cynthia Bourgeault, from The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart

Over the past few months I have been slowly reading the book The Wisdom Way of Knowing, by wisdom teacher Cynthia Bourgeault. Cynthia invites us to consider a more cosmic and metaphysical understanding of Spirit and what unites us with God and creation. That is a very inadequate summary. 

She offers some well-known criticisms of common Western Christianity, how its binary nature of us/them, in/out, pure/impure separates us further from the Love of God. This quote comes from her chapter on “human alchemy,” or transformation.

It is the last line that sticks with me. We are not to live forever but to die well. Our purpose is not simply to join God after death, but to build homes, share, and spread compassion, generousity, dignity, and love. By doing this, can we have a good death?

What is a good death? In our dominant medicalised image of death, we may immediately think of our physical experience: pain relief, movement, ability to eat, cognition, or ability to communicate.  Here in Canada, these are among many factors when one is requesting Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID), an option for those living with fatal, incurable conditions who choose to end their lives with medication administered by a doctor. When most of us consider our deaths, we want to be free from pain, mobile, and aware.

Life is much more than our physical bodies, and so is death. There are emotional, spiritual, and metaphysical meanings and experiences in life and dying that make the idea of a good death more whole. The Latinised Christian tradition (what is practiced in most of Europe, North America, and many colonised countries) points us towards Christ’s resurrection and triumph over death, bypassing death and straight to an eternal life beaming in the presence of God. And yet, the gospels spend much more time telling of Jesus’ death than of his resurrection. Bypassing death means bypassing mortality, and we lose the gift of treasuring this beautiful ruin of a life that we are each given. 

Memento Mori is Latin for “Remember you must die.” Greek philosophers beginning with Socrates and Plato taught that regularly meditating on our own deaths would help us to live fuller lives, as the urgency of death strengthens our will to take risks and to leave a good legacy. Later, philosophers called the Stoics along with Buddhists look to Memento Mori as a meditation on impermanence. Everything dies. Everyone dies. I will die. I am dying every day that I live. I could die at any time.

So, how do you practice Memento Mori? Are you surprised to learn there is an app for that? It will send you a set number of quotes every day about death as a reminder to consider your own death. You might think about what you value in life, or how you would make a decision if this were your last day on earth. You may ask yourself who are the people you want to see again before you die, and try to reach out to them, or if there are people you want to forgive before you die, or whose forgiveness you hope for. Bourgeault’s words above may be helpful. How are you spending your life? What are you putting into the world?

Compared to most of the world’s cultures, white US American and Canadian societies appear dismissive of death, even the deaths of those we deeply love. For example, in Japan, people mark Obon to remember ancestors and, of course, el Dias de los Muertos in Mexico and Central America. In Germany it is called Tottensontag. The Christian tradition holds November 1 and 2 as All Saints’ and All Souls’ respectively but, for the most part, these have been overtaken by Hallowe’en on October 31. Giving time and attention to those who have died as a communal act could inspire each of us as we remember our deaths and fill our lives with more meaning.

I’m afraid I can not give you the answer to the question, “What is a good death?” That is a deeply personal question, and one we should speak about openly with our loved ones to prepare for end of life decisions. One of the most meaningful conversations I had with my mother was about a year before she died of cancer, when we had to write out directives that would dictate when to resuscitate her and when to stop. We talked about what was important to her in life, her hidden fears, her most committed values, and what she wanted for my brother and I in her last days and after she died. If you want help having or starting that conversation, please be in touch.

As we are nearing the last days of Lent, as I pray for you, I’ll end with another saying we share with one another every Ash Wednesday. 

Remember that you are dust, 
and to dust you shall return.