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Return to Home Page Return to Book Contents & Summary LIVING BELIEF - CHAPTER 7 AND BEYOND: THE SELF RELEASED We have looked at the main Christian beliefs in
order to see how these may illuminate the events and stages of a person’s
life journey. In the light of the
Creation doctrine and of the scientific knowledge concerning our origins, a
traveler may understand that he and his journey began with the birth of the
universe, and he may believe that he and his destiny are part of all that
lives or has ever lived. He may
see himself as a gift made in the image of his Creator, given from all those
who came before him, to be of benefit to all who will come after.
This would offer the traveller a very positive picture of himself and
his value, and of the world and its goodness.
But in the doctrine of Original Sin he is offered an insight into the
manifest suffering and evil in the world and an understanding of the
difficulties each of us has in growing physically, mentally, emotionally,
socially, morally – difficulties which form the basis of much of the work of
psychology and the social sciences. In the doctrine of Salvation the traveller may find
a deeper understanding of the common human belief, now borne out by
psychological studies, that we can grow as human beings only if we are given
love. The doctrine of Incarnation
affirms the psychologist’s view that love enables us to establish a proper
identity, but it extends it in declaring that our true and full self-image is
nothing less than that of God. The
Trinity doctrine confirms what most people appear to feel in their hearts,
that persons growing together in love are the ultimate good, the meaning of
all that exists and the purpose of our journey.
This is the absolute value which we see defended by all good people as
they fight against greed and injustice, and against war, poverty, vice and
cruelty. The doctrine of the
Church is the sign of this task for all Christians; in the Holy Spirit they
are moved to oppose evil and alleviate suffering in celebrating, declaring and
demonstrating God’s love for the world.
So have we
now had a complete explanation of
Christian beliefs, and the full story of human growth?
Hardly. To suggest that
would once again be to turn truth into a finite possession, and religion into
superstition and idolatry. As we
have said right from the beginning of this work, the portrayal of the
Christian doctrines in terms of love and persons, and the comparison of this
with the findings of science, is just one way of expressing what those beliefs
might tell us about ourselves. Those
terms and comparisons may offer a truth-full and helpful understanding,
fitting what people believe about themselves and addressing the questions and
confusion they express about the apparent clash between science and religion.
But there may be other and better models for making sense from the
doctrines. In no way have we
tidied the matter up, explaining, defining and describing the facts about God,
the world and ourselves. Whenever
anyone has suggested that this has been done, the result has been to take from
people their right and duty to seek constantly for better religious
understanding. If the pictures
and comparisons we have suggested illuminate the doctrines and make it easier
for people to use them in their search for truth, the purpose has been served. It is equally important that we should not think
that we have described the end and fulfillment of a person’s life when we
have shown him as possessing his self-image and loving his neighbour as
himself. The work by Erikson from which we have quoted is
entitled ‘The Life Cycle Completed’, and in it he examines the whole of
the life span, from infancy to old age. At
one time developmental psychology looked only at the growth of the person up
to maturity, and it was Erikson who was influential in suggesting that
psychological development goes on throughout the whole of life.
In this particular book he presents the eight stages of life in reverse
order, beginning with old age. He
does this in order to stress the point that each stage contributes to those
that follow; the final stage is therefore seen as the one which is derived
from and sums up all that has gone before. As we have seen, Erikson proposes that there are
essential qualities which emerge at each stage from the struggle between
positive and negative tendencies. The
opposing tendencies in the crisis of the last stage he describes as integrity
versus despair, and the strength which should emerge from this struggle is
that of wisdom. If the struggle
is lost, Erikson suggests that the resulting state is that of disdain or
disgust. To put it in other
words, in old age we have the tendency to see our lives as coming together in
wholeness, or as falling apart into meaninglessness.
If we follow the latter path we will end our lives in self-disgust and
contempt for all that we have known. But
if integrity wins the struggle, then we approach the end of life in a state
which Erikson calls wisdom, and he relates this back to the very first stage
at the opening of life. The basic
trust there which produced the strength of hope, which in turn permitted the
development of faith and faithfulness in adolescence, Erikson now sees
emerging into a mature hopefulness and a new and deeper faith.
Let us suppose that the traveler has found his true
self, has loved that self properly, and has given from that self to others.
He has done his best to love without limits, even or especially when he
receives nothing in return. But
now he has come to the last, perhaps the most challenging, stage of life.
Now he must begin to give up that self which was so hard for him to
find and establish. It is true
that once he had achieved a good self-image he was able to forget himself and
to turn outward towards others; to that extent he has already loosened his
first anxious hold on his selfhood. But
now he has really to relax that hold, and to let go of the comfort and
security of believing he knows who he is and where he is heading.
Now as the power he had over his own life diminishes, he must learn to
trust in the goodness of God. Up to now the traveller’s journey through life
may have been hard, uncertain work, but now it becomes a journey towards
darkness and mystery. If he feels
that he has arrived finally at a warm, well-lit and comfortable destination,
then we may be sure that his journey is incomplete.
A person may believe, and be encouraged by some in his Church to
believe, that he has reached his destination when he is living a good and
loving life, obeying the ‘rules’ consequent upon that love, giving without
limits. He may find it hard to
accept that he must now loosen his hold on all this.
He must learn to have everything taken from him, little by little or
more suddenly, and he must learn to give it all up willingly and with love.
This stage of letting-go may be the hardest test of his faith, hope and
love.
3.
WE MUST PRACTICE THE ART OF LETTING GO We are speaking of this letting-go rather
artificially in talking about it as a final stage occurring at the end of a
long and fruitful life, because of course this is not really how it happens.
All of us suffer some losses throughout our lives, and some have to
give up a great deal very early, in losing someone close to them, or when
work, home, possessions are taken from them, or when they lose their health
through accident or disease. If we have been able to accept such losses then we will be
better prepared to deal with the task that faces us in our last age.
This may all sound very negative to us when we are in the midst of
enjoying our life, but in fact it is potentially the most positive and
fulfilling of all the stages of our existence.
This is recognized in the Eastern religious traditions which describe
the first three ages of man, the student, the family man, the business man, as
only preparatory, to be discarded once the person has entered the ultimate
stage, that of withdrawal, contemplation and wisdom. Today people live longer and have in general better
resources than those in generations past, and they may be able to enjoy many
years of secure and comfortable retirement.
Yet even for these fortunate people there will be increasingly losses.
Retirement itself, however welcome, can bring not only reduced earnings
but also a loss of status and respect. Older
people are much better able to look after their health now than in the past
but there must eventually be some loss of vigor, of acuteness of hearing and
eyesight, of mental and physical abilities.
For many, loss of independence causes considerable suffering, when they
find themselves less able to get about, or becoming a burden on relatives, or
living among strangers in a home. For
most of us the loss of family, of old friends, of our partner, is the hardest
to bear. If we try to pretend that none of this will happen
to us, if we spend our lives clutching at our possessions, our health, our
loved ones, it can only tear us apart when they are taken from us. If you hold something tightly in your hand and I pull it from
you, you will be hurt: but if you open your hand, you will not.
You will still suffer the loss, but you will not have a part of
yourself torn away with it. We
have to learn as early in life as we can that everything is lent to us, to be
held always with open hands. But
from all that has been said we know that this cannot be possible unless and
until a person has a sufficient feeling of his self-worth, because until that
is the case he will try to hold on to things and people to reassure himself.
Loss can only damage a person who does not have the security and sound
self-image to cope with it. A
child who loses her mother may not be able to let her go until much later in
her life, when she has come to terms with herself.
4.
GROWTH THROUGH LOVING AND LETTING GO Someone who has a proper self-image can begin to
let go as and when he has to, and can prepare himself for all the letting-go
that must come. This does not
mean that we are not to appreciate and enjoy our achievements and pleasures,
our homes and our health, or that we are not to love our family and friends.
On the contrary it should help us to value them more truly when we
accept that they are not possessions but gifts, freely given, to be received
with gratitude and released without resentment. It is wrong and harmful to believe that suffering
is good in itself. Unfortunately
there are elements in some of the religious traditions which would suggest
otherwise. In Hindu teaching, for
instance, it can be understood that suffering is the result of bad deeds in a
former life, and that it is therefore ‘deserved’ as a punishment.
But such a belief could surely give rise to an acceptance of others’
suffering, even to a callous attitude towards it, in the supposition that it
is just and good for them. In the Islamic faith it would be possible to see suffering as
something imposed by God to test our obedience, and indeed this is a view
which has found expression in Judaism and Christianity, as we shall see.
It is difficult to see how anyone could reconcile the belief in a good
God, as it is expressed in the biblical story of Creation which each of these
religions reveres, with a picture of him as testing someone’s goodness by
giving cancer to a child. The whole of the Buddhist faith, however, is based
upon the Buddha’s profound understanding of the problem of suffering.
He taught that everything in life is a source of suffering, even the
good things, since we may either not obtain them or must inevitably lose them.
Our suffering arises from our desire to have and to hold, and our
unwillingness to accept that this is impossible.
The Buddha said that happiness and peace lie in learning to give up
this craving for what we cannot possess. The biblical writers have offered a variety of
views on suffering, all of which have had some influence on Jewish and
Christian thinking on the subject, although not all could be said to be of
equal value. The Psalmist, for
instance, offers a rather fairy-tale picture (Psalm 37) when he declares that
the good enjoy happiness in this world while the evil suffer.
Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, suggests the more cynical view that it
doesn’t matter whether you are good or bad since all suffer in the end.
(Ecclesiastes 9 : 1-12) In the
Book of Wisdom we see the idea, already referred to, of suffering as a test: “Having been disciplined a little, they will
receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;”
(Wisdom 3 : 5) The Book of Job, acknowledged to be one of the
world’s greatest pieces of literature on the subject, opposes the prevailing
view that only the evil suffer. Job,
a truly good man, is afflicted with terrible sufferings and demands to know of
God why the innocent should suffer. In
the end he accepts that he should not question God since he cannot understand
as God does. The lesson we can
learn from this is that we must accept suffering and loss as facts. The biblical writer here suggests that only God can
understand what meaning they have, but it can be said that they have no
meaning, for God any more than for us, since he does not mean them. Suffering, the writer of Genesis has affirmed, came into the
world only with our evil, and it is no part of God’s plan or purpose.
For Christians this is seen most clearly in Jesus’ reaction to
suffering; he who was God Incarnate spent the greater part of his public life
in trying to overcome suffering wherever he encountered it. Suffering and loss are not good in themselves, but
they are an inevitable part of life, and we can harm ourselves by becoming
bitter about them. Possessions,
health, loved ones, happiness, are good in themselves and yet we can harm
ourselves by clinging to them. What
really matters, as the Buddha has said, as the psychologists have
demonstrated, as the Bible asserts, is what we do with all these elements in
our lives. In the case of possessions, for instance, St Paul tells us
not that money is the root of evil, as it is often misquoted, but that the
love of money is the root of evil. (1
Tim 6 : 10) It is the desire to have and to keep which destroys us, not the thing in itself. The same point is made in the New Testament, when we hear Jesus telling his disciples that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. (Matthew 19 : 23-24) People have called this harsh, but they are missing the point. It is not the accident of how much money a person has which decides his fate: Jesus is only emphasizing that it is hard for any of us to be willing to let go of what we have, but that for the rich man it must be almost impossible. No one should suggest that the person who has
worked hard all his life and has managed to set himself up in a comfortable
home with enough money for his needs is doing wrong, or that he should give it
all away and become destitute. Of
course people must provide for themselves and for their family at every stage
of their lives, and in their later years in particular people need a decent
level of comfort and security. What
we are saying is that no one should ever allow himself to be imprisoned by his
needs. All through life, but most
especially in our later age, we must prepare ourselves to be able to lose what
we have and what we love, so that the loss will not diminish our sense of
self. If we demand, hold on to, insist on keeping,
possessions, people, happiness, this is lust, not love.
It reduces ourselves and all that we love to subjects and objects of
desire, instead of being the free gifts of God for each other.
We must learn to love and let go.
If we do this, then not only will our experiences of loss and suffering
not destroy us: they will cause us to grow as persons more surely than will
any of the other events in our lives. We
do grow from our experience of love and happiness of course, but it is the way
we face the difficulties and challenges of our lives which gives us the
strength to complete our journey.
We have spoken so far of accepting suffering in a
rather negative sense, because we have to, because it makes no sense to fight
against it. But there is a
further, even more powerful truth to be found in trying to make sense of this
difficult matter. In the Old
Testament it was the prophet Isaiah who proposed that the sufferings of the
innocent can in some way be of benefit to the world.
Speaking of the mysterious figure of the Suffering Servant he says: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, Here we have the idea of suffering not just as
something negative to be accepted but as something positive that we can do for
others. In our study of the
growth of the self we have come to the ultimate possibility for that growth
– self-sacrifice, the act of self-giving.
All love is a giving from the self and, as we have said, love is
action. Most of the loving
actions which people perform involve effort; many involve suffering.
Some loving actions demand courage and endurance which should be beyond
our reach. Most of us know the
effort and even hardship involved in providing and caring for our families,
supporting others in difficult times, doing what we can to help those in need.
In doing these things we give up a great deal of our comfort and
self-interest. And there are
those who give up all that they might have for themselves in order to look
after elderly parents, or a sick child, or people they don’t even know, the
helpless and destitute in their own country or in a foreign land.
Then there are those who risk and offer their lives for others in war,
in accidents, in natural disasters. Isaiah’s
belief that the suffering of innocent people can help others could seem
strange, perhaps even repugnant, until we remember that it happens all around
us every day. Even the suffering
and death of a child can be given meaning and value in the strength and
courage of those who care for him, and in the efforts towards research of the
illness and support for its victims which may result from that loss. We need to be aware, however, that genuine
self-sacrifice can deteriorate into a bitter or proud self-martyrdom which is
poisonous to the one who gives and the one who receives the sacrifice. The mother who turns her love into a burden of guilt for her
family, reproaching them with ‘all she has done for them’, is a familiar
example. Scott Peck says that
love is ‘an extension, rather than a sacrifice (of the self).
Genuine love is a replenishing activity. If we give ourselves to others in a way that diminishes us,
that is not love’ (p. 116) Isaiah’s insight endorses our understanding that
a person can help others by accepting suffering for himself. This is the most profound and life-enhancing of all the views
offered in the Old Testament on this problem of suffering, and on the
potential goodness of human beings. But
what now of God? Even when we
accept that God does not cause or desire our sufferings, we might yet resent
the thought that he sits watching them, and approving us for our nobility in
accepting suffering for the sake of others.
We could even come to despise God as being incapable of that degree of
love. But has God been outdone in love and goodness?
Does he sit unmoved while human beings give themselves and their lives
for others? The Christian view of
God’s relationship to our suffering is unique, beyond belief, and yet the
only one which could meet our demands: God does not will evil, or our
suffering and death, nor does he stand by while we struggle against them for
each others’ sake. In the life
and agony and death of Jesus he has given himself to overcome them, and has
made the only response mankind could possibly accept to the sufferings which
would otherwise call into question any belief in our value and his goodness
and love.
6.
FORGIVENESS: THE
HARDEST KIND OF LETTING-GO One aspect of human life in which letting-go is of
vital importance, yet almost impossibly demanding, is that of injury by
another. We all experience
insults, hurts and damage as we go through life and the ‘natural’ reaction
is one of anger and resentment. But
for those who suffer a terrible assault such as rape, violent robbery,
torture, the murder of someone they love, the reaction must be hatred,
bitterness and a desire for revenge. This
must be the greatest challenge to face the human spirit in its resistance to
the downward pull of our fallen nature. But
our common experience, supported by psychological studies on the stressful
effects of harbouring anger and resentment, tells us that it is not only
morally better to let go of those feelings, it is also better for our health
and well-being. ‘Forgive your
enemy’ does not mean letting him go unpunished and free to commit that crime
again. That would be unwise and
unjust. But when we have helped
the law to do what is necessary, we then have to free ourselves from the
burden of hatred and anger which will only compound the original injury and
make us more completely the victim of our aggressor.
If the mother of the murder victim can let go of her hate in
forgiveness, and can ‘love her enemy’ in the sense of wishing that he will
find goodness and not further harm, then she will attain a freedom and
strength which most of us will never reach, the freedom and strength seen in
Jesus as he prayed on the cross for his persecutors, “Father, forgive them;
for they know not what they do.” (Luke
23 : 34)
Erikson said that in our last age we should develop
a mature hopefulness and a new and deeper faith.
We have seen how that mature hopefulness can grow when we have learned
to accept the sufferings and losses which must come to all of us, thereby
preparing ourselves to let go of all that we have clung to, and to trust
ourselves ultimately to the love and goodness of God. But what of faith? At no time in our lives will we have a greater need
of real faith than at this age, when we have to deal with one very important
form of loss, the loss of our certainties.
Once again, there are those who will have experienced this loss earlier
in their lives, but for many of us it comes only after much hard experience.
When we are young, much of what we think is black and white.
In our middle years we may come to doubt and question, but may hide or
run away from our resulting unsureness, or simply replace old certainties with
new ones. Scott Peck has said
that we are not born with our life-maps but that we have continually to make
and remake them. Many are
unwilling to make the effort and give up in middle age.
Only a few, he suggests, go on till death exploring the mystery of
reality. (p.45)
If we do go on exploring we may discover in our later years not just
that we have fewer certainties but that there are very few to be had. We remember that Erikson suggests that the opposing
tendencies in the crisis of our last stage are integrity versus despair, that
the strength which should emerge from this struggle is wisdom, and that if the
struggle is won we see our lives coming together in wholeness, but that if it
is lost they fall apart into meaninglessness and despair.
A vital part of that struggle concerns the way we have come to
understand our beliefs, and especially our life-view or religious beliefs.
As we have stressed, religious beliefs and doctrines are not facts to
be stated and possessed: they are symbols, pointers, guides for the person as
he journeys in search of truth. If
by our last age they have become ‘dead certainties’ then they can no
longer be living guides but only a burden we must carry to the grave.
There can be a tendency in authoritarian religious traditions to turn
beliefs, rituals and rules into such burdens, and too many good people stagger
to the very end carrying them, instead of being helped along by them. The mystics of each tradition point us away from
this danger. While remaining
within their tradition they are able, because of their personal experiences,
to move in it freely as they travel their road, and even to challenge the
current expression of it where that seems to be leading them away from their
goal. It would be helpful for an
older person to read some of the writings of the great saints and poets of
their tradition, in order to gain an insight into how they became free to soar
towards God in their individual and unique ways, supported and inspired by
their beliefs, rather than weighed down or imprisoned by an improperly rigid
understanding of them. It takes
courage to let go of safe certainties; our doctrines and creeds and religious
community can lead us towards this point, but in the end we have to move on
alone to make our leap of faith towards the mystery of God.
The one certainty – the one living certainty –
is that we must die. We are
mortal. We all know it, yet we
rarely have any real grasp of it. But
as we grow older the idea becomes more real, with every winter and with every
loss. Anyone who has been told that they have a fatal illness will know that
this brings not just a deeper understanding but another dimension of
realization altogether. What we
face at death is nothing less than the total loss of the self.
9.
BUT DO WE TRULY LOSE THE SELF? The Christian tradition does of course put before us the hope of an
eternal life, and sets this in our minds as a place or a state of happiness.
Not only that but, unlike many religions, it says that in this eternal
life we will be bodily presented, not disembodied spirits.
Many Christians, however, repeat in their Creed that they believe in
‘the resurrection of the body’ while finding the idea very difficult to
accept. But like the other
doctrines it does hold together with the belief in persons as the ultimate
value. As we have seen, Jews and
Christians regard persons as embodied spirits, seeing the body as good and
essential to what a person is. In
the Christian tradition, the culmination of the Incarnation in the
Resurrection is a powerful affirmation that our bodies are not to be regarded
as disposable husks, of little importance, or even a hindrance, to our
immortal souls. In the
Resurrection of Jesus, God has shown us that we are essentially embodied
selves, that this is good, and that it is permanent.
Whatever discussion there may be of the Resurrection reports, it is
clear that the Gospel writers were at pains to stress the reality of this for
them, in accounts such as that of a disciple’s touching Jesus’ hand and
side, and of Jesus eating breakfast with his friends.
10.
DEATH: THE
REAL AND TOTAL LOSS OF THE SELF Yet there was one note which was constant in every account of meeting the risen Jesus; on each occasion, those seeing him did not at first recognize him. The teachings and traditions about eternal life
offer us hope and comfort as we and those we love approach death.
It is right that they should support our hope, and it is very human for
people to represent the future of their existence in familiar pictures in
order to deal with the fear of death. Jesus
himself spoke to his disciples of the ‘many rooms in his Father’s house
which he would prepare for them’. (John
14 : 2) What is not right, and what may be really harmful
to us, is to take these beliefs and hopes and pictures as concrete facts,
thereby trivializing, almost eliminating, death as if it were no more than
popping into the next room. If we
do that we trivialize our life and ourselves.
We are truly mortal. We do
really die. We lose the self
wholly. This is and always has
been Christian belief. St Paul
says: ‘Someone will ask, “How are the dead raised?
With what kind of body do they come?”
You foolish man! What you
sow does not come to life unless it dies.
And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel……So
it is with the resurrection of the dead.
What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable….For the
trumpets will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable.’
(1 Corinthians 15 : 35-52) God does not gather up old bones and recycle us so
that we can carry on as before. We
will be God’s new work in us. Even for Jesus himself this was so.
His death was real. It
could not be otherwise, since he is human.
At the end of his life he lost everything; his freedom, his body’s
wholeness, his dignity, his work, his friends.
Jesus had no illusions and he never taught dead certainties; but on the
cross even the one thing of which he must have felt most sure, the love of his
Father, even that seemed to be lost to him.
His cry ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ sounds the
depths and finality of human loss. No
one has ever had more taken from him: and yet it was not taken, because he
gave it willingly and with love. At
the moment when it seemed that his Father was no longer with him, Jesus gave
himself to him with his last words: “Father, into Thy hands I commend my
spirit.” It is sometimes hard for people to believe that
Jesus, who was God, did not know anything beyond this.
But Jesus was human and he could not have known.
This must be true or there is no reality in human death, and certainly
no reality or value in his. He
went into the dark, just as we will, but with faith, as we must.
It has been said so many times that faith is not the intellectual
acceptance of beliefs, but a deep movement of trust.
Jesus felt that God had deserted him, and he leapt into his arms.
He gave his self, and did not ask to get back what he had given.
What kind of giving would it have been if he had?
In our last moment we too must give our last gift; we must give up our
self, letting it go completely into God’s hands and not asking for its
return.
11.
DEATH: THE FINAL STAGE OF GROWTH Elizabeth Kubler-Ross is a psychiatrist and a
world-renowned authority and counsellor on death.
Her work was influential in the development worldwide of the hospice
movement. The title of her 1975
book, ‘Death – the Final Stage of Growth’ clearly indicates her positive
view on the subject. She feels
that the promise of death is one of the strongest forces in moving a person to
grow. It makes us look beyond our daily round towards something
more. She would say that the ‘more’
is our growth towards becoming fully ourselves, fully human.
Those who share in the death of someone who understood its meaning are,
she suggests, likely to grow from that experience. We have referred to the need for us to practice
letting-go, and Dr Kubler-Ross proposes that having a proper understanding of
death can help us to do this because dying is something we do continuously,
not just at the end of our lives. Change is an essential element of our
existence, and if we can face death we are better able to face up to the
changes and challenges of life. The greatest challenge is the search for our
true self – the ultimate goal of growth. From death we learn how to live. Living without
change is not living at all, not growing at all. Without knowing of our death
we cannot know how to live. The dying stage of our life can be our greatest
opportunity for growth. Scott Peck says that ‘Giving up or loss of the
old self is an integral part of the process of mental and spiritual growth.’
(p. 70) But he offers a
note of warning about preparing for this final stage of growth: ‘You must
have something in order to give it up. You
must develop an ego before you can lose it.’
(p. 77) ‘The path of sainthood goes through adulthood…Ego
boundaries must be hardened before they are softened.
An identity must be established before it can be transcended.
One must find one’s self before one can lose it.’
(p. 97)
But what of those who have not done much growing
during their lives? Can they
still learn about what life means in those last days and hours when they face
its end? People have talked about
death-bed conversions, but most might doubt the possibility or reality of such
miraculous changes of heart. Yet
miracles do happen. People
working in hospices have seen the transformation which is possible when
someone who has cared for no one during their life finds meaning for the first
time in the lives of other people and in the love they receive from them.
This has been our constant theme throughout the present work.
To be yourself is to mean something to someone else.
You cannot directly create your self: it can only be given to you by
another. We are saved by love – even on our deathbed.
13.
DEATH OFFERS US OUR MEANING Death is like a mirror held up at the end of life
to show us what that life is. Keeping
our mirror in sight, we can live every day fully in order to make the life
reflected there ever more meaningful. Death
is the deepest mystery of the self because it is only in the letting-go of the
self that we can ultimately find our true self.
The doctrine of the Resurrection declares that Jesus attained the
fullness of his life in giving it up for love, and from this we understand
that we must do the same. We have
no safe certainty about this, or even a satisfactory understanding of it.
If we had, our giving would be unreal and useless. Yet could anything else be true? Could we go through this long, often painful, process of
growth as persons through love, only to be wiped out?
If we are meant to grow into our full self-image and so become
God-like, how could we then cease to exist?
Love cannot die. We have
no way of proving this, yet from all that we know of love and life, we can
believe that it is true. Christians
place their hope and faith in love.
14.
THE MEANING WE ARE OFFERED For our final reflection from scientific
understanding to belief, let us see what Erikson discovered in his study of
the qualities which human beings need in order to live and grow.
“..if developmental considerations lead us to speak of hope, fidelity
and care as the human strengths or ego qualities emerging from such strategic
stages as infancy, adolescence, and adulthood, it should not surprise us
(although it did when we became aware of it) that they correspond to such
major credal values as hope, faith and charity….Such proven traditional
values, while referring to the highest spiritual aspirations, must, in fact,
have harboured from their dim beginnings some relation to the developmental
rudiments of human strength;” (p.
58) Erikson tells us that
modern psychology
confirms what Christianity has taught for twenty centuries. We grow as persons through faith, hope and love.
We begin with the trust of childhood, from which faith and faithfulness
can develop in adolescence. These
strengths are given to us by others’ love, and in adulthood we are
established in love and can give it for the growth of others.
In our final age we have a new faith and a deeper hope, and at death we
give up all in love. Our meaning,
and our ultimate goal, is to be our full selves through our relationship of
love. This is what God is and what we are meant to become. Religious beliefs and human knowledge form the map
which the traveller follows as he seeks his destination.
But when he reaches it the map is put aside. “As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for
tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a
child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been
fully understood. So faith, hope,
love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
(1 Corinthians 13 : 8-13)
******************************************** We look for the resurrection of the dead, Amen. ********************************************
We have looked at the main Christian beliefs in order
to see how these may illuminate the events and stages of a person’s
life-journey. 1. THE END OF THE JOURNEY? But this does not give us a
complete explanation of Christian beliefs, or the full story of human growth:
it just offers one way of understanding these.
And the adult stage is not the end and fulfilment of a person’s life.
There is the further growth-stage of old age, which Erikson links back
to the earliest life-stages, in their development of trust, hope and faith. 2. THE GROWTH OF MATURE TRUST Now the person must begin to
give up all that he has, and his very self, and trust only in God’s
goodness. 3. WE MUST PRACTISE THE ART OF LETTING GO We all have losses throughout
life. If we have been able to
accept them we will be prepared for this task in our last age.
Our losses can hurt us only if we cling to what we have.
4.
GROWTH THROUGH
LOVING AND LETTING GO Someone who has a proper self-image will appreciate all that he receives yet will be able to let go when he has to. Suffering is not good in itself. In some religious thinking it has been seen as a test from God, but this is difficult to reconcile with his goodness. Buddhism teaches that all things cause suffering if we cling to them. The Bible expresses various ideas about suffering. Christians cannot believe that God wills suffering when they see that Jesus spent much of his life overcoming it. Possessions are not bad in themselves: what matters is
our attitude to them and what we do with them.
We should appreciate and make use of them, and be prepared to let them
go. Neither should we cling to
people, but only love them truly without trying to possess them.
If we learn to love and let go, we will grow. 5. SUFFERING AS SELF-GIVING Isaiah suggests that the
sufferings of the innocent can help others.
This is the ultimate possibility for growth: self-giving and
appropriate self-sacrifice. People
accept hardship, suffering, even death, for the sake of others.
Does this make us better than God?
In Jesus, God gave his life to overcome our suffering and our death. 6. FORGIVENESS: THE HARDEST KIND OF LETTING-GO To give up our hatred for
someone who has injured us or a person we love is the hardest kind of
letting-go. But we are damaged if
we do not do it and gain true freedom if we do, as Jesus did when he forgave
those who crucified him. 7. A NEW AND DEEPER FAITH In our last age we face our
greatest test of faith. We have
to give up the certainties we have clung to for security, so that we can go on
with our search for truth in the mystery of God.
The mystics and poets can help us on our way, but in the end each of us
journeys alone.
8.
THE ONE
CERTAINTY We must all die, and in death
we face the total loss of the self. 9. DO WE TRULY LOSE THE SELF? In the Christian tradition we
are taught to hope for life eternal, and that we will in some way be bodily
present in that life. 10. DEATH: THE REAL AND TOTAL LOSS OF THE SELF But death is real, and we
trivialise ourselves and our lives if we do not believe this. It was real for Jesus. He
went into the dark, believing that even God had abandoned him, yet offering
all that he was into his Father’s hands.
We too must at the end give our self to him holding on to nothing but
our faith in his love. 11. DEATH: THE FINAL STAGE OF GROWTH Dr Kubler-Ross, in her work
with the dying, has found that death can give a unique impetus to the growth
of human beings. If we can face
our death we can deal productively with the other changes in our lives.
From the experience of death in others and the acceptance of our own,
we can learn how to live.
12.
DO WE HAVE A LAST CHANCE? Even those who have not grown
well in their lives can do so when they face impending death. Even in these last moments, people have been able to learn
what really matters. 13. DEATH OFFERS US OUR MEANING Death is a mirror, showing us
what life should be. The
Resurrection tells us that we must give all we have and are to find our true
self. We have no guarantee of
what will happen to us, yet Christians believe that if we become as God is we
cannot cease to exist, because love cannot die. 14. THE MEANING WE ARE OFFERED In his study of the qualities which human beings need
in order to live and grow, Erikson was surprised to find that the principal
qualities are hope, faith and love, just as Christianity has said.
Through these we become our full selves, and when we achieve this we
will no longer need faith and hope but will be as God is – persons who have
their being only in and through love. Return to Home Page Return to Book Contents & Summary Start of Chapter 7 Forward to Appendices |