Another Chapter: Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD

Another Chapter

I went to see a doctor this morning in order to hear the results of some recent tests.  I came home a bit shaken. It is not that the tests indicated my imminent demise, but a small surgical procedure is now being scheduled to retrieve tissue samples for a biopsy.  While not a particularly pleasant prospect, this upcoming appointment was not the cause of my anxiety.  Rather, it was the doctor’s  “percentage prognosis” of “Seven times out of ten, it’s benign…” At the age of 67, this was only the second time I had received such a prognosis and I found that I liked it even less the second time.  I find that while I want to embrace the seventy percent chance that all will be well, the thirty percent occupies my thinking like an unwelcome guest.

Like most people, the fact of my mortality is theoretical until I have a blunt reminder.  Owing to the practical side of my nature, most of the matters concerning my death have already been arranged.  My Will is set, signed, notarized and in the file.  Insurance policies are up to date and accessible. My funeral service is laid out in detail down to the cover art for the bulletin.  There are instructions concerning which cassock, alb and vestments are to be used for clothing my mortal remains.  For the after funeral gathering, I have specified the menu, the brand of champagne that is to be served, and even the music that is to be played in the background.  As I said, pretty well all of the matters surrounding my death have been arranged.  There is, however, one big problem. I’d rather not be there when it happens!

I think most people, even those in the Church, try to keep the issue of death at arms length.  Yes, we know that it will happen eventually, but it seems a long way off.  In America this may have something to do with the way in which we encounter death.  Often death occurs in the clinical setting of a hospital.  Because it happens “there” among professionals and not “here” where we actually live, death can seem to be distant.  For example, we have witnessed over 600,000 deaths owing to Covid-19.  One would think that there would be a sense of national mourning and palpable outrage as to why this has happened.  Yet, because we have largely been sheltered from the reality of these deaths, we spend our time arguing about mask mandates, or complaining about being inconvenienced by the policies of our favorite restaurant, or, because we do not see the deaths, some simply deny that they have happened.

For those of us who are believers, however, death is central to our faith.  We are baptized into Christ’s death.  In living for Christ, we take up a cross and follow him in a path that leads us outside the city walls, in order to die with him.  Every Sunday we proclaim that Christ “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”.  In light of this “we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come”.  As a priest, I may have many duties and responsibilities, but chief among them is to “comfort the dying”.  Yet, even as I write this, I wonder how well I am prepared for my own death. Days like today bring it home.

The comfort that I find, especially in considering that thirty percent possibility comes not from my personal confidence, or my faith alone but rather that I am a part of a corporate whole which is the Church.  Because I am a part of that corporate whole, I truly am not an island, not in my living or my dying.  In my living and my dying I am a part of something more.  So, as I may not welcome death, I need not fear it.  As John Donne said, “when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another…”

So, regardless of which percentage is encountered, there is another chapter to be written and, in God’s good time, to be translated and bound together…

Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD

The Project