Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse and author who spent years working in palliative care. In her book 'The top five regrets of the dying' she reflects on the many intimate conversations she had as she sat with dying people. She concluded that not only did many who were dying have regrets, but these were similar. Five common regrets repeatedly resurfaced amongst the dying.
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Benjamin Franklin is credited with noting there are two certainties in life - death and taxes. Although death is a natural part of life, we can so easily try to shut it away until it meets us head-on.
Psychologist, Ernest Becker taught that humans have a heroic instinct to attempt to live forever, he describes how much creativity can go into trying to overcome death by being famous, strong, significant or smart. If left unchecked, many people spend and construct the whole of their lives avoiding, delaying and denying the fact that they are going to die. Only to get to the end of their days and be disappointed and full of regret.
In chapter 4 of Saint Benedict’s Rule for monasteries, under the title, The Instruments of Good Works, Benedict curiously encourages his monks to 'Remember to keep death before their eyes daily.' Benedict in writing this precept knew that keeping death before their eyes might paradoxically help his monks to live richer lives in their present circumstances.
St Ignatius suggests the practical discernment technique of imagining ourselves at the end of our lives before Christ and reflecting upon how we would feel about any decision then. Knowing and reminding ourselves that we will die helps us to be more inwardly aware, present and alive to what matters in the here and now of our lives. In February I was at the funeral services of two elderly ladies both of whom had deep faiths. Both funerals were joyous occasions because they had as John's Gospel encourages 'lived lives to the full'. Following Christ had led both to live abundant lives which although on the surface seemed ordinary were in fact full of colour, meaning, ministry and mission.
Contemplating our own eventual death can enable us to be more present to what is here now. It encourages us to live authentically and to think about what is truly important and of value. Thinking of eventual death allows us to feel deep gratitude for the things in our life we have been given.
The American theologian Frederick Buechner expresses this wonderfully when he wrote. Listen to your life...see it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness; touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
Throughout his ministry, Jesus constantly roused and alerted people to new possibilities in themselves, for the wider community and for the world. The heart of Christ's message was the love of God. He brought to ordinary people, often downtrodden a sense of their belovedness. Each person Jesus touched knew, perhaps for the first time, that their life mattered; that they were loved and cherished.
Our time on the earth is short, transitory and will end. The words on Ash Wednesday when we are marked on our forehead remind us that 'from dust, we have come and to dust, we will return.
Do not get to the end of your life only to realise you have missed the true point of living. Rather live one day at a time taking time to savour it's the abundance God has faithfully provided. As Henry Thoreau put it 'live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...and not when you come to die, discover you had not lived.'
Carpe Diem.
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