Brian’s Reflection: June 15, 2007


Healthy children will not fear life if their elders
have integrity enough not to fear death.

- Dr. Erik Erikson, psychoanalyst, born
on this day, 1902, in Frankfurt


For us there is no death.Rest here merely bones.Around you love's in flower,Zero though our breath,Etched into these stones.Read and feel its power.


This is why God in Her kindness keeps arranging risings and resurrections. Just keeping the fact before us. Life requires risks. And the biggest killer of risk-taking is the fear of death.

Several things have conspired to reduce my fear of death. The longing for Life being one. I approached my heart surgery with some trepidation. It took me awhile to be calm about it - and I was surprised when I awoke, and pleased. When it came to having the bowel resectioned and reversing the colostomy, I lept for it! So, there are risks of dying. But the prospects of Living trump that in spades.

God is clever to think of empty tombs, heavenly courts, farther shores. They help us have “integrity enough not to fear death”. And those who come after us learn from us to Live.

Which is what it is all about.

Brian+