Blog 3522 – 06.26.2025
A Good Day To Die
Most of us have a tendency to think that we will never have to taste death, but that against all odds that fate that comes for everyone without exception will somehow pass us by. Some indigenous cultures honor death as a door to the happy hunting ground and instead of fearing death plan for it.
I mentioned the Bible story in my long and wordy text to my sister to illustrate a caveat to my own desire to live past one hundred years. I hope to live that long but not if it means having to live through the “nasty bits” that many experience before that pass. I would rather forgo the pain and suffering and pick a better day to die even if that means not living as long as I might otherwise wish to.
In a text recently to one of my dear sisters, my wife’s sister Esther (named for Old Testament heroine to whom it was said, “What think ye, that you were not born into the kingdom for such a time as this?”) I mentioned another Old Testament character who was told to set his house in order for he would soon die. After the prophet left who had been sent to deliver this message to the king, the recipient of the message, the king turned his face to the wall and wept praying for more time. God heard his prayer and sent an angel to turn the prophet around and send him back to tell the king he would be given more time. This is that strange scene in the Bible where an ass spoke. And no, I am not referring to someone “talking out of their ass” which is pretty common both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and many other times and places both before then and now. If you can believe the story, God caused the ass (donkey) that the prophet was riding to speak to him because the animal could see the angel with a sword blocking the way when the prophet could not. Anyway, the talking ass got the prophet’s attention and after seeing the angel himself, he turned back to let the king know his prayer had been heard and that his request for more time had been granted. The prophet also told the king that God had been trying to spare him seeing his kingdom fall and his children all go astray which he would now live to see.
Someone has said that we should try to live each day as if it were our last for indeed someday it will be. In Joan Baez’s song Diamonds and Rust she sings of a special time of love and passion in her youth with the words, “Speaking strictly for me, we both could have died then and there.”
Every day is a dance with doubt and trust with a mixture of diamonds and rust. Just as every day is someone’s birthday it is also someone else’s day to die. Today is a good day to be born and a good day to die.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David James White
Diamonds & Rust – Joan BAEZ (w. Lyrics)
theencouragingword 