All Hallows' Day

I could not look on Death, which being known,

Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

Rudyard Kipling

I was talking to the young pharmacist on our unit at the hospital, a mother of three and five-year-old children. One of our physicians gave her a book of fairy stories her children had outgrown and the pharmacist described the gruesome illustrations. Red Riding Hood was pictured holding the bloodied head of the wolf as her grandmother, who had been eaten by the wolf was extracted. She asked the physician if the pictures bothered her children and the physician replied that they had not been an issue. (I have seen similarly gruesome illustrations of David holding the head of Goliath.)

Working at a hospital is to be surrounded by death and I have to be careful that I do not upset others when talking about things I see. Our Western society has become increasingly death-averse as medical science can identify and treat many deadly ailments. Death is hidden way in hospital and hospice corridors away from home where people used to be born and where they died. Too often older people, some with multiple comorbidities, avoid end-of-life conversations with their families and the medical team is forced to provide futile treatments in an effort to avoid death. Many churches avoid talking about death preferring to offer prayers for healing and resurrection promises rather than addressing the realities of human suffering. The church that we attend recognizes congregants who died in the past year in a special and moving service this week. 

I pulled the pictured selection of books from our home library. Writers and poets from past generations wrote much about death and suffering. Foxe's Book of Martyrs came from my father's mother and it is the most difficult book for me to read.  Life offers good and evil and we cannot ignore either.

The Peace Prayer or Prayer of St Francis describes the contrasts we experience as human beings. We must enter darkness in order to appreciate light. What good is a candle in a world that is always filled with sunlight? 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me bring love.

Where there is offence, let me bring pardon.

Where there is discord, let me bring union.

Where there is error, let me bring truth.

Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.

Where there is despair, let me bring hope.

Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.

Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.

Rudyard Kipling's epitaph at the beginning of this post is from his collection Epitaphs of War. We will face Death "blindfolded and alone" if we lack the courage to look at it in life.