“The worst is death, and death will have his day.”  (Shakespeare, “Richard II”)

We are living in a culture where random psychotic violence has become alarmingly endemic. Yet I would venture that most of us have experienced our own close brush with death at some point in our lives. I am not just talking about so-called ‘near death’ experiences where somebody appears to die only to be unexpectedly revived but something far more common, the ‘close call:’ a mislabeled toxic vial that you nearly mistook for medication, an emergency appendectomy that saved your life, the speeding vehicle that narrowly missed sending you to your eternal reward. At such moments one can almost feel the cold icy breath of death on the neck.

Close calls produce a particularly chilling release of adrenaline, yet they also serve as periodic reminders of the fragility of life. After recovering from a life threatening illness do we not see life in a very different way? We suddenly remember how each day is its own special gift; not to be taken for granted. Our fear of death is inversely proportional to the joy and beauty we experience in life. Continue reading →