Dying to Live

The cells that die are the ones that keep us alive. Life itself is para­dox­i­cal. It thrives on oppo­sites. We are alive for now because we are dying incre­men­tally. Look out of your win­dow. The proof is all around you. It is mid-winter and the dead limbs are strewn along the ground. The dead leaves and grass are also ful­fill­ing their pur­pose. They decay so life may continue.

Jesus used this anal­ogy for many aspects of the spir­i­tual life. “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains a sin­gle seed…” The gist is obvi­ous: One dead seed pro­duces many liv­ing ones. He con­sid­ered him­self to be the one pri­mary seed. His death would give many life. The same has been said of the sac­ri­fices made in child­birth, and all other brave actions that include dying a lit­tle or a lot so that oth­ers might live.

The cells of your stom­ach lin­ing are in a con­stant state of death. Some cells that do not refuse to die lead to can­cer. Most of the dust in your house is actu­ally your own dead skin cells. Like winter’s theme, we are alive because we are slowly dying. This process began at your birth and will cul­mi­nate the “cater­pil­lar to but­ter­fly” effect of your last day. The death of the body gives birth to some­thing we do not yet see. You can­not see what the dead limbs will become, but you are glad they con­tinue the cycle of life.

Men­tal inter­ests live and die. Paul talked about how our “outer man is wast­ing away — yet the inner one is being renewed day by day.” Phys­i­cal health is worth some effort — but not all of your efforts. It will com­plete its given course just as win­ter fol­lows fall. The inevitable may be tem­porar­ily post­poned but never stopped. Redi­rect your ener­gies toward what­ever it is in us that never dies.

What has always seemed so obvi­ous to me seems to escape the notice of the masses. Given the nature of life, I have never been able to fig­ure out why busi­ness build­ings are big­ger and more plen­ti­ful than churches, or why sem­i­nar­ies are dwarfed by sci­en­tific com­plexes, or why bud­gets include so much for the tem­po­ral at the cost of eternal.

Maybe some more seeds need to die.