Three Symbols

There are three con­sis­tent sym­bols in var­i­ous forms around the world: ceme­ter­ies, houses of wor­ship, and places of heal­ing. We go about our busy lit­tle lives nod­ding to one, almost totally ignor­ing one, and wor­ship­ping the other. Hos­pi­tals are where we tend to spend most of our money and pray with the most sin­cer­ity. The ceme­tery is a one-time fee. Insti­tu­tions of spirit are usu­ally dead last when it comes to atten­tion, funds, and time pri­or­i­ties for the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. In the greater scheme of things, we may have it all back­wards. You can only improve your phys­i­cal health to a cer­tain level, and no mat­ter how much you spend on it, it is a los­ing game. Ceme­ter­ies really do not need much in the way of care. No one wants to be there, and it is unlikely that any of its res­i­dents are going to escape or need any­thing. Death is a bit of a monop­oly. There is no nego­ti­at­ing with it. It will extract its fee in due time no mat­ter what.

I have often won­dered what would hap­pen if the three sym­bols changed places — that houses of wor­ship had emer­gency rooms (for the con­cerns of the eter­nal spirit); that hos­pi­tals were where we went as a last resort; that ceme­ter­ies would be where we wor­shipped (as early Chris­tians and oth­ers have). The longest last­ing sym­bols of those that went before us are the great tem­ples they used for wor­ship and some­times for phys­i­cal heal­ing as well. The ceme­ter­ies even­tu­ally fall into dis­re­pair and the “dust returns to dust.”

In the last cen­tury, the sym­bol of ulti­mate hope shifted from houses of wor­ship to sky­scrap­ers to hos­pi­tals. Our archi­tec­tural trends have a way of telling on us. Do not get me wrong. I enjoy the pros­per­ity of our times and the mir­a­cles of mod­ern med­i­cine, but it is still the church that I con­sider the ulti­mate of the three. Dying poor or in pain is sad. Dying hope­less is far worse.

So, here I am, a per­son out of step with the times — wish­ing cul­tural pri­or­i­ties were the spir­i­tual rather than the mate­r­ial — that qual­ity of life took prece­dence over the num­ber of years lived here. My eyes are more on the sky and dis­tant hori­zons than on my check­book these days. That in me which beck­ons me on seems to get stronger; my mate­r­ial wor­ries con­tinue to fade. Maybe the life test for me is to live an oppo­site style con­cern­ing these three dom­i­nant sym­bols: that I go to church to heal, that I use med­i­cine spar­ingly as merely tem­po­rary, and that I look beyond the false final­ity of the grave. So far it has been a lit­tle like walk­ing back­wards through a parade, but it kind of feels right.