A Walk on the Death Side

I got a call today.  The kind of call that can't be ignored.  Not the kind that makes water swirl in porcelain or the kind that rings or vibrates endlessly in your pocket.  This was a serious call.  So a part of my mind answered.
"Hello?"  At first I heard nothing.  Perhaps there was nothing to hear?
"Joe.  It's been a while.  Walk with Me."  It was hard to hear.  Faint.  Like a barely audible whisper.
"Uh... Walk somewhere?  Okay.  Umm... gimme a little bit.  I'll be out... shortly."

So I put my coat on, grabbed my headphones and set out for a walk around the.. pond.  As I strolled along I began to ponder: What was I doing out here?  Why did I need to walk?  Maybe it was the sunlight or maybe it was the music but something tweaked my brain and I had an epiphany.  I needed to be around life to replenish my own.  It was a startling thought.  I began carefully examining my surroundings for life.  Trees, grass, ducks, rocks and sand, water.  Yes, the last two are actually inanimate, but they are related to life.  Without rocks and sand, life would have nothing to grow on and in.  And, as Mortal Kombat reminds us, water is "the element which brings life".

The next thought that flashed through my synapses was, what about my surroundings was so lifeless?  Slowly, my brain started analyzing my normal surroundings and I came up with a list of death.  Buildings in cities are made of concrete and metal, both lifeless; the movies and TV shows that I watch deal with death; the books that I read deal with death; the music that I listen to is canned, dead.  In a lifeless existence, one will eventually feel a need for life.  A need to return to nature.  At least for a little while.

Somehow, my mind leapt from dead surroundings to winter.  Winter is thought of as a season of death.  But that's not entirely accurate.  It's actually a season of sleep.  Some plants die, but a lot of insects and animals sleep during the winter.  So winter equating to death is a bit of a misnomer.  Now, let's expand that idea to the Christian view of death.  In the eyes of a Christian, death is winter.  It's a time for sleep, not actually death.

In the end, winter will come.  As Katsumoto said in The Last Samurai, "We are deep in the mountains, and winter is coming. You cannot escape."  The first is true, the last is not.  Death comes for everyone.  A few, however, have sidestepped the Grim Reaper.  Enoch and Elijah missed their appointments.  Not many can say that.  But there's no reason why it can't be said.  It's possible to go from autumn to spring.  And when the spring comes, we will "ride to ruin and the world's ending" (Theoden, Return of the King).  Then our true nature will be revealed.  Like Yoda said, "Luminous beings are we.  Not this crude matter."  


There is no reason to fear death.  Death is just sleep.  Winter.  A natural part of the cycle.  And after winter comes the spring.  A time when life comes anew.