{"id":3526,"date":"2019-01-03T12:35:28","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T19:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/?p=3526"},"modified":"2019-01-03T13:28:18","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T20:28:18","slug":"the-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/the-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dying"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Jon\u00a0Post<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been 45 days since I\u2019ve lived with the dying. 45 days ago I drove away from the dying and entered once again the homes and communities of the living. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it’s been comfortable, joyful, loving, and restful to be with the living, I still miss the dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have spent 45 days thinking and praying over the dying I left there. My friend and brother Torres, whose lymphoma darkens his veins and thoughts but not his spirit. My daughter and precious Loice, whose advancing breast cancer throws its tendrils from corner to corner of her tired and young body while she hopes for more time with her young children. My sister and cherished Mariana, whose metastatic breast cancer sears her with pain and weariness while she boldly looks at the difficulty of her coming days. Rosa, Eug\u00eanio, Arm\u00eendo, Joana, Cust\u00f3dio, and so many others dying or with whom I witnessed death\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All of them left the land of the living and welcomed me into theirs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve come to revere and love the company of the dying. I\u2019ve\ncome to appreciate that, though most of us would rather not, we will all be a\npart of adding to it one day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Most of us are afraid\nof that day. Most of us are afraid of being one\nof the dying<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is that? Why are we so afraid of dying?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I say dying<\/em> I\ndo not mean the moment your heart stops, when brain activity ceases, when\ncardio-pulmonary activity has not been detected for however many minutes the\ndoctor in the room deems necessary to declare a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean dying<\/em> as an\nactive verb. I mean dying <\/em>instead of living<\/em>. No one I have ever met has been\nafraid of being one of the living. Not that I\u2019ve known of, anyway. Nearly\neveryone I\u2019ve met, however, is afraid of being one of the dying. We are afraid\nof that time, be it years or days, in which we go from living our lives to dying our deaths. <\/em>In fact, I believe most of us\npursue every medical option possible, no matter how painful, how detrimental to\nrelationship, no matter how much it ruins our ability to be wise, caring,\nloving or faithful, in order to stay in the land of the living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe, and I\u2019m not sure on this, but maybe there comes a\ntime for each of us where entering the land of the dying is the wisest, most\nloving, and most faithful thing we can do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christ seemed to think so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His last week before his death<\/em> seems to have been in the land of the dying<\/em>, no matter how much his friends and disciples wanted him to remain in the land of the living. Maybe even more than a week. When he knew his death was coming<\/a>, he spoke freely <\/a>and often <\/a>to his friends and disciples about it. He prepared them for it and, in the context of the coming of His own suffering and death, prepared them for theirs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through shortness of breath I have heard deep truths and\nseen profound wisdom. Through the lips and hands of the dying, I have begun to\nunderstand how to prepare for my own. By the example and encouragement of the\ndying, I have learned a deeper peace in Christ than I have ever known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you know someone who is dying, do not go to them in pity\nor thinking that you offer some great sacrifice by visiting them or seeing\nthem. Go to the dying and try to learn from them what Christ tried to teach his\ndisciples. Try to learn how to suffer well. Try to learn how to hope for home.\nTry to learn and be sustained by the dying, rather than offer sustenance or\ngifts of your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are one of the dying, know that I love you and wish I could learn from you. Please take this time that you are dying, the only one you\u2019ll ever have, and teach it to those of us who are not in it yet. Help sustain the rest of us, who badly need sustenance, with your wisdom given to you in your dying. Please show us how to transition from living your life <\/em>to dying your death<\/em> and doing that in a way that knows Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Jon\u00a0Post It has been 45 days since I\u2019ve lived with the dying. 45 days ago I drove away from the dying and entered once again the homes and communities of the living. While it’s been comfortable, joyful, loving, and restful to be with the living, I still miss the dying. I have spent 45…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3526"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3534,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3526\/revisions\/3534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}