A Brush With Mortality

Define Mortal? (of a living human being, often in contrast to a divine being) subject to death.

“all men are mortal” i.e. subject to death.

Define Mortality: the state of being subject to death.

What is death? the state of being dead.

What is “the state of being dead”? no longer alive.

Define “alive”? (of a person, animal, or plant) living, not dead. (animated, moving, procreating, breathing, gathering, mingling, thinking, reacting, building, creating, worshiping, disagreeing)

NIV

“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7

This research is starting to look like Monty Python’s Parrot Sketch!!

Some people I’ve read who discuss death come at it from an angle of blatant disregard, they claim people actively refuse to think about their own demise.

I’m not so sure about that.

I think it is always on our mind but when “life starts happening” other things take priority.

Ya gotta eat.

Ya gotta stay warm.

Ya gotta drink some water.

Otherwise you will die… guaranteed.

So we don’t think about that part, we think, “How am I gonna eat, stay warm, and get a drink of water?”

We don’t think, “How can I not die?!?”

We stress “life”. Not “death.”

But look at the definitions above and you’ll see, what I see, hopefully, that life, is like the cadaver in Rembrandt’s painting,… The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, in the forefront, and quite bright, with all the surgeons looking quite lively, as they each focus on a different aspect in front of them.

But what is in the background? What is the backdrop of the whole affair?

Death. Darkness. The corpse was hanged for stealing a winter coat.

We can surmise if it was a heavy coat he was, what? Yep! Trying to stay warm in 1632.

So we really don’t think about death, or talk about it, it’s considered to be in poor taste.

Even though it’s the one thing we all have in common.

The only time we do think about it is when you find yourself collapsing onto your bathroom floor for no apparent reason.

That happened to me recently.

And the day after I went into the emergency room, because I still didn’t feel like I was dying, I went to lay down to take a nap, to rest, per doctors orders,…

that’s when it hit me, that’s when I felt like I was dying.

It came over me in a wave of emotion. I couldn’t stop it. I started crying.

Then, because now it felt like I was dying, I told myself, “Well, you know Jesus, you know you believe, maybe this is it.”

BOOM! The inner door that guards our emotions was blown off it’s hinges and I was deluged with another round of unfettered emotion… BUT… this time it felt like Love. So I thought, “Yep this has to be it.”

Then the visions started.

There I was, a wounded Knight, deep inside a moss covered forest, no sword, no horse.

Then a vision of New Demons, a bunch of different dragons, even a Komodo Dragon, all gathered together, acting like a Pride of Lions, and they were out hunting for me, with the last one being a very large, white furred, leach looking dragon, with lots of teeth, coming straight down at me.

Then I glanced back at the fallen knight, and as if I wasn’t emotional enough, there was my mom, trying to scoop me up, giving me a hug, trying to get me outta there!

Then a “Savior Knight” he was very angular, helmet, cheek bones, his armor was ‘blued’ and he was coming down, at an angle, in what I thought was an avalanche of snow, or a giant blizzard.

It wasn’t a blizzard, it was his white horse, and when I looked closer, “the snow storm/blizzard” was an army, all riding white horses.

Through my emotional state I thought, “I know who that is.”

And then the weight over my heart was so real, and SO HEAVY, I had to sit up, get my bearings and head downstairs. With my equilibrium all out of whack just going down the stairs was an ordeal.

My wife met me at the bottom of the stairs and had a more concerned look on her face, even more so then when I collapsed in her arms in the bathroom the day before.

What do I think caused this episode? As I lay there in bed resting, my writer brain kicked in, and thinking what the title to my article about this health experience would be…

“A Brush With Mortality”

When I focused on that title… WHOOSH! Water works! And ALL that emotion all at once!

When I asked the doctor on my next visit if that was normal, she said,…

“Oh yes. You should see how many wives bring their husbands in here after a near death experience with him becoming all emotional, and her asking, “What is wrong with him.””

Well there was my confirmation, “a near death experience”, it certainly felt like I was checking out.

But my conscious mind made an observation.

It noticed a difference… a difference between when I was suffering with depression and contemplating taking my own life… which was always dark; black; hopeless; with an aching of loneliness deep inside my belly, with the ever present thought of “Nobody cares anyway.”

Contrasted against this episode.

Even though the visions depicted a battle scene, even though I had lost my horse and sword, there was LIGHT, and the heaviness of LOVE, with my mom obviously caring enough to come and get me, and with the new knowledge I have of my relationship with Jesus Christ; understanding that if HE’S coming to get you… it’s good, I felt no urge to “Rage against the dying of the light”, instead I felt relief, I felt it was “ok” if Jesus were coming to get me!

And then… the weight of that love made me sit up, there was nothing else TO DO! But it wasn’t accompanied with any fight; pride; or ego attached to it… just humbleness and love.

So I got up.

And was left with my article title, “A Brush With Mortality”, and the thought of HOW LONG death is versus the shortness of life.

To get an idea what I’m talking about, step outside around 2am on a cloudless and moonless night, now take in the eternity of blackness of space versus the twinkling of the stars… and think again, some of those stars are themselves “dead and gone” for eons, it just takes that long for their light to reach us.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

― Ferris Bueller (goodreads)

“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”

Psalm 90:10 NIV Biblegateway.com

Why did I get up when I wasn’t “feeling” motivated to get up?

My “warriors heart” wasn’t raging?

I had no intent or purpose that was forcing me up?!?

And strangely, I had no thoughts of my family… and stranger still, I had no thoughts at all.

Never in my life has my mind been so cleansed; so calm; being not worried about or thinking about anything, it has always… always… been very active.

The only thought I was having was the one trying to understand HOW LONG death really is versus our very short life spans.

The black emptiness of death goes on for eternity, for ever and ever, causing us to be separated from everything that we think we know… for ever.

You never hear that preached in church.

You might hear the word “judgement” once in awhile but it is never really explained thoroughly… think about it, you’ve heard of eternal life, we all ‘think’ we’ll get that, but none of us think we deserve “the second death”…

“The second death is mentioned on multiple occasions in the book of Revelation and is synonymous with the lake of fire.

It is a “death” in that it is a separation from God, the Giver of life.

It is called the “second” one because it follows physical death.

Revelation 21:8 explains the second death in the most detail:

“The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

This is the second death.””

~ gotquestions.org

I should be good… right… I don’t think I’m any of those things?!? Right??!!??

SEPARATED FOR EVER!

Sounds like hell to me.

The after effects of my experience have shown me HOW MANY people currently are depending on this current version of myself… and I gotta tell ya, “I’m feeling a bit inadequate.”

It’s the first week of March 2024, I became ill the first week of February 2024, and was sick the good part of four weeks, and am still contending with a nuisance cough.

I feel like I was given a gift with this experience.

I feel like I have not had any real control or direction so far in life… just living in a reactionary state of being.

I feel like I need to clarify my current life goals.

I feel like I have to “declutter” and simplify my life.

I feel like I have to read every money/business/bible principle concerning making money, that I have in the house due to my experience showing me my wife would not be taken care of as I would like in the event of an early demise on my part.

As an EMERGING MAN it seems a bit overwhelming and confusing on where to start.

But it’s normal to be confused after a battle like that, there will be battle smoke that needs to be navigated while we regain our bearings.

The Emerging Man writing… to ENCOURAGE, EQUIP & ENGAGE!