I ran across this article on CNN.com and the accompanying video called “Dying for Life.” It all seems very strange to me, but the idea is to prevent people who are considering suicide from killing themselves. “We can’t understand death simply by talking about it. People truly experience death by participating in it and being reborn.”
Aside from the macabre ideas, I couldn’t help but be reminded about the following passage from the Gospel of John:
Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me. (John 12:24-26)
This passage seems to come up from time to time as I think about my life and where it is going. Perhaps it’s a midlife sort of thing, but I seem to have a frequent urge to drastically change my life, to take the road less traveled, to be that radical person who casts his cares aside to seek a different kind of future. A future that encompasses things that are not “what is normally expected.”
Most of the time I feel too cowardly to actually do anything like this. I wonder what it takes to get to that jumping off point and make that “leap of faith”?
What would you do if you didn’t have to worry about being brave? Sometimes I think I would sell everything. Everything. And travel until I ran out of money. I don’t think it’s as shallow as it sounds…I just have a burning curiosity to see the world…not the comfortable Europe (been there) but those places not often visited. I want to see different cultures, and see people — no, persons…individuals. I suspect we are way more alike than we are different. Could there be a redeeming aspect to that?