Contributing Editor comments on today's growing discussion of death and dying.
In A Passage to his gravely ill father, Dylan Thomas wrote: "Do not go gentle into that good night.... Rage, rage against the dying of the light." The Poems of Dylan Thomas, Daniel Jones, ed. (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1971), p. 208 Without imposing on those lines more than is actually there, we can easily see in them a poetic rebellion against death. To most of us, that rebellion instinctively feels right. Life is about loving and living. It is about growing and giving. It is not about quitting—with or without "dignity."
The Christian promise of eternal life—gained through knowing God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent See John 17:3—has been a comfort to countless families and to individuals facing what St. Paul called "the last enemy." I Cor. 15:26 Looking at the ministry of Jesus, though, we see clearly that he was doing more than preparing people for death. He was doing more than comforting grieving relatives. He was doing more than offering a salvation commencing after death. He was healing. He was restoring sick and dying individuals to health and vitality. He was proving life's ongoing nature. And he insisted his followers could do the same.
