Gratitude 10 … Death
Today I am grateful for death — that ominous & shadowy peril that lurks around every corner and resides deep within every creature’s every breath. For as sturdy as Life remains as a whole, each individual life therein holds on to its existence by the thinnest thread of grace — a thread made stronger with every act of selfless Love, and yet always a mere thread nonetheless …
And yet, despite the precariousness of our most fragile lives, there is no cause for either fear or worry. It is simply the nature of our existence for us to be constantly confronted by the tenuousness of our being … Indeed, it is better for us to actually rejoice in the same, for what is the preciousness in an existence immortal? Let me rather taste the wonder and the excitement and the relief and the gratitude that are all born from living just one moment more — from being given just one more eternal instant in which to awaken from my self-centered slumbers to Love again!
In every instant of our lives we are being literally assaulted internally by a veritable horde of ravenous micro-organisms — and yet still we live to know moments of Peace. And in every moment of our lives we are attacked by the wind and the rain and heat and hunger and predators more intimate than these — and yet still we live to know moments of amazement and joy. In this sense, death becomes a most priceless gift, that we can be aware of its inevitable omnipotence enough to at least sporadically treasure the moments we still have in our possession!
Oh Death, come not for me in this moment, and yet allow me to celebrate the thick & rich Meaning over which you continually ladle my existence … Oh Death, you are invincible and all-controlling (at least as far as my mind-body is concerned) — and yet as long as I am alive and aware of my aliveness, you are ruled by me; by the degree of selflessness I choose to exhibit in the face of your threats; by the deepest contentment that my fears of you grant me when I nobly choose to set them aside in order to Care anyway.
Thank you, then, oh Death. Thank you for mocking my feeble attempts to disregard you. Thank you for your invincibility, that I have no choice but to accept my ultimate fate, and thereby imbue all the remaining moments of my life with Wonder and Joy and Peace. Some think you to be evil, and others label you as cold & dark, and yet I know that your shadow only frames Love’s radiance, and thereby guides me straight thereto.
And so it is that I climb to my proverbial mountaintop, take a deep breath filled with profound reverence, and let loose with a long & loud –
Thank Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
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