Cafe of the Dead

To me it’s obvious. I’m already dead. Dead because of where and how I grew up and the world’s training. The life I have isn’t real life; it’s the life of a corpse animated by duty and requirement and law. Jesus has better things in mind: real life, coming from a living heart. Our world is designed for stone, His world is designed for flesh. The stone has to die so that the heart may live.

While that part’s obvious, actually doing it is another thing. A daily challenge not to simply give up and go back to the way of stone because it’s easy and familiar.

Doesn’t look like I’ll get something to you this time around, but I’m interested. When is your next one? Any idea of what you’ll talk about?

To be, or not to be–that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–
No more–and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–
To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

The most celebrated suicide note in literature. Poor Hamlet! How often the Bard’s great lines have been butchered by some well-meaning, heavy handed ignoramous.

Death? As Hamlet pointed out, the thing that keeps most people from becoming prematurely dead is the fear of what will happen next. But what if you knew the outcome? What if someone you knew could actually die, and then come back and reassure you that life after death, Hamlet’s dream world, was infinitely better than what we have here? That, in fact, the only way to live freely on this earth is to die while you’re on it? I speak not of the physical death here, as Hamlet did, but of the spiritual one, the death to self that Paul wrote of.

That’s the world I live in. The twilight realm between life on earth and life hereafter. Someone very wise told me the other day that people don’t change until the pain of staying the way they are becomes greater than the pain of changing. I hit that point, a few years back. And I hit it again two days ago. And if I’m not careful, I’ll hit it again today. The point where life is such misery that you wish to lose it.

But that’s where Christ steps in. It’s at that point where my beautiful Jesus comes and cups my face in his hands and says, “Yes, you’re right. Life is hell. But that’s only because you are slowly dying. Why take so long about it? Are you afraid of me, your creator and redeemer? Come, die, and I will set you free. And you will live in hell no more, but have Real life. I will give you joy, and peace, and something to live for.”

And that’s why I’m walking around on this earth, dead to the world: because for me, life any other way just isn’t worth living.

Hey, how would it be if I sent you an audio recording and a photo to display while listening to it? Not as high tech, but faster; and anyways I’m not a high tech person.

-Mel

Greg I keep getting drawn back here…and I want to do something…and feel like I should do a video for you…but I don’t know what to do! That’s where I’m stuck. I know that doesn’t help, but I wanted you to know I really am thinking about it!

Nooc,

I love the blog dude. Great stuff!

I once heard this analogy that really helps me with the death topic.

Imagine a baby, ready to be born. All it has ever known is where it is now. It may not be comfortable, but it doesn’t know any better. As the birth contractions start, the baby starts to worry. ‘What is going on?’ As it is born, and passes down the birth canal, it may be experiencing discomfort…and then it passes out into a new world.

It takes a breath of air, its first ever breath, and realizes what it is to live! Its senses are tingling with newness as it feels the love of its father and mother, feels the warmth of skin, tastes its first real food. If you asked the baby would it like to go back to the life it new ‘pre-birth’, what do you think the answer would be?

It is the same for us as we pass from this pre-life into life in its fullness. We may worry about the short time of transition, the discomfort, the pain. Yet it is all part of the process. And we know what lies ahead. A poor baby doesn’t!

It is only natural to cling to what we know and trust - but we must all do the baby thing one more time!!!

Speak soon bro. Keep us updated.

Noz

ps - And by the way, I know how you feel with only a few community people turning up for your last gig. In the ministry I am involved in, we put ourselves in positions of failure all the time…hoping and praying that God will pull us through. It is an awesome feeling working for God, isn’t it???