In the grand Roman age a returning victorious general, or up and coming Caesar, would be treated to a massive celebration called a "Triumph". Coincidentally this is where we get the name for Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, the "Triumphal Entry". There are astounding and subversive parallels that I won't go into here. Essentially, Jesus' triumphal entry was a message directly to the Romans. I'll save it 'til Easter.
One of the sequences near the end of the celebration was to ascend the steps that led to the top of a sacred hill. Inside the temple at the top the general would metaphorically die and be "reborn", supposedly immortal. Before going up the hill the praised general or other candidate would be smacked across the face by a lowly slave and told, "Memento Mori". "Remember, you are mortal/you will die." It seems so incongruent. He is being lauded by all the people of Rome, about to achieve immortality, and yet this low born, stinking slave grounds him by telling him that he is still dust, no matter what anyone thinks or says of him later. Throughout our lives, if we are lucky, we have a few "Memento Mori" moments. Recently I had one.
I won't go into much in the way of details, but for a few days I was genuinely afraid of that I had cancer. I don't, thankfully. We got it checked out and all is well, just a bit of a scare, but I came away from it with something I didn't have before. I say that I was afraid, and I was, but I had a significant moment that I'd experienced only once before.
Years ago I worked the graveyard shift at a shipping dock where we unloaded trucks of their cargo, sorted them, and divided the pallets and crates into other trucks to go elsewhere. I was on my own for fifteen minutes or so and found that there was a thin crate as tall and nearly as long as the container that was the only thing left to unload. For some reason I believed that something that large and long had to be light. I unstrapped it and was immediately crushed beneath it. As it turns out the crate was 2,658 lbs.
I was trapped underneath the crate. Fortunately the containers you see trucks hauling around aren't exactly as wide as they are tall. The full weight wasn't crushing down on me, but it was enough to trap me and make it difficult to breathe. It was at that moment I had a fairly profound experience. I was at peace. The spirit part of me, the eternal bit of stuff inside us all, was perfectly calm. The animal part of me was freaking out and screaming its head off. Somehow I experienced that division between spirit and flesh and it changed my perspective of a lot of things.
Back to the present...ish. During my "Memento Mori" period a few days ago I felt the same thing. A small part of the time I was freaking out. I'd get this rush of anxiety, or I'd suddenly become irritable. At night I would wake up sitting bolt upright, my heart pounding in my chest, the animal/flesh part of me having a meltdown.
By stark contrast, the spirit part was at peace, and, in fact, growing as a result of the experience. I was looking at life differently. My whole perspective shifted. My wife's kisses were sweeter, my interactions with my kids was calmer, more sympathetic, and understanding. My desires shifted hard towards things that were actually eternal. I wasn't at all interested in petty conflicts and my pet peeves didn't matter quite as much anymore. When you are facing the potential of "oblivion" you start to reevaluate things. Suddenly what you could put off and get to later moves from the back burner to the front. Fortunately it has stayed with me in the days since.
I wonder if this is the reason that a lot of older people seem so calm, so at peace, so loving, patient, understanding, and kind. I've neglected their advice whenever they've told me, "Oh, sweetie, don't worry about that. Don't give it the time of day. It doesn't matter." In my youth and passion I believed every little thing mattered. Now I see the value of their advice so very clearly. When you know for a fact that you could die any moment, or that your health (when it comes down to if for real) is pretty much out of your hands, I think you have two choices; get bitter or get kind.
I don't know if we can actually make that kind of a change without the direct "Memento Mori" experience. I considered how the death of someone close to us can cause us to view things differently, but I think that might be a "light" version. Knowing your own mortality, coming face to face with your individual startling fragility is not something I imagine you can experience vicariously.
It does make me think about Jesus' moments in the Garden of Gethsemane. I wonder often about how intensely He must have been feeling His mortality, that it was the animal/fleshy bit begging the LORD for another way, sweating blood. Despite the fact that He knew how it would end, He still was going to feel every iota of pain and death.
I guess there isn't much of a point to this post, other than to say that I'm seeing these "Memento Mori" moments as a gift in a way; an undercover blessing. We pass from here so quickly, so easily like a vapor, and even into my very late 30's I still tend to think I'm invincible. We do well to be smacked by a slave and reminded that we are mortal, fading, and dust; that any day we live is essentially borrowed time. Naturally, you'll only understand this once you've experienced it. So...good luck with that. :)
Pax,
W
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