People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
We all face the darkness of death. For some, it will come expectantly in our older years, while others will face it sooner, and sometimes without warning.
But as Christians, we have reason to shine from within because we live and die with the promise of eternal life.
Dying well, or dying with grace, means to face death with joy and the expectation of great things to come. It means living every moment to its fullest and leaving nothing unsaid or undone. Some have called it “proactive dying,” but if we live with the knowledge that death can come at any moment, then it might best be called “proactive living.”
Dying well begins with truly living our faith. The Apostle Paul said, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:3-4).
Paul is saying that through Christ we’ve already died. With death out of the way, we’re free now to live as God intended.
A friend puts it this way: “Depending on how I have given myself to Christ, I choose how much to be crucified with him and how much it is I who no longer lives but Christ who lives within me. When that happens, the flesh is just a shell and will simply flake off as a pesky hindrance.”
Even so, dying well doesn’t mean we rush toward heaven and neglect this “pesky” flesh. Rather, we should honor these “holy temples” God has loaned us by adopting healthy lifestyles. Taking care of ourselves physically also contributes to good mental and emotional health, and all that combined helps keep us active and productive, honoring God and serving others.
Another key to dying well is to keep our relationships at the forefront. In The Four Things that Matter Most: A Book About Living, Ira Bycock says the four things we should not leave unsaid are: “Please forgive me,” “I forgive you,” “Thank you” and “I love you.”
“The word ‘good-bye’ derives from ‘God be with you,’ a blessing that was traditionally given at parting and, in some churches, still is,” writes Bycock. “In leaving nothing unsaid, we can recapture this original meaning, so that, in saying good-bye, we are actually blessing one another in our daily interactions as well as when we face major life challenges or crises. It only takes a moment to shift the way you say good-bye from a reflex to a conscious practice. Your good-bye and your blessing can become treasured gifts to other people as you part.”
Our relationships are paramount, because dying well is not something we do alone. Death, while inevitable, is still something we all must struggle with in a human way. And while God is always present, we need the help of the living around us to complete the journey.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, an internationally renowned psychiatrist who devoted her life to the issue of dying with dignity, said death is nothing to fear “if you have enough people who love you, who will see to it that your needs are met, so that if you request to die at home you will be allowed to die at home. If you don’t want to die in a hospital, you should at least be able to go to a hospice. For that, you need a support system around you, people who really know you.”
In a culture that still tends to closet the reality of death in hospital rooms and funeral homes, our community of faith stands as the best of all support systems for the dying.
“Perhaps dying well is about living and then dying within the community,” says Lee Ann Hodges, a Presbyterian minister. “Perhaps dying well has as much to do with how the community faces death. That we face our own fears of death, inviting the dying into our living community.”
When we count the dying among the living, surrounding them with the love of God, we help them to continue shining, as Kübler-Ross suggests, like a stained-glass window from within.