Making Meaning of the Ending of Days

“If you love somebody, if you care about the world that’s to come after  you, if you want somebody to be spared the lunacy of what you’ve seen,  you’ve got to die wise.”  

Many among us now are crazy for meanings, and crazed by seeking them out. The meanings of life aren’t inherited. What is inherited is the mandate to make meanings of life by how we live. The endings of life give life’s meanings a chance to show. The beginning of the end of our life, and maybe our way of life, is now in view. It has always been there. This isn’t punishment for being born. Instead, the world whispers: All we need of you is that you be human, now. Our work is to sort out what being human should be in such a time. This is a teaching for everyone who will fail to live forever. 

Stephen Jenkinson, MTS, MSW Harvard Educated Theologian and Founder of Orphan Wisdom, Author of DIE WISE- A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015) and subject of the National Film Board of Canada Film, GRIEFWALKER (2008)