Memento mori

We awoke to a deep and heavy fog, able only to see shadowy trees, the outlines of a few camper vans, with the hills and lake shrouded in grey. The season had changed. A few hours later the sun burned off the fog, but its heat was short-lived and we were glad of a camp fire by two in the afternoon. Glorious fall. The last Sunday after Trinity, the week of Halloween and All Saints, and the seasonal reflection on endings and beginnings, old things and new things, death and life.
We heard yesterday of the passing of a dear friend and member of our community who had been with us since the early 2000s. Taken by cancer at 63; life all too brief, much left still to be done. An ending and a beginning; gathered to the ancestors.
By strange coincidence, the Revised Common Lectionary for last Trinity gives us St. Paul's reflection, "The time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim 4:6-7). I think this was so for our friend. I hope when my time comes I can say so too.
At the risk of sounding morbid, in the beauty of an autumn day, with leaves falling from the trees around me I am thinking about death—the death of my friend, death in general, and my own death in particular. And I feel OK about it.
The great spiritual traditions make room for memento mori—(remember that you yourself must die). St. Benedict told his monks, "remember to keep death before your eyes daily." Tibetan Buddhist monks contemplate pictures of corpses. Christianity has its All Saints and All Souls days, and October 31-November 2 are days when the veil is thin and the living and the dead share strange communion—Día de los Muertos.
To remember that we too must die, far from being depressive or unhealthily morbid, is a life-affirming exercise. It grounds us in reality, allowing us to face what inevitably will be. Facing our fear often dissipates the fear. In St. Paul's words, it spurs us on to fight the good fight, to run the race, and to keep the faith. 
The cycle of life and death continues, for it is not a continuum with life at one end and death at the other. Rather the cycle is life and death and life again. Nothing in nature remains the same in its continuing  cycle of regeneration. 

I began my thoughts 24 hours ago, gazing at the mysterious shapes in the fog. The sun came out for its brief sojourn, and set early behind the hills. Then came the rain. It lasted all night. I finish my thoughts listening to the strangely comforting patter of rain on the camper roof. Another day, another cycle. Here's to life.

Be well,

+Ab.Andy