I Wrote This During a Class I was Bored In

We don't like to talk about death.
It scares us. But I think it also perplexes us.
This notion (better yet, this fact) that one day it all just stops. Those of us who are still in some sort of school may feel like there is no end in sight for our degree; those of us who are single may see no light at the end of of the tunnel; if you're a Detroit Lions fan the crappy seasons don't seem like they will ever stop. But life doesn't fall into the same category. It will end - we can be certain of that.

So what the heck are we doing?
Why do we live our lives as if there is a reset button? Kinda like when you're playing a football video game and if you're getting demolished you hit the reset button before the loss can be saved to the memory card.
There is no reset button in life.

Stop pretending like you're gonna live forever.
Stop pretending like this world is all there is.

Make decisions for eternity.

It sounds cliche but maybe one day we'll all wake up and realize that most cliche's we were so afraid to find on our lips were right. Sentences don't become universal mantras unless there is at least an iota of truth in them.

If you have read Tolkien then you know that his stories feature elves and elves live forever. And in one of his works he writes that the Creator gave to elves gifts that men envied - strength, tireless energy, beauty and not the least of which was immortality. But to men the Creator gave what Tolkien called a strange gift - it was the gift of death. Because when men looked to the elves they thought of immortality being associated with eternal pleasure and experience and failed to realize that it also meant eternal sorrow and pain. Where there is no death there is no escape from the world and all of its sorrows and mess. The elves may live forever but they were bound to an earth that decayed and didn't age with the same grace they did, whereas man had the hope of one day escaping it all.

Augustine in the City of God poses the question of why men who have been saved by Christ from sin and its ensuing curse which was death still must eventually be subject to death. Why aren't believers in Christ conferred with the gift of immortality upon conversion? Augustine's response is interesting. He says that such a reward would nullify faith. The gratuitous gift of instant immoratality would make faith like some sort of lottery jackpot - who wouldn't become a Christian? But having to still be subjected to death and having the reward of eternal life lay behind the curtain of death requires great faith - it is a reward you can't see and a reward that may lie at the end of a road paved with suffering.

Just throwin it out there.