You're right that life is a marvelous gift. It is a matchless boon to be born and to live in a world of such joy and wonder as ours, and every morning I wake up in glad anticipation of another new day, and in the hope of discovering something wonderful.
But joy and wonder are not the only things our world has to offer. Misery and terror live here, too, and they have the power to turn that gift of life into a curse, and to make the occasion of waking in the morning cause not for joy, but for sorrow, because a new day brings nothing but suffering without hope of remission.
If there is one true thing our faith tells us, it is that we are more than our flesh, that there are other lives than these, and that the sorrow of death is but temporary - that death is not the end, and we will be together again, if we wish to be, in the world that is to come. This is the sine qua non of our faith. If you don't believe that, then there's no point in us even trying to have this conversation. And if you imagine yourself to be Christian and you do not believe that, then I pity you.
In light of that truth, what sense does it make to counsel that we cling to flesh when to do so brings only agony, not only to ourselves, but to those who, because they love us, cannot bear to see us suffer? Why not shrug off the burden that only weighs us down, and discover what comes next? Were death only an ending, I could only agree with you that to do so is terrible. But death comes to us all; the rest is merely timing. And if death is only an ending, then why do you bother with faith? Why should any of us ever bother with anything save nihilism, except to say: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
But joy and wonder are not the only things our world has to offer. Misery and terror live here, too, and they have the power to turn that gift of life into a curse, and to make the occasion of waking in the morning cause not for joy, but for sorrow, because a new day brings nothing but suffering without hope of remission.
If there is one true thing our faith tells us, it is that we are more than our flesh, that there are other lives than these, and that the sorrow of death is but temporary - that death is not the end, and we will be together again, if we wish to be, in the world that is to come. This is the sine qua non of our faith. If you don't believe that, then there's no point in us even trying to have this conversation. And if you imagine yourself to be Christian and you do not believe that, then I pity you.
In light of that truth, what sense does it make to counsel that we cling to flesh when to do so brings only agony, not only to ourselves, but to those who, because they love us, cannot bear to see us suffer? Why not shrug off the burden that only weighs us down, and discover what comes next? Were death only an ending, I could only agree with you that to do so is terrible. But death comes to us all; the rest is merely timing. And if death is only an ending, then why do you bother with faith? Why should any of us ever bother with anything save nihilism, except to say: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"