Die with dignity

Every Monday evening my friend, our Pastor and I agreed to visit people in our area. The people we are paying a visit would be new believers, church goers or church members. We do our visits in early evening. I kinda enjoy the visits because it is the time when we talk with friends and a chance for us to know them better. It’s funny because we communicate with each other in three languages—Thai, Burmese and English—mixed together.

One Monday, we visited two church members who are working in a resort. The resort is actually a motel where people rent rooms and stay for a night. I still couldn’t understand why the Thais could it a resort.

Anyway, after a short lively talk, we sang songs and I assumed the Pastor gave a sermon; and he did it without opening his Bible. Then we prayed aloud together for the two persons. These stuffs can be done in a Christian country and nobody will mind. But in a Buddhist country, this definitely made people wonder and attract some kind of interest from the onlookers.

One of the workers invited us to pray for a 96-year old man, apparently, the patriarch of the owners of the resort. So we obliged to go and pay a visit to the old man. We went in and we were in for a shock of our lives by what we saw. The old man is a virtual living skeleton, skins and bones, blind. He was sleeping and the toothless gaping mouth has been that way for a long time. There was a hole in his neck where he was obviously breathing and when we were there he coughed and fluid came out from that hole. He was being fed through a tube connected to his tummy. He was groaning. He could not move, I could tell that he has bed sores. A care taker was doing the moving for him. He exercised old man’s arms and legs.

I couldn’t understand it. Why is he being kept alive by the family (who seems to have abandoned him) when the fact is he could have died a better death ten years earlier? What’s the point? If this man had a choice, I can tell, he wants death. We were asked to pray and all I could mutter is Lord let this poor man die... Life is short indeed, and if we desire to live longer than the appointed time, we will die a worse and undignified death.

Moltmann rightly states that " our (present) activist society has elevated youth into an ideal to a positively comic degree; now it is time to rediscover the dignity of age. Death has been viewed merely as a tiresome nuisance; now there are reasons for once more learning ... the art of dying, so that we may die with dignity."

Here I remember the word of the preacher...

1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. 9What profit hath he that works in that wherein he labors? (Ecclesiastes 3:1-9)

An Unusual Invitation

One morning, a woman we have been visiting and have been coming to the church lately, dropped by our house and gave me an invitation card. Her mother-in-law has died and I was invited to attend a Buddhist funeral. I felt strange. I have never been invited to a funeral before. I grew up in a culture where nobody invites you to attend a funeral. If you know a friend or a family of the deceased person, you are expected to come. But of course, I am not supposed to reject the invite. A friend gave us a good advice; don’t wear anything bright-colored. I wore black.

The body was laid in the community meeting hall and the street was blocked off. It did not look like a funeral; it was more like a party. We ate and talked with people who looked like they were having a good time. The family hired catering company and constantly serving food. Then perhaps after a couple of hours of waiting the monks started their chanting. And everyone around us put their hands in a prayer position and just stayed still. But some just continue chatting in that position.

When the chanting was finished, the coffin was put on the pickup truck on elevated platform. However, when it was time to go, the poor thing won’t start. It was kinda funny, the driver kept turning the ignition for more than 30 minutes and the wretched thing won’t bulge. I thought of pushing it, but the coffin might topple and nobody wanted that to happen. The relatives talked to the dead and said “pai liao” meaning “you have to go.” They thought the dead wouldn’t want to be buried because she was waiting for her son who failed to come to the funeral. They believed that spirit or consciousness of the dead person was still around floating in the air aimlessly.

Anyways, to make the long story short, at the cemetery, before the body was cremated there was a very long ceremony of merit making. Relatives were called to give gifts to the monks in a very formal manner; it took forever, because evidently the clan was big. We looked at the monks during this time, and they were all sleeping at the back. After all the relatives finished their turns, it was now time for the monks to receive all the gifts. Suddenly they were all awake, they chanted again for 30 minutes and took all the gifts. And many more ceremonies like glasses of water spilled on the ground among others. I couldn’t remember everything now, and then they put the body inside the oven and finally it was cremated. I and my wife went home with a terrible headache but not after we had been splashed with a bucket of water on our way out from the cemetery.

It was more like a party than a funeral. And I guess the children had a reason to feel good. They had done all their best to make merit for themselves and for the deceased person. In fact, all the male grandchildren became monk for at least a day. They make merits so that the karma of the deceased person would give her disembodied consciousness would have a pleasant and heavenly subsistence until she is reborn again to a better condition than her former life. Until she reach “nirvana.”

Christians don’t need to make merits to gain a heavenly existence after death. Christ did the ultimate merit making so that we will experience eternal life that we have through Him.