Penny, death, a personal reflection

There was a time when life seemed to be straightforward and almost endless. It comes with age I guess that we all realise our mortality and the shortness of life. The last year of Penny's life added a depth to that realisation. 

Losing Kristy to cancer came as a sudden shock. But the suddenness of that was far easier to deal with than the protracted death that Penny went through. What is the point of months, and for some people years, of just lying in bed with little to look forward to and no real hope of anything better.

Amongst other things this made me reflect on what was once for me a very simple attitude toward assisted suicides. They were a no no. Penny was in no pain and was enjoying seeing people and having some purpose to life. She also had the underlying attitude of a child looking forward to Christmas. Death for her was to be akin to waking up on Christmas morning.  But my heart goes out to those who have no such hope; who suffer constant pain and simply go on surviving.

Penny got to an encouraging stage of getting out of bed on her own and walking a little. But the cruel twist was that it was the chemo that put her in bed in the first place, whilst the cancer went on unabated.  It was the chemo that aged her and took her hair, not the cancer. How many people go through the pain of false hope and not knowing that there is more to life than this life!

You must be born again?

I have been to hear both Tony Campolo and Dave Tomlinson recently and they have set me thinking about what Jesus taught. Dave would have us believe that it is all about following the way of Jesus; going on a journey with Christ; that the light of Christ is in all men; we are all on a journey; Jesus did not preach any theology per se, i.e. nothing that we have to believe to be saved! Tony too points us to the words of Jesus, to the Red Letters. His line is "What would happen if we took the words of Jesus seriously", i.e. rather than basing our beliefs on Pauline theology in the epistles. Dave was keen to point to the words of Jesus, except that he didn't for instance refer to passages like "You must be born again". That's what set me thinking. To be born is to come into a world, unseen before, with no understanding and everything to be learned from scratch. Is that what Jesus meant? Start over; wipe the slate; "forget the former things"; "behold I make all things new". As I say elsewhere, as you get older, as a Christian, you tend to get more tolerant and less dogmatic. I am uncomfortable with the predigested evangelical "gospel" which is the good news that you're all going to hell unless you believe what we believe! That's Good News?!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is it feasible that people can be born again without hearing about Jesus? Is the Spirit of God capable of changing people without hearing a preacher? When Jesus said "It is finished", did he mean that he had dealt with sin, once and for all, or was there small print? If people must be born again in order to stay out of hell for eternity, why aren't the 1000's of Christians in this country leaving the pews behind to go tell people?