Great Expectations
April 27, 2009
In 1900 the life expectancy for males in the U.S. was 48 years. 48 years!
That means I’d likely be dead in nine years and people would mourn my passing as normal. My son would be fatherless at the tender age of fourteen. Tragic. But not unexpected.
Sometimes I wonder if the spiritual malaise of our generation isn’t simply due to the fact that our expectations are too high. I wonder if there is something to be said for having to face your mortality, as a matter of course, in the prime of life. It might force some sort of spiritual choice.
As it is, I think we expect to be relieved of that choice by senility, in some distant and urine-stained future, where we never really die, but just fade away.
Maybe the writer of Ecclesiates was on to something when he penned this grim little gem, “There is more wisdom in the house of mourning than in the house of feasting.”
Since 9/11, a glimmer of this understanding has returned. And with the accelerating global economic crisis, the glimmer burns brighter. “As we glance across the horizon of the loudest and brightest culture in the history of humankind, is there any chance we might find in the midst of all the shallowness, something deeper, something more precious, something more lasting?” (Steve Stockman)
I suppose that’s up to each one of us. To take the red pill and exit the Matrix, to accept death that we might live, to refuse the annesthesia of illusions. And the intoxication of great expectations.
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to read the rest from this author. Marc is a local writer, musician, and physician. He is a regular contributor to ConneXions and has written reviews for Spectrum: Adventist Forum. He loves words and music, windsurfing, and going on adventures with Janine and the kids.(Read more from this author) 
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