Kifo - the death
I just got the news that my best friend has died. We knew each other for many years and went through a lot together. That was a long time ago. Now we have grown old, death is at our door, there is no turning back!
Death is life's brother. Both always come together, never one alone.
Death is nothing at all, wrote Henry Scott Thomas: "Death is nothing. It has no meaning. I have only gone next door. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am who I am, and you remain you, and the old life we shared so lovingly remains untouched, goes on unchanged. Whatever we were to each other remains. Address me as you have always addressed me.
Speak to me as casually as you always have. Speak in the familiar way.
Do not force yourselves to be serious or sad. Laugh as always at our little jokes together.
Enjoy yourselves, smile, think of me, say a prayer for me. Leave my name and reputation as it was. Speak about me in a light-hearted way, without casting me into the shadows. Life means all that it has always meant. It is as it has always been. It persists, on and on, without pausing. What is this death but a trivial, accidental circumstance? Why should I be out of your hearts
just because you no longer see me? I am waiting for you, in the meantime, somewhere close by. All is well. No harm is done, nothing is lost. After a little while, everything will be as it was. How we'll make fun of the pain of separation when we meet again!"
The world is in a terribly bad state. It has become a gloomy house, a fit dunghill for the birds, the fat, hope, joy, youth, peace, rest, life, dust, ashes, desert, lust, decay, despair, madness, death, fear, guile, folly, words, strife, rags, sheepskin, plunder, projection, writing and spinach. In this house - our earth - nothing is as it should be. Man in himself is a know-nothing and a busybody. We read the newspaper so that we are informed, but when we read it, we are disinformed because we are manipulated. The news is full of the usual junk. Mostly politics, a bit of murder, famine in Africa, a botched attack in the Middle East. Towards the end there is one of those gossip stories that always have to serve as a stopgap. Noam Chomsky, one of the most important intellectuals alive today, has compiled a list of the 10 strategies of manipulation by the mass media. We fail more and more beautifully, and above all with more relish. That's what we like to do, we fail with pleasure! Somehow this is also madness! Politics. Franco (Spanish fascist) defined it like this : "Three are the fundamental truths on which our politics has been based in the course of these years: the principles of divine law, true service to the homeland and social justice in relation to the common good, the bedrock of a great and inevitable political revolution."
Pope Pius XII sent Franco a telegram of appreciation: "We wish that this immensely beloved country, now that peace has been obtained, may take up with renewed vigour its ancient Christian traditions which have made it so great." Many priests took part in the front line of the war or were active in the purges in the hinterland, where the Church did not care about the deaths of so many condemned, but did care about their sacramentalisation, i.e. that the victims of the courts martial passed away converted to Christianity. The Vatican did not share this attitude and was much more humane and less bellicose than the Spanish bishops, but after initial hesitation, Pope Pius XI and the Roman Church also sided with Franco. It was the moment when the bishops proudly raised their arms and Franco took communion every day.
Julian Casanova analysed the role of the Church thus: "The Church is victim and executioner, but it has been executioner for longer and much more clearly than victim."
What does politics mean? To always be pending. But not committing oneself to the outside world. Casting a line in the clear and fishing in the murky. Promising everything and keeping the part you have to keep for your own benefit. People have fixed it for themselves, always on top, never looking at anyone else, or even considering anyone else, they have taken what they wanted, then as now. There is no question of guilt and atonement, guilt is felt only by the victims, atonement by the relatives of the dead and murdered. That is how we continue to live today, cheerfully and contentedly looking to the future. Chaos reigns all around us. Politics is in love with itself.... But who goes into politics? There are only two kinds of people who go into politics: Rags and idiots. Yes, these are our politicians! In love with themselves, self-promoters, on the edge of legality. They admire themselves. The biggest calves, choose their own butchers! That's what it looks like. Sad.
How does a story begin? Usually with : 'once upon a time...'. That was in the old days, today a story starts with : 'if I am elected, I promise...'.
On the other hand, we have to look at the clowns, there are so few now. There is a reason for that, the clowns are all in parliament!
That's a deadly constellation, nothing can come out of it, nothing can happen to help humanity, that's all going the wrong way.
My wound neither bleeds nor crusts over, the one who leaves is forgotten, the one who stays burns, if I were to run away, but I can't,' writes Rafet El Roman.
Death is just - in the sense that it befalls all people, rich and poor, powerful and powerless, pious and unbelieving. Jesus Sirach recognises an eternal cycle: "Yesterday it was up to me, today it is up to you. So it goes with the human race: some die, others are born."
(Quote: "Even the wise die, just as fools and fools perish." (Psalm 49:11); other scriptures: Ecclesiastes 9:3; Sirach 14:19; 38:23)
Instead of focusing on one's own death, man should enjoy and make the most of life, as the psalmist praises: "I will not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord."
(Quote: "Teach us to remember that we must die." (Psalm 90:12); other scriptures Sirach 8:8; 14:18; Isaiah 51:12; Psalm 118:7).
"He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." (John 11:26); further scripture Revelation 21:4.
"Verily from God we come, and, verily to Him we are brought back."
This verse from the Quran has a central meaning for Muslims. They think of this verse when they receive news that relatives, friends or acquaintances have died. Believing in death as a kind of transition to the afterlife is elementary in Islam and is counted among the six truths of faith.
"... that there is this inevitability and that every creation that has a soul in it will indeed also face death. And the Prophet Muhammad also says in very many statements that the remembrance of death is very important because it basically brings about a reorientation of the worldly, i.e. earthly existence. And the thought of death inevitably leads one to divine or think of the hereafter."
And that has taken us very far now. The thoughts come when I think of my friend who passed away. He had a full life. Or so I hope. At the end of life we should not worry, we will enter another world, a world where there is no more injustice, no more hunger, no more pain.
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