Article

Change

Death & life

27 October 2023

7 min read

How to face the space of death

Losing family and friends across a life, leads Natalie Garrett to navigate the space of death we all face. Part of the How to Die Well series.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

An experimental image mixes distance people with watery paint-like filters of green .

Jr Korpa on Unsplash.

Death is something I’ve thought about quite a lot. As a bereaved friend, granddaughter, niece and daughter. Also, as an Anglican priest who has pastoral responsibility for those who are grieving and who conducts funerals. And as the mother of children who live in a vicarage and hear a lot about Mummy and Daddy doing funerals, too. Death is a part of our life in a way it doesn’t seem to be in a lot of families.

My first experience of death was when my grandfather died; I think I was about six. My memories of it are mostly about how the adults behaved. I remember, with uncharacteristic clarity, the evening when Grandma came to tell us that Grandad had died. I don’t remember what she said but I remember the feeling in the room. I remember it feeling as if someone had sucked all the air out, as if we were floating in a strange and uncomfortable space. I remember sitting in the kitchen with my mother not knowing the rules of engagement for this situation and feeling scared by that.

And in my experience, over the many years since then and in many different situations, I think most people faced with death for the first-time experience that same fear of not knowing how to be in the space of death; “I don’t know what to say”…

While I was a student, I had a friend who was the only Christian any of us knew. He also had cancer and didn’t have long to live. He made the choice do what people his age who didn’t have a death sentence to carry around with them were doing and went to Uni. He was one of the bravest people any of us had ever met. And at his funeral, a whole load of us from Uni turned up to pay tribute to this amazing young man who had touched so many lives by the way he had so courageously lived with death.

I could hold that space that I had been so afraid of all those years ago; I could give form and shape to the place of that which we must all face but which we all avoid so passionately in our western culture.

One of my daughter’s godmothers died of bowel cancer. She was one of the most faithful Christians I’ve ever known. When she was diagnosed, the whole church prayed for her healing. But the cancer grew and the chances of survival shrank. But wow did she use her last few months, weeks, days well. She wasn’t afraid of dying so she talked openly about it to everyone and the healing that came from how she lived then was powerful and widespread. She was an incredibly organised person and wanted to make sure she tied up all possible loose ends, like selling her house. She told with such joy about the conversation she had with the estate agent who came round to value her house who asked all the usual questions, “So are you looking to move soon? Where are you going?” I can only imagine his face as she answered with complete honesty about where she knew she was going. And I remember, with a powerful mixture of emotions, the conversation I had with her when I went to say goodbye. “I’ll see you there.” She said as I closed the door behind me.

Several decades after that visit from my grandmother, as a grown up and now a Christian, I had the privilege of conducting my grandmother's funeral. Grandma had been such a huge and influential part of my life and it was unthinkable that I should lead the service and not be allowed to be a grieving granddaughter – but it was even more unthinkable to risk someone else doing it, in case they didn’t do it “well”. I visited her in a Chapel of Rest, a couple of days before the service, so that I could say what I needed to say and cry as much as I was able. As I led the service and thus guided my family through the process of saying goodbye to the matriarch of our clan, I could hold that space that I had been so afraid of all those years ago; I could give form and shape to the place of that which we must all face but which we all avoid so passionately in our western culture. Because as a Christian, I know something, I know Someone, bigger than death.

Death seems to be the final taboo of our culture, the most intimate and unmentionable part of life. Which means we’re not very good at death. And a good death is a beautiful thing.

There’s a famous story in the Bible when Jesus’ friend Lazarus died. Jesus isn’t there while Lazarus is ill, in fact he isn’t there when he dies – he turns up four days later. In the Jewish culture of which Jesus was a part, there were all sorts of rules to comply with around death and one of the traditions was to gather the local community, including professional mourners to weep and wail, to encourage the expression of emotion.

Lazarus’s sisters were angry that their good friend Jesus hadn’t been there when they needed him. They were angry that their brother, Lazarus, had died. They were angry and needed someone to blame. I think we can all relate to that. When someone we love is suffering, when someone we love dies, a natural part of the grieving process is anger. And that anger is often directed at God, whether we believe in him or not.

When Jesus arrives, he generously receives their emotional rebuke, allowing them to give voice to their pain. And then he goes to the grave where Lazarus has been lying dead for four days. And in the shortest verse in the Bible, we are privy to his reaction. Jesus wept. Even God is distressed by the reality of death. Death was never meant to happen; death was never part of God’s good plan for humanity. And it makes him weep. He turns up, unafraid of the raw reality of death and bereavement.

Of course, in that situation, there was a reprieve – Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. And the mourning turned to celebration. But of course, although we never hear about Lazarus’s final death, he did die, just like all the rest of us.

Death is the one thing we all have in common. Different cultures react to death differently. In some cultures, the entire community stops doing normal life and gather round the bereaved. In our culture, all too often, we pretend nothing has happened. We are determined to keep death in a box, packed as far deep as possible so we don’t have to look at it. Death seems to be the final taboo of our culture, the most intimate and unmentionable part of life. Which means we’re not very good at death. And a good death is a beautiful thing. The Christian friends I’ve known who died untimely young deaths have shown me that. People who are not afraid of death, people who know what’s going to happen after they’ve died can pave the way for us to walk into the place of death and find beauty there.

As we face death head on, we stare into the place of what’s really important. Everyone says glibly that on our deathbed we won’t be wishing we’d spent more time at work. But let’s not wait till our deathbed to work out where we need to spend more time. Let’s learn how to live well now, not hiding from the only guaranteed fact of our future.

At Lazarus’s graveside, Jesus made the rather elliptical claim:

“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”

When Jesus died himself, naked and nailed to a cross, he took on the greatest enemy of life. And he won. As Jesus rose again on the third day, he claimed victory over death. As Christians follow Jesus through this life, they do so in the assurance of eternal life with him after death. Wow, that’s the place of hope. That’s the place where you can look death right in the face, unafraid.

The Christian message of hope is a life raft in the cold, choppy waters of bereavement. It gives form and shape to something we don’t understand and don’t want to have to navigate. It gives us courage to accept the truth, when we really don’t want to. Knowing that there is something, Someone, who is bigger than death. And knowing that death – either my own or that of someone I love – isn’t the end of the story gives me the capacity to walk confidently and unafraid through my life towards its inevitable end. And into what’s next. To quote my friend, I hope I’ll see you there.

Article

Change

Politics

Psychology

5 November 2024

5 min read

How to be a wise diplomat about the election result

It’s not just American citizens weighing-up and trading-off.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson writes on geopolitics. He is also a business executive and holds a doctorate in theology.

An ambassador presents credential to President Trump

President Trump accepts credentials from Indonesian ambassador M. Lutfi.

White House via Wikimedia Commons.

The American election result, whatever the case, is a landmark event in geopolitics. And here, it is unclear which result is better for the world in the long-term, given the ambiguous motives, interests and intentions of its main characters.

Whereas the Biden Administration led by the Democrats has been fraught with war, the Trump Administration was comparatively peaceful, with breakthroughs such as the historic Abraham Accords. Yet, the rhetoric of President Trump is aggressive and divisive.

Despite mainstream media assertions focused on the clear best choice in the election, a balanced perspective is necessary involving consideration of trade-offs between what the parties and their leaders each offer. This balance, however, is difficult to achieve as polarisation encourages retrenchment into simple views.

As the American election approaches, it is worth considering what a diplomatic approach to an election transition might entail. Here we can look to the example of Henry Kissinger, whose diplomatic mindset is illustrated in Barry Gewen’s The Inevitability of Tragedy. Gewen eloquently illustrates the Kissingerian – even if often cold-hearted – approach to the consideration of trade-offs in diplomacy.

Gewen traces the early-life experience of Kissinger, a German Jew forced to flee Nazi persecution, both serving in the US Army and attending Harvard. Unlike his American peers, Kissinger understood through personal experience that authoritarianism could rise through democratic means, Adolph Hitler the primary example.

It is partly for this reason that Kissinger was willing as US Secretary of State to intervene in the affairs of foreign states to halt dictators emerging through democratic processes. The trade-off was here between respect of democratic process and the possibility of dictatorship, a trade-off which Americans without German-Nazi experience would never understand and which they saw as deeply unsettling.

Kissinger is the archetypal diplomat. His example is worth reflecting on in the wake of the American elections. Kissinger approached geopolitics with little emotion, instead considering what course of action in a particular situation served as the least worst evil available.

He engaged across a wide variety of networks, talking with individuals who would not speak with each other. And he maintained a considerable sense of calm throughout his career as both an actor and commentator, responding to events as they developed.

An initial consideration in emerging from the American elections is that too much emotionality – amplified by political polarization – will expose politicians, diplomats and the public to risk. Emotion colours careful, strategic calculation of various scenarios and actions across potential scenarios.

‘People constantly show you who they are; we are just too busy to notice,’

An effective diplomatic (or strategist) will carefully consider what might happen and think through potential steps in case these realities actually transpire, while recognising that too much anticipation risks cascading into fantasy. Too much emotion impedes this careful process of reflection and deliberation as part of the development of strategy.

A second element of effective diplomacy and strategy is to consider people as they are, rather than rely on superficial descriptions in the media, biased second-hand accounts or who or what one hopes another person is. People’s motives, intentions and interests are not easily discernible at first glance, instead requiring careful probing and questioning.

At the same time, there are few more accurate sayings than ‘People constantly show you who they are; we are just too busy to notice,’ conveying that counterparts are always providing information as to who they are, few careful or disciplined enough to mask their real thinking.

An effective diplomat might consider the early upbringing – much like that of Kissinger – that shapes a person’s character and behaviour, if not their worldview informing action.

Consider Donald J. Trump, learning right from wrong on the streets of New York City via the mentorship of lawyer Roy Cohn, who served as Chief Counsel to Joseph McCarthy while McCarthy prosecuted potential American communist sympathisers.

Cohn’s rules of life, work and play were as follows (these summarized by a friend well-acquainted with Cohn and his colleagues): ‘One, attack, attack, attack! Two, deny everything! Three, always claim victory!’ The logic of these three rules of life are readily understandable when considering the harsh New York realities within which Cohn and later Trump operated.

These considerations are overlooked, however, amid the onslaught of media which fails to consider what really shapes the character of a man or woman.

Curiosity, a critical mindset and self-restraint in the face of the human temptation to reach rapid and satisfying answers are here necessary, as part of figuring out what exactly is driving action.

A wise diplomat would pay particular attention to these pivotal factors – such as the influence of a long-standing mentor or advisor – as they might manifest in the present. This requires an intellectually honest and serious consideration of the worldview that shapes a counterpart, rather than considering superficial media commentary.

Third, a wise diplomat will maintain relations across a wide variety of networks, understanding that it is fine to talk with two or multiple individuals whose own relations are fractured (in fact, these strains in relations can be beneficial within diplomacy, the diplomat in this case able to play broker as he or she needs or wishes).

The maintenance of broad networks is vital, because this enables action under a wide array of potential circumstances, understanding that anything can happen (we are here reminded of Harold MacMillan’s saying “Events, dear boy, events!”) And a key lesson in diplomacy and in the cultivation of strategy is that, once crises unfold, it is the preparatory work in developing networks and alliances that counts; little new network-formation is possible afterwards.

The previous two points suggest that a wise diplomat will not pay too much attention to what is in the media, but will instead consider their own learning gleaned through in-person interactions with others, as well as the perspective of their most trusted contacts. Curiosity, a critical mindset and self-restraint in the face of the human temptation to reach rapid and satisfying answers are here necessary, as part of figuring out what exactly is driving action, and what can in turn be done to shape action in accordance with interests.

Finally, an effective diplomat will not try to play God, serving as the arbiter of right or wrong, adopting instead a more considered approach anticipating and responding to circumstances as they gradually or quickly evolve. Effective strategy requires an aloof approach (caring – but not caring too much), removing the self from a given situation so as not to allow natural human vices such as presumptiveness, arrogance or short-term self-interest to affect judgment.

And the American election bring with them a number of trade-offs, these to be weighed carefully by American citizens, as well as by diplomats and strategists in other countries. These trade-offs will be considered most effectively if approached with calmness – the aloof, even if cold-hearted, approach personified by Henry Kissinger.

In an age of catastrophising, emphasing emotion, it is easy to descend rapidly into despair, rather than consider action from a long-term perspective. Diplomacy and strategy require the latter, which will be a key to success for those who emerge effective in advancing their interests in the wake of the American elections.