Just Around the Corner

“Death is just around the corner.

No one’s ever been immune.

Turning off a respirator

With a simple click –

Strenuously quick.

I can face a new tomorrow

If I make it past today.

I feel good saying

Death is just around the corner,

Simply on its way.”

The Addams Family (2010)

 

I’m no expert, but this guy looks pretty dead to me.

The Addams Family is one of many cultural phenomena of the previous century of which I have some vague awareness, but which I never actually encountered as I was growing up (it didn’t help that my television intake consisted almost entirely of Disney films, CBBC-on-BBC-One, and Channel 4 schools programmes). In actual fact, I still haven’t encountered it in any of its previous-century formats – which I understand from Wikipedia to have spanned single-panel cartoons, television series both live-action and animated, a number of feature films, books, and video games – but I did fairly recently attend a performance of the Addams Family musical put on by one of the theatrical societies at my university, and it is the said musical to which I shall be referring in this post. So, if my ignorance of the exploits of Addamses who appeared in various other formats should happen to be painfully obvious in what follows, at least you know why.

In terms of plotline, the musical follows the turmoil into which the Addams household is thrown by Wednesday’s romantic involvement with a remarkably pleasant and ordinary lad from Ohio, and particularly by his parents’ coming over to the Addamses’ for dinner one evening. Wednesday’s mother Morticia is particularly distressed by said turmoil, such that she feels the need to comfort herself by reminding herself of the following guarantee:

Death is just around the corner,

Waiting patiently to strike.

One unplanned electrocution –

That’s the kind of end

I can comprehend.

When I’m feeling uninspired,

Or I need a little spree,

I’m reborn knowing

Death is just around the corner

Coming after me.

She takes a break from singing to quip, “Get it? Coroner … death is just around the coroner,” before continuing with several more verses listing possible means by which said death might occur, including avalanches, public stoning, baseball bats, and unanticipated cherry-stones, among various others.¹

The joke is obvious. I might not know much about the Addams family, but it’s pretty clear that the heart of the premise for them as a set of characters is that they have an abnormal fondness for things the rest of society disdains as grim, gory, and ghastly. To illustrate, the musical also includes a song in which Wednesday has a bit of a crisis over the new direction in which her romantic relationship is pulling her:

I don’t have a sunny disposition.

I’m not known for being too amused.

My demeanour’s locked in one position:

See my face? I’m enthused.

Suddenly, however, I’ve been puzzled:

Bunny rabbits make me want to cry.

All my inhibitions have been muzzled,

And I think I know why.

I’m being pulled in a new direction,

But I think I like it.

I think I like it.

I’m being pulled in a new direction.

Through my painful pursuit,

Somehow birdies took root –

All the things I detested, impossibly cute!²

Later on, her brother Pugsley laments the emergence of this new Wednesday, envisioning a bleakly torture-free future:

What if she never tortures me any more?

How would I manage?

What if she never nails my tongue to the bathroom floor?

What if she walks away,

Leaving me A-OK,

Hiding each power tool –

Why would she be so cruel?

I could stab my arm myself,

Could rip my tonsils out,

Could set my hair aflame.

I could spray my eyes with mace,

But face the fact:

Without her, it wouldn’t be the same.³

Like so many things, it’s funny because it’s incongruous: people are not supposed to find the prospect of no longer being tortured at all distressing. The Addamses represent a totally upside-down perspective of what is pleasant and enjoyable. We get it.

So why is it that Morticia’s positive attitude towards the fact that death is just around the corner is strangely concordant with my own?

I’ll be frank: the fact that I shall one day die genuinely is quite a comfort to me, just as it is to Morticia. That said, I suspect we differ very much in our reasons. Morticia, I would suggest, is unafraid of death because, as a character, she is deliberately designed as an entertaining contradiction of prevailing human sentiment. I, on the other hand, am unafraid of death – at least, in a rather grandiose sense; I’m not saying I’m so marvellously chalcenterous that the immediate prospect of it wouldn’t cause me any distress, but rather that I don’t believe I have rational cause to fear it – because I don’t think that it really will be death for me.

It’s a belief that ultimately hangs on the fact that I am certain that Jesus of Nazareth really did rise from the dead some two thousand years ago.⁴ For a start, that proves that such a thing is possible, but beyond that, and more significantly, the Bible (a text whose authenticity as divine is vindicated by the divinely miraculous resurrection of a man who treated it as such) says that that first resurrection was the firstfruits – the pilot scheme, the preview screening – for many, many others. Check out the following chunk of Paul’s first letter to Christians in Corinth:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.⁵

On the one hand, sure, I’m terrified of death, because death represents God’s judgement against those who rebel against him, starting with Adam and Eve and extending to all the rest of us who came after them, and there is literally nothing worse in the whole of existence than facing that judgement. However – and it’s a rather huge ‘however’ – Jesus already faced that judgement for me. He already died on my behalf, and the whole version of me that belongs to wrongdoing and condemnation and mortality died with him:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

That’s from Romans 6.⁵ For me, then – for all those who are trusting in Christ – the end of this life isn’t actually death at all, but the completion of my own resurrection, at which point I shall be made sinless and glorious and, even better, enabled to live with the one who made all of that possible, the King of the universe, Creator of all that exists, my heavenly Father who loves me with an immeasurable and everlasting love, forever.

So hopefully that makes it clear why the inevitability of death – the fact that this imperfect and perishable life shall come to an unavoidable end and yield to the perfect and imperishable – really is very reassuring from my perspective. It’s great to know that death is just around the corner. In fact, the question now would seem to be why there even is a corner at all. If I have already died with Christ, why do I have to endure this irritating in-betweeny bit before I get to complete the process of being raised with him? If this life is so rubbish and the next so brilliant, why aren’t I and my fellow-believers falling over ourselves to speed up the transition?

Well, if we thought the purpose of our existence were to engineer the greatest possible comfort and pleasure for our own selves, then we would perhaps have good reason to be doing just that. On the contrary, however, to have died with Jesus, to have accepted his death on my behalf, is to have submitted to him as Lord, worthy of all power and praise, which means acknowledging the purpose of my existence as to serve and to glorify him. That chunk of 1 Corinthians I quoted above continues:

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

If I’m not making myself a subject of Christ’s rule, existing to serve and glorify him, then I’m making myself his enemy still, and his enemies can have no place in the glorious, post-resurrection future I mentioned above; they still belong to the old order of wrongdoing and condemnation and mortality. If, on the other hand, I am making myself a subject of Christ’s rule, he has a plan for how I’m going to serve and glorify him, and, funnily enough, it doesn’t involve being whisked away to eternal bliss the second I put my trust in him.

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him … For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

A little bit of Ephesians 2 there (emphasis my own, of course).⁷ The point is, God has stuff for us to do while we’re still in this imperfect and perishable life; this is no mere in-betweeny bit, but a purposeful time. We are commissioned to proclaim the promise of resurrection to a dying world while we’re still in it. God chooses to use us, flawed as we are, to extend his kingdom. In which light, it’s our duty and our privilege to stick around in this life for as long as he gives us, even as we do look forward to the life to come, because every day we wake up in the morning still breathing is a day in which there are good works for us to do that he has prepared beforehand.

And this adds a whole new dimension to the guarantee that death is just around the corner. Morticia’s solo isn’t just about the certainty of the ‘if’ of death, but also the uncertainty of the ‘when’:

It could be on a speeding train.

It could be underwater.

It could be too much novocaine,

Or even by your daughter.

Perhaps a bad mosquito bite,

A title fight,

Religious rite.

My darlings, it might even be tonight.

As believers in Christ, we know we’ll have the whole of eternity to enjoy the presence of our God in glorious perfection; we don’t know, however, how long we’ll have to do his work in the fleeting, imperfect life that comes first. So let’s cling to the guaranteed hope of resurrection, knowing that Christ our Lord died to obtain it for us, and get on with striving to use however long God gives us in this life to serve and glorify him as fully as possible – because death is just around the corner; my darlings, it might even be tonight.

Footnotes

¹ Clips of the song from a variety of productions are available on YouTube. Here’s one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxr2MRoaZw4.

² For this one, I’ll offer you a cover by Carrie Hope Fletcher, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQU19DNYQLs, for the simple reason that I rather like Carrie Hope Fletcher.

³ Another YouTube clip from some production or other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnpkeOo_Z2E. Very thoughtful of people to upload these sorts of things so I can link to them.

⁴ For many reasons, but have one framed in a rather amusing manner by Adam4d: http://adam4d.com/really-rise/.

⁵ Have the whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+15&version=ESVUK. It’s probably genuinely one of my favourites. I also mused on it a bit in ‘Principles of Immortality’ earlier this year (under ‘March’ in the box on the right), on the off-chance that you feel at all inclined to check that out. But definitely read the chapter itself in preference to my ramblings about it.

⁶ Full chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+6&version=ESVUK. Seriously, context really matters for this one; I’ve really just lifted out the reasoning, and it’s the context that contains the actual point of the passage.

⁷ You know the drill: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2&version=ESVUK.

Deviant Conclusions

Burr:                While we’re talking, let me offer you some free advice: talk less.

Hamilton:         What?

Burr:                Smile more.

Hamilton:         Ha.

Burr:                Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.

Hamilton (2015)¹

 

The discarded megaphone is, I think, vaguely intended as a metaphor for a reluctance to speak one’s mind.

I’ll kick off with a heads-up that this post is going to make mention of a number of issues which are surrounded by very great and tempestuous controversy. I would like to draw attention to the fact that I am not actually addressing any of those issues in this post. Paradoxically enough, although I am advocating for the creation of a culture in which we all feel able to express freely our opinions on controversial subjects, I feel my argument will be more effective at displaying how such a culture would benefit all sides of any given debate if it refrains from actually taking any sides. The example Facebook statuses I mention have been chosen because of the particular packaging with which they express certain opinions, rather than the opinions themselves, which are comparatively common in my Facebook newsfeed, and so more likely than others to show up clothed in the aforementioned packaging. Although I do firmly disagree with the implications of that packaging, I mean no disrespect to the people who posted these statuses, as I hope the rest of this post will make clear.

Having got that little disclaimer out of the way, I present for your consideration the following Facebook status, which made an appearance on my newsfeed on the twenty-first of June this year:

Now compare this image which, when I encountered it, was captioned thus: Dead serious, don’t care who you are.

And finally, consider the following status which re-emerged on Facebook after picking up some extra commentary on Tumblr:

What do they all have in common? An intention to stop associating with people on the grounds of their holding a particular view. And frankly, unsurprising as it is that people generally don’t like associating with other people whose views on a given subject they find utterly abhorrent, such statuses strike me as rather damaging. The implication is: I don’t want anything to do with people who disagree with me about this matter. I want to surround myself solely with people who agree with me, so that, in every interaction, I hear nothing but my own opinions reflected back at me. I want to have it consistently affirmed that I am right to believe what I do. I want to be reassured that, because I’m right, I am entirely justified in ignoring anyone who disagrees with me, since anyone who does is, by default, wrong.

I’m not saying that’s definitively what’s going through someone’s head whenever he or she posts a status like the ones I described, but I do think that these implications lie behind the sentiment. And on top of that, it’s troublingly possible, in our modern world, to create that kind of existence for oneself. Thanks to ever-increasing population density, easy access to fast transport,² and worldwide instant communication technology, each of us is offered a much larger pool of humans from whom we might select our friends than we would have had in previous centuries. It’s a big enough pool that we can filter it with quite stringent requirements and still end up with a good number of friends of a quality that satisfies us. And as for the vast volume of rejected dregs that remain, well, there’s no need to give them the time of day.³ They are, after all, wrong.

No, beyond that, they’re worse than wrong. Because I never have to interact or engage with these people if I don’t want to – and, of course, I don’t want to – I have no inkling of the reasoning behind their opinions. All I know is the reasoning behind my own opinions (and those of the people who agree with me), which I of course believe is well informed, rationally sound, and morally upright (because I’m right). For someone not to have formed the same opinion as me, therefore, he or she must surely have followed a reasoning poorly informed, rationally unstable, or morally dubious. In other words, anyone who disagrees with me is an ignoramus, an imbecile, or a miscreant.

But of course, all the while, these people who disagree with me are thinking exactly the same things about me and my friends. As far as they’re concerned, it’s their reasoning that’s sound, and mine that’s lacking, because they have chosen their friends as carefully as I have mine to make sure the rightness of their views is affirmed at every turn. So which of us is really the ignoramus, the imbecile, or the miscreant?

Or could it be that each of us has followed a reasoning perfectly plausible within the realms of our own understanding of the world, but that each of us has an understanding limited, biased, and flawed in accordance with the limits to which we are confined and the biases to which we are susceptible because of our flawed human nature? Could it be, in other words, that it’s entirely possible to follow reasonable thought processes to reach deviant conclusions?

Now, if that’s the case, surrounding myself purely with people who agree with me seems like a distinctly bad idea. I think it likely that, if people agree with me a lot, their limits and biases and flaws are probably quite similar to mine – but if these are the only people I really spend time with, I’ll end up with little awareness of these limits and biases and flaws in myself, only a skewed vision of what’s normal, giving me all the more reason to spurn people who disagree with me as aberrations. By refusing to engage with people who I think are wrong, I deprive myself of the opportunity to recognise my own prejudices, and so to learn, to improve, to get closer to rightness. Furthermore, I deprive those other people of the same opportunity. If I really believe I’m right and that holding my viewpoint is beneficial, it shows something of a lack of concern for other human beings if I’d rather have nothing to do with them than explain to them why I think the way I do.

That said, it’s not about self-righteously attempting to enlighten people of the error of their ways; that kind of patronising attitude still casts the other party in the ignoramus/imbecile/miscreant role. Rather, it’s about interacting as equals, remembering that my opponent is a fellow rational human with as much right to his or her opinion as I have to mine, however crude or vile or saddening I might find said opinion.

It’s a difficult thing to do, which is presumably why we’re so keen to avoid it, and instead to cushion ourselves in nice, safe affirmation of what we already think. I’m not just talking about engaging with people who subscribe to a different strand of what is ultimately a similar philosophy to mine, but with people whose views provoke in me a primitive desire to punch something very hard – because the fact is, people genuinely hold those views, people who are as much rational beings as I am. If I don’t wish to be dismissed and ignored as an ignoramus, imbecile, or miscreant, then neither should I do the same to others. I need to engage, to get to know them, to try to understand where they’re coming from. Quite possibly I may, after all that, still think they’re totally, utterly, appallingly wrong to hold the opinions they do – and they might still think exactly the same about me – but neither of us stand much chance of getting closer to real rightness if we assume we’re already there, and I don’t think profound disagreement on a particular issue is preclusive of friendship or at least genuine tolerance. Plus, who knows, I might even come round to agreeing with a view I previously found repugnant, or manage to persuade the other party to do the same. It’s not as if it’s never happened before. I’ve personally changed my mind quite significantly about a number of issues over the past few years.

Though, of course, I have to really summon my courage to say which ones, because I’m scared of being dismissed and ignored as an ignoramus, imbecile, or miscreant on account of my deviant conclusions.

Footnotes

¹ So Hamilton is coming to the West End in 2017 and I am properly excited about it: http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/news/latest-news/article/item366775/hamilton-transfers-to-the-west-end-in-2017/. To tide you over until you can go and see it, or if you’re clueless as to what it entails and would like a whistle-stop tour, Range A Cappella’s seven-minute medley is really quite stunning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxCJa6xFLz4.

² Of which my favourite category is the train. Yes, folks, I am a little bit of a train nerd – no Sheldon Cooper, but certainly in possession of a more developed interest in railways than your average person. Because your average person, at least in my own conversational experience, doesn’t even seem to know what the Crossrail project is, let alone have any opinions about it: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/.

³ A phrase whose origins are discussed in playscript form by BBC Learning English: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/theenglishwespeak/2012/07/120703_tews_78_not_give_someone_time.shtml. Dear me, I’m really scraping the bottom of the barrel for footnotes this week, presumably because I’m very deliberately not referring to anything specific at all within my main argument. I always feel I should give you at least three footnotes per post, though, or it just looks as if I haven’t tried.