Conclusions
January 1, 2026
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NDE people share one thing – they no longer fear death.
At end of year I can’t help thinking about conclusions – especially of my life.
In the closing days of 1960, mystic Thomas Merton wrote in his journal:
“I was wondering if it would be given me to see another twelve years – to live to be fifty-seven or nearly fifty-eight. What foolish perspectives we get into, by believing in our calendars. As if numbers were the great reality.”
Merton died by accidental electrocution on December 10, 1968, at the age of 53.
As I witness one elderly friend or relative after another pass away, I’m reminded of something one of my favorite authors wrote. Ray Bradbury, in his lovely Dandelion Wine, pictures it like this:
“And then there is that day when all around, all around you hear the dropping of the apples, one by one, from the trees. At first it is one here and one there, and then it is three and then it is four and then nine and twenty, until the apples plummet like rain, fall like horse hoofs in the soft, darkening grass, and you are the last apple on the tree; and you wait for the wind to work you slowly free from your hold upon the sky, and drop you down and down.”
Writers, especially, seem to dwell on the number of years left to us. Here, for example, is Viginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway:
“But she feared time itself, the dwindling of life; how year by year her share was sliced; how, little the margin that remained was capable any longer of stretching, of absorbing, as in the youthful years.”
And Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five:
“The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again. There was nothing I could do about it. As an Earthling, I had to believe whatever the clocks said – and calendars.”
If you’re a Christian, as I am, you were raised to memorize “The Lord’s Prayer.”
In this prayer we bid God’s kingdom come. But then, when he calls us from this world, we struggle and resist – not freely consenting to our departure and certainly not eager for it.
I have to ask, why do we pray that “Thy kingdom come” if this earthly bondage pleases us so?
Third-century Saint Cyprian of Antioch calls us out: “Yet we expect to be rewarded with heavenly honors by Him to whom we come against our will.”
From what I’ve learned from all the research into near-death experiences (NDEs) during the past few decades, NDE people have one thing in common – they no longer fear death. Whether we believe in NDEs or not, this is the fact.
The only conclusion is this: Banish our fear of death. This would be the proof of our faith.