Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 2:02am
'The Last Lecture' teaches us that life trumps death
Column: Spiritual Psychology
I was quite surprised when Sister Virginia Dorgan, campus minister at Marymount Manhattan College, asked me to deliver a talk on "reflections on life and death" at the college's annual memorial service remembering and honoring faculty and loved ones of faculty who died during the past year. I'm a psychologist, not a member of the clergy. That "sermon" is usually given by a priest, rabbi or minister. Last year Rabbi Philip Hiat was the speaker. But then I realized that when you write a weekly column for ReligionAndSpirituality.com, at some point you will be called up to the altar.
I found the task both challenging and daunting. Ultimately I appreciated the opportunity to pull together thoughts from various columns that I have written over the last two years, as well as from my recently published book.
Here are my "Reflections on Life and Death" that I presented yesterday (April 9) in the Chapel at Marymount Manhattan College:
"Birds do it, bees do it, even kings, queens, presidents, popes and billionaires do it! They all age and die. This is not news. Throughout the ages philosophers, sages and teachers from various religious traditions have sought to awaken us to the reality of the life cycle — that the miracle or gift of life forecasts death. Or, as writer George Bernard Shaw put it with his wise advice — You should not try to live forever, you will not succeed.
"Still, denial of death, as Ernest Becker wrote in his prize-winning book, is still rampant. As he states, 'The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity — designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.'
"That denial stubbornly persists. We have a generation of baby boomers that is beginning to cross the senior line and they have declared war on aging — as the multibillion-dollar anti-aging industry tells us and what the magazine headlines reveal: 'stop aging now,' 'stay young forever' or, better yet, 'cure aging.'
"Denial is also often hidden behind quests for achievements that we believe will deliver immortality, or at least protect us from adversity. A few years ago, when my mother was in a nursing home after suffering a stroke, I met another woman at the facility. Annie, wheelchair bound but mentally very much intact, had been an English professor at a leading university. When I made some complimentary remarks about her career and achievements she fired back - 'Big deal, what did it do for me? — look at me now.' All the brownie points for the immortality bank account could not be cashed in to stop the march of time or protect against unpredictable and unwanted happenings to a good person.
"In general, we are all whiplashed by time as we go through the life cycle — our battle with life and death alters and plays havoc with our perceptions of time, which expand or contract rather than remaining a relative constant. After all, a minute or hour today should be the same as a minute or hour tomorrow, next year or 50 years from now. But that's not how it works in 'real time.'
"Children aren't worried about time — they even frequently want time to move quickly so they can be grown up. Adolescents and young adults have lots of time, so they can move slowly and postpone decisions. Then time speeds up, and we feel we have to move fast so we can get to where we are going — our prime-time clock starts ticking loudly and grabs our attention. In the 50s time looks like it may be running out and we want time to slow down. Then retirement sneaks up and people find that they have too much time — time to kill. But tell them to try something new, like learning a musical instrument that they never had time for, and they'll say, 'That doesn't make sense. How much time do I have left?' So time and death play a major role in how we think about life — or don't think about it, as we get caught up in fighting time, aging and death.
"But something else happens — something remarkable — when we face the reality of death — the death of a loved one, friend, sibling, colleague, or our own life-threatening illness — a dramatic shift commonly takes place in how we look at life and our lifelong journey.
"That was thrust into my awareness recently at the memorial service a few weeks ago for Robert Sorensen, who is listed on today's program, when his brother was called to the podium at the Universalist Church on Lexington Avenue, just a few blocks from here. Robert's brother Ted Sorensen had achieved great renown as chief counsel, adviser and speechwriter for President John F. Kennedy. But speaking about his beloved brother, time contracted and all achievements and honors faded into the background. He spoke only as a younger sibling about his awe of his big brother, who was his mentor, friend and model while growing up and throughout his life. It was a stark reminder of what really counts in life when time stands still — people, relationships and the personal impact we deliver and receive emerge as the truths of our existence. His remarks also spoke tons about how death is, or should be, a celebration of life.
"That point has been punctuated by the popular video available on the Internet of Randy Pausch, a 47-year-old computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and foremost expert on videogames and virtual reality, who has terminal pancreatic cancer. As reported in The Wall Street Journal in September 2007, 'Pausch's Last Lecture using images on a giant screen was a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of life' — like his dream of childhood to win a giant stuffed animal at a carnival, to walk in zero gravity and to design a Disney ride. He praised his parents, who gave him license to make his bedroom his domain, including etchings on the walls that might lower the resale value of the house. Pausch prefaced his upbeat remarks about living, saying that if anyone expected him to be morose, he was sorry to disappoint them.
"Tonight at 10 p.m. on ABC-TV Diane Sawyer will feature this remarkable story. Now other universities are implementing 'Last Lectures Series' by healthy professors giving a hypothetical final talk. Not surprising, selflessness often takes center stage in these lectures, like the hypothetical 'Last Lecture' of Penny O'Connor at the University of Northern Iowa titled 'Get Over Yourself.'
"So today we honor and remember the lives and living memories of those loved ones who have passed.
"The mystery of life trumps the mystery of death — and a good life defines a good death."
(My recently published book "Escape Your Own Prison: Why We Need Spirituality and Psychology to be Truly Free" is now available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and other major book outlets.)
— — —
Bernard Starr, Ph.D., formerly professor of developmental and educational psychology at the City University of New York, now teaches "Spirituality in Film" and leads "The Spiritual Forum" at Marymount Manhattan College. In addition to his work in radio, he is a longtime contributor of commentary and opinion articles to numerous major publications. He is also the president of the Association for Spirituality and Psychotherapy and is the main United Nations representative for the Institute of Global Education that founded the Mucherla Global School in Mucherla, India. His book "Escape Your Own Prison: Why We Need Spirituality and Psychology to be Truly Free" is published by Rowman & Littlefield. He can be reached at: {email OmniCns@aol.com}OmniCns@aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Bernard Starr.
I found the task both challenging and daunting. Ultimately I appreciated the opportunity to pull together thoughts from various columns that I have written over the last two years, as well as from my recently published book.
Here are my "Reflections on Life and Death" that I presented yesterday (April 9) in the Chapel at Marymount Manhattan College:
"Birds do it, bees do it, even kings, queens, presidents, popes and billionaires do it! They all age and die. This is not news. Throughout the ages philosophers, sages and teachers from various religious traditions have sought to awaken us to the reality of the life cycle — that the miracle or gift of life forecasts death. Or, as writer George Bernard Shaw put it with his wise advice — You should not try to live forever, you will not succeed.
"Still, denial of death, as Ernest Becker wrote in his prize-winning book, is still rampant. As he states, 'The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity — designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.'
"That denial stubbornly persists. We have a generation of baby boomers that is beginning to cross the senior line and they have declared war on aging — as the multibillion-dollar anti-aging industry tells us and what the magazine headlines reveal: 'stop aging now,' 'stay young forever' or, better yet, 'cure aging.'
"Denial is also often hidden behind quests for achievements that we believe will deliver immortality, or at least protect us from adversity. A few years ago, when my mother was in a nursing home after suffering a stroke, I met another woman at the facility. Annie, wheelchair bound but mentally very much intact, had been an English professor at a leading university. When I made some complimentary remarks about her career and achievements she fired back - 'Big deal, what did it do for me? — look at me now.' All the brownie points for the immortality bank account could not be cashed in to stop the march of time or protect against unpredictable and unwanted happenings to a good person.
"In general, we are all whiplashed by time as we go through the life cycle — our battle with life and death alters and plays havoc with our perceptions of time, which expand or contract rather than remaining a relative constant. After all, a minute or hour today should be the same as a minute or hour tomorrow, next year or 50 years from now. But that's not how it works in 'real time.'
"Children aren't worried about time — they even frequently want time to move quickly so they can be grown up. Adolescents and young adults have lots of time, so they can move slowly and postpone decisions. Then time speeds up, and we feel we have to move fast so we can get to where we are going — our prime-time clock starts ticking loudly and grabs our attention. In the 50s time looks like it may be running out and we want time to slow down. Then retirement sneaks up and people find that they have too much time — time to kill. But tell them to try something new, like learning a musical instrument that they never had time for, and they'll say, 'That doesn't make sense. How much time do I have left?' So time and death play a major role in how we think about life — or don't think about it, as we get caught up in fighting time, aging and death.
"But something else happens — something remarkable — when we face the reality of death — the death of a loved one, friend, sibling, colleague, or our own life-threatening illness — a dramatic shift commonly takes place in how we look at life and our lifelong journey.
"That was thrust into my awareness recently at the memorial service a few weeks ago for Robert Sorensen, who is listed on today's program, when his brother was called to the podium at the Universalist Church on Lexington Avenue, just a few blocks from here. Robert's brother Ted Sorensen had achieved great renown as chief counsel, adviser and speechwriter for President John F. Kennedy. But speaking about his beloved brother, time contracted and all achievements and honors faded into the background. He spoke only as a younger sibling about his awe of his big brother, who was his mentor, friend and model while growing up and throughout his life. It was a stark reminder of what really counts in life when time stands still — people, relationships and the personal impact we deliver and receive emerge as the truths of our existence. His remarks also spoke tons about how death is, or should be, a celebration of life.
"That point has been punctuated by the popular video available on the Internet of Randy Pausch, a 47-year-old computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and foremost expert on videogames and virtual reality, who has terminal pancreatic cancer. As reported in The Wall Street Journal in September 2007, 'Pausch's Last Lecture using images on a giant screen was a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of life' — like his dream of childhood to win a giant stuffed animal at a carnival, to walk in zero gravity and to design a Disney ride. He praised his parents, who gave him license to make his bedroom his domain, including etchings on the walls that might lower the resale value of the house. Pausch prefaced his upbeat remarks about living, saying that if anyone expected him to be morose, he was sorry to disappoint them.
"Tonight at 10 p.m. on ABC-TV Diane Sawyer will feature this remarkable story. Now other universities are implementing 'Last Lectures Series' by healthy professors giving a hypothetical final talk. Not surprising, selflessness often takes center stage in these lectures, like the hypothetical 'Last Lecture' of Penny O'Connor at the University of Northern Iowa titled 'Get Over Yourself.'
"So today we honor and remember the lives and living memories of those loved ones who have passed.
"The mystery of life trumps the mystery of death — and a good life defines a good death."
(My recently published book "Escape Your Own Prison: Why We Need Spirituality and Psychology to be Truly Free" is now available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and other major book outlets.)
— — —
Bernard Starr, Ph.D., formerly professor of developmental and educational psychology at the City University of New York, now teaches "Spirituality in Film" and leads "The Spiritual Forum" at Marymount Manhattan College. In addition to his work in radio, he is a longtime contributor of commentary and opinion articles to numerous major publications. He is also the president of the Association for Spirituality and Psychotherapy and is the main United Nations representative for the Institute of Global Education that founded the Mucherla Global School in Mucherla, India. His book "Escape Your Own Prison: Why We Need Spirituality and Psychology to be Truly Free" is published by Rowman & Littlefield. He can be reached at: {email OmniCns@aol.com}OmniCns@aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Bernard Starr.