Let us contemplate our own mortality and ‘refute’ the nihilism of ‘mercy’ killing with artworks of Beauty. Classic Christian art such as Purcell’s Elegy for the Funeral of Queen Mary can be so uplifting! Let us also draw upon all Art that has something of God in it, or that through it something of God can be refracted, such as Kurosawa’s Dreams and Rumi’s poetry.
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Purcell’s Elegy
Man that is born of a woman
hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.
He cometh up, and is cut down like a flow’r.
He flee’th as it were a shadow,
and ne’er continueth in one stay.
In the midst of life we are in death:
of whom may we seek for succour,
but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?
Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty,
O holy and most merciful Saviour,
deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.
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For sublime Purcell please go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYELAu9hqdU
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Kurosawa’s Dreams ends with a funeral procession for an old woman in a village that plays like a wedding. Instead of mourning, the people celebrate joyfully as the proper end to a good life. The whole village turns out for her funeral. Kurosawa stages the funeral procession as a celebration of a life. Music is played, a song is sung, people dance in the procession as if it is a parade, and it’s a joyous scene. At the end, the traveler picks and places his own flower on the rock like the children before him.
For Kurosawa’s last Dream, watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEEOfJdGzcQ
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As for Rumi, the mystic poet and Spiritual Sufi Master, let the ecstatic vision of his hauntingly beautiful ‘Death’ poem speak of itself!
When I die …
When my coffin
Is being taken out
You must never think
I am missing this world.
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Don’t shed any tears,
Don’t lament or feel sorry
I’m not falling
into a monster’s abyss.
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When you see
My corpse is being carried
Don’t cry for my leaving,
I’m not leaving,
I’m arriving at eternal love.
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When you leave me
In the grave
Don’t say goodbye.
Remember a grave is
Only a curtain
For the paradise behind.
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You’ll only see me
Descending into a grave.
Now watch me rise.
How can there be an end?
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When the sun sets or
The moon goes down
It looks like the end,
It seems like a sunset,
But in reality it is a dawn.
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When the grave locks you up,
That is when your soul is freed.
Have you ever seen
A seed fallen to earth
Not rise with a new life?
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Why should you doubt the rise
Of a seed named human?
Have you ever seen
A bucket lowered into a well
Coming back empty?
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Why lament for a soul
When it can come back
Like Joseph from the well?
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When for the last time
You close your mouth,
Your words and soul
Will belong to the world of
No place, no time.
For Rumi’s “When I Die”, please watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEwJm-RPhNE
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- Icon on top: Harrowing of Hades, fresco in the parecclesion of the Chora Church, Istanbul, c. 1315; raising Adam and Eve is depicted as part of the Resurrection icon, as it always is in the East.
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE 