We must prepare ourselves for death
To The Editor: 8/13/2014
To The Editor:
Reading the article in The Gardner News about the names of deceased students being removed from the walls at Narragansett Regional High School made me think of a related mistake that many people make.
Failure to prepare for death, whether it be our own death or the death of a loved one.
We all make preparations for even the smallest most inconsequential trip.
If we need to head across town to buy a gallon of milk, we make sure we are suitably dressed and have enough money.
We might economize and consider what other items to buy to prevent another trip in the near future.
But when it comes to death, definitely one of life’s greatest trips many depart woefully unprepared.
I am not just referring to wills and memorial plans.
Many of us do take care of these important details, but there are more details to attend to.
Someone once said, “There are no atheists in a foxhole” — and with all due respect to our combat veterans, in a real sense at the time of our death, we will all be in our own foxhole confronting eternity.
So why wait until we are in the foxhole before we turn to God? Why wait until the end?
The innate knowledge and comfort that motivates the proverbial atheist in the foxhole to turn to God is available throughout life.
And believing in life after death provides limitless hope and deeper responsibility and meaning to every individual’s life.
The attempt to sanitize our student’s lives by removing the vestiges of other student’s deaths in my opinion is wrong.
We should all be thinking, preparing and most importantly, living a life fully aware of not only the inevitability of death, but of the strong Earthly evidence of Christ and an afterlife.
With this understanding, life becomes more productive and satisfying, and the journey we all will take through death’s door becomes less frightening and less sorrowful.
Kent Songer
Phillipston
Thanks Kent ,voicing your opinion means alot to many i'm sure. I only wish the school committee had people on it who would do the same.I understand many who could are afraid of the pressure if they do. I also understand the need for them to hide,like "huf n puff" so they stay sanitary. I hope it eats them up inside,as it should! They wouldn't understand anyway.
ReplyDeleteOne of the basic things that our schools teach us is to listen to authority. Someone in authority may have believed that the names on the murals needed to be removed, this apparently was not questioned. Our schools have a mission statement that is not always written down and this may be a shining example of what happens when we don't question authority. Our public schools have and interesting history SchoolHistory
ReplyDeleteI can not begin to count the people that stop by to look at Gladys's stone. One lady was taking pictures so she could send them to her daughter. From what I learned, this girl had a good relationship with Gladys when she was in school. I get a great deal of comfort planting flowers in the summer, and put something colorful at her stone for every season. I will do this as long as I am able. You may wonder why I would do this. To be truthful, Gladys was a good friend to a lot of people, and was the most colorful person in town. She was way ahead of most women, in many ways. She had more courage than most of the people I know. The job of selectman was not easy and will never be,. I know she had some really tough times but she did her best, and she deserves credit for that. Like the young people who are not here any longer, Dave's daughter, and the other kids, it does no harm to fondly remember the good they brought into others lives. I am not sure if time heals all wounds, but I do know no one ever said how much time it would take. It gives the people who care a sign that these people will always live in someones heart, and that they will not be forgotten.. Gladys loved her Common and her town, and as long as I can I will always make sure she has the most colorful flowers in town. For the kids in school, it shows these kids who are not with us any longer were very special. Bev.
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