Death, Money, and Finding True Meaning

"O death, where is your sting?"

There’s no reason to build anything from a place of fear. Fear is the operating system of the devil.

It seems as if most of the noise we put between ourselves and "progress" is motivated by our fear of the inevitable money problem we all seem to have.

I was explaining this to someone recently through the plot of one of the very few movies I have seen, "It Follows."

The "thing" that follows the main character around is going to kill her. It moves at a very slow pace and can look like anyone. She has to pass off the curse to someone else by having physical relations with them, and then the demon, or whatever the thing is, will be detoured, kill that person, and then return to her.

I'm not here to write a movie review, but the image is on point. This money problem, that is, when can I stop working for money, is the curse most of us have.

The inability to square up and stare this demon in the face is what drives the decisions we make.

Think about it: this fear of money or this fear of whatever life looks like without it can take many forms, but ultimately it's about squaring up to the idea that one day, we will all face death.

A different approach could be that our work or how we spend our time is a distraction from facing the inevitable curse of life.

It's a conversation of meaning. What is my life's purpose?

On the other end of the spectrum, most independently (or dependently) wealthy people that I know who don't work anymore face the same issue.

Their work gave them a sense of purpose or meaning. Money. Value. Meaning. Work. Time. Effort. It's all one big conversation around life and death.

Recall the serpent in the garden. The one who deceived our parents. When the Lord cursed the serpent, He made him crawl on his belly. With us, He curses the work.

The curse isn't work. The work is cursed.

Since the garden, we have been trying to reverse the curse of worth by removing work. Thinking that work is the curse and therefore all our toil and trouble equates to our purpose, identity, and uncomfortable relationship with the lack of redemption in our lives.

I have mentored many people who have been through bankruptcies. It's somewhat shameful for them to admit, but those who are willing to let that part of their story out have a joyful disposition about them. "It's really not that bad" is what I hear.

Once they have experienced the reality of their biggest fear, they can face it and admit that they were afraid of fear itself. They seem to act out of a place of conquering fear which makes them more bold, more joyful, more liberated.

This is a clue for us, I reckon.

I wonder if we more quickly squared up to death, how much more liberated we would feel.

Our relationship to our biggest fears ultimately touches on the greater fear, which is death. After death, we might be faced with who we really are, and that might scare us to death.

Hell seems to be a place where you are looking at the other side of death and finding your most authentic self, with mirrors up to amplify your truest form of who you are, and constantly being reminded of how you have no meaning. That you are nothing. I imagine some of its deepest layers are cold and the most isolating.

Why not look death in the face? Because we can't handle who we really are.

When we turn around from the endless pursuit of meaning and running away from fear, and look at the demon of fear and death following us, wait for it to come to our front door, we need to open the door and welcome it in.

We don't because death really isn't scary, it's more so that every second that goes by, we are reminded that our efforts are a drip feed to try to fill the void of who we are.

This is Adam doing everything he can to find meaning, pursue value, climb out of death, contribute to the world, all to find out that no amount of effort can contribute to the eternal pit of death that will swallow him whole.

The eternal pit of death can only be filled with the eternal power of God's love.

In fact, Jesus didn't ignore our suffering or wait thousands of years to show up and take work, meaning, toil, money, pain, away from us. Rather, He became all of these things. He entered in. He looked right at death and instead of taking it away, He chose death.

In other words, He was born to die. When He held onto His mother's arm, looking to her for life, He was stamped before time to grow into a man who would be murdered. For what? Every second that He spent here on earth, reversed the curse. Everything was meaningful. Every interaction produced fruit. He lived perfectly in accordance with who He was, never wavering from exactly what He needed to do.

And yet, instead of being rewarded with the feeling of peace and joy, He received the curse.

The curse of our work was felt by the one who redeemed our work.

On the cross He felt not only death itself, but total isolation from His Father. Instead of us squaring up to our past lives of pushing people away, manipulating circumstances and people to protect ourselves from feeling the fear of what we deserve, He looked down at His mother telling her, "this is the only way to bring joy to your children".

His Father's face turned away when He looked to Him.

The only way for the eternal curse to be "fixed" was for the eternal God to bear the curse.

The very curse God gave Adam, applied to His Son. Adam could never bear it. We could never bear it. Only His Son could hold the weight.

And yet we fill our time running away from this mystery. Thinking that with enough in savings, and with enough alignment, and with enough mastery, we can somehow put an eternal chasm between us and death.

To take off some of the edges of my observations, I'd like to share a moment from my time with a classically trained oboist I work with. She has an exceptionally fun and loud laugh. Almost like turning on a faucet on full blast and then turning it off.

She shared with me something that fundamentally shifted in her career as an oboist.

Usually when you learn a new instrument or teach someone a new instrument, you play through the song, and every time a mistake is made, you hone in on that section, get it right (almost like patchwork on clothing being sewn), and then move on.

This principle of learning fine-tunes everyone participating in this experience to listen for the mistakes.

Everything changed when she couldn't help but laugh one time when she made a mistake. Her students caught her doing this. They were relieved.

She then implemented this relief in her creative process. Every time a student made a mistake, she would short-fire burst into laughter.

The laugh broke the tension and really gave her students permission to not be afraid of mistakes. But to rather expect them, look for them, and laugh when you make them.

Her students said to her: "I joined your tribe because I wanted to have joy in my playing." You see, she redeemed the work. She brought life to her corner of the universe. She faced death in her own way with something that brings her deep meaning in her life.

Welcome death in. Christ defeated death once and for all. It has no sting on you.

You can now find joy in suffering. Laugh in the face of despair. Death cannot hurt you.

-b