Et in Arcadia Ego

I took a funeral last week. I’m always a little awkward on such occasions. I have no secret formula for overcoming grief and I cannot return the precious jewel which has been so cruelly stolen. I can talk of God’s love and comfort, but I wonder if such words sound cheap and trite in an average mourner’s ear. I didn’t know the deceased’s religious affiliation nor her response to Christ’s offer of sins forgiven; yet none of us know what the departing soul whispers to the Spirit of God in those last, fleeting moments. 

I urged the 200+ mourning party to heed Solomon’s wise advice in Ecclesiastes 9: enjoy life while you can with the people you love. But keep an eye on your own mortality and have a care for your soul. Too many of us live like we’ll be on the earth forever, but God calls every one of us to judgement. 

While walking home from chapel on Sunday afternoon, I admired the lovely scenery as one is apt to do. Yet even here, death made itself felt. Many of the Hawthorne hedges had succumbed to moth larvae, which had gobbled the leaves, smothering the branches with a ghostly canopy of silk. My ignorance of horticultural lore is known to regular readers, but I suspect these silken shrouds are woven by the Ermine moth, whose caterpillars spin such webs in May and June. The hedges look denuded and stark, but they grow back soon enough. 

Our little chapel sits in lovely countryside, yet for thousands of years this idyllic place has been as much a theatre for death and dying as any smog-bound city. Les Bergers d'Arcadie, a 1638 painting by Nicolas Poussin, shows handsome shepherds pondering a mysterious tomb in their tranquil rural paradise. Upon its grim face is written Et in Arcadia Ego: ‘even in lovely utopia, I (death) am here.’

Go and buy a house in the smartest street, leafiest avenue or prettiest village; travel the world, live aboard cruise ships or fly to the moon. Wherever you go, you’ll experience death and dying. Thank God, the Christian is reserved for New Jerusalem, the Father’s House:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Revelation 21:4