Shockwaves Across the World

A rather silly line from the Birmingham Mail made it onto my news feed. It was describing the death of Prince Phillip, and said:

The Prince’s death has left shockwaves across the world after the announcement.

I would be very surprised if the death of a 99-year-old man caused any shock to anyone. One might be more surprised that he lived as long as he did, considering he fought in the War and lived through the IRA’s most vicious campaigns. So I suspect that our friends at the Birmingham Mail were just recycling some old cliché which has served them well enough previously. Yet for those close to the duke, the rational calculations of his life expectancy will do little to assuage their grief. Seeing a loved one decline through terminal illness or just succumb to old age, makes the loss little easier to comprehend. For a culture so saturated with evolutionary assumptions, one wonders why we mourn the loss of the weakest and least productive at all. It is almost as though, deep down, we know death is wrong, and should not be happening at all:

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life”.