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Category: Alison Marshall's Column
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Created: Sunday, 01 October 2006 16:04
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Published: Sunday, 01 October 2006 16:04
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Written by Alison Marshall
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Those who know me well will know that one of my very dear friends is a Baha'i named Mark Choveaux. For over a decade now, he has been coping with poor health. In particular, his heart isn't good and he's had many operations for that. The doctors thought he was out for the count years ago, but he's defied them. In fact, as Mark and I worked to understand what Baha'u'llah meant by 'detaching from the world', Mark's health improved significantly. But it couldn't last. For several months this year, Mark was having trouble with his stomach. Eventually, the pain got so bad that he took himself off to hospital. After a couple of days of tests, the doctors told him that he had stomach cancer and that it was aggressive and already in his liver. They can do nothing for him.
Once the doctors sorted out the medication Mark was to take for his cancer, Mark came home from hospital. He is in good spirits. He struggles each day with the difficulties of eating and of feeling overall really lousy, but he knows he's off to Head Office and, as he puts it, he's heeding the call of She Who Must Be Obeyed.
{josquote}Naturally, this has got me thinking a lot about death and the nature of it.{/josquote}
Naturally, this has got me thinking a lot about death and the nature of it. It has confirmed for me the definition Baha'u'llah gives to the terms 'life' and 'death'. He discusses this at length in the Gems (see below), but the heart of the matter is that 'life' is nearness to God and 'death' is distance from God. When I look at Mark and what's happening to him, I can see that his body is dying, but I don't have a sense that he is dying so much as moving on. I feel that he is about to be born, rather than about to die. I can see clearly now that a person who is spiritually alive does not die when their body dies. They are simply taking a journey to another place. On the other hand, a person who is spiritually dead is already dead before their body dies. The only difference between the two worlds for them is that, in the next world, they have lost their chance to wake up of their own volition.
Read more: Mark's call from Head Office