One way many strive to calm their fear of death is to “live in the moment,” or live in the present. The idea is simple: if you focus your awareness on the present moment then you won’t be thinking about the fact that you will one day die. Living in the moment and mindfulness meditation are not identical, but for our purposes I’m going to just say that they both emphasize living in the present moment. Even some Christian “spiritual formation” programs mistakenly encourage living in the moment and mindfulness meditation.[1] But don’t live in the moment—it’s sad and it’s spiritual malformation.
Atheist Sam Harris
To an Australian atheist conference, in a lecture entitled “Death and the Present Moment,” atheist Sam Harris admits, “I do have existential worries. I, like everybody else am concerned about death. You know… death is in some ways unacceptable. It’s, it’s just an astonishing fact of our being here. That we, that we die, but I think worse than that we lose everyone we love in this world.”[2] Harris said that when it comes to death, “The reality of death is something we’re all going to face…. If you live long enough you’re going to witness the death of everyone you love.” Then Harris asks, “What does atheism have to offer in this circumstance?… How can people close to these tragedies make sense of them?” [3]
So what’s Harris’s answer? “There are ways to really live in the present moment,” says Harris. “What, what’s the alternative? It is always now. How ever much you feel you may need to plan for the future, to anticipate it, to mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now.” He admits that “Most of us do our best not to think about death but we know that can’t go on forever.”[4]
What If the Moment Is Miserable?
If all is going well, then living in the moment isn’t that hard. You might even be able to block out the suffering of those close to you and put out of your mind that your daughter just died of cancer (that’s in the past, after all). But if your pain now, presently, is severe, then “live in the moment” leaves a lot to be desired. If you are, presently, lying in a hospital, intubated, catheterized, suffering nine-level-pain on that zero-to-ten pain-scale, while dying from cancer, then that is the present moment. Do you want to be mindful of the catheter? IV? Feeding tube? After all, if those things are happening now, that is a pain-filled moment. You might choose to live in the present, and push out of your mind that—present, active, indicative—you are dying in pain, but living in that moment is experiencing the tubes and the pain. Are we supposed to shut out that part of the present? Indeed, a study of randomized controlled trials only “found low-quality evidence that mindfulness meditation is associated with a small decrease in pain.” [5] So this “low-quality evidence” tells us that if your pain is level nine, then living in the present might make it level eight?
Philosophical Jibber-Jabber
And here’s a major folly. Philosophy historian Pierre Hadot wrote that for the Epicureans and Stoics “one instant of happiness is the equivalent to an eternity of happiness.” What they meant is that we shouldn’t think about the past or the future and since we are only ever (currently) experiencing a single moment, that is, we never experience more than a single moment at a time, ever, then if we live in the moment we’re living in eternity. But I want more than to live in eternity and then one day die and stop living in eternity: I want to live for eternity by never dying, don’t you?
Also, then, isn’t the reverse also true? Isn’t one instance of horror equivalent to an eternity of horror? I know what it’s like to lie in bed in immense pain. I did that a lot when I had bone cancer and the last thing on earth I would have wanted was to do no more than live in the moment. I thank God that I was able to look forward to perhaps being cured (which happened) but, if not, then to entering eternal life! I was “mindful” that I might not be healed but eternal life was then my hope. Living in the moment isn’t going to work now and it hasn’t worked in the past. As Hadot put it, “It does seem, then, that the Greeks paid particular attention to the present moment. This, however, does not justify us in imagining” that “because they lived in the present moment,” they “were perpetually bathed in beauty and serenity.” Rather, “people in antiquity were just as filled with anguish as we are today, and ancient poetry often preserves the echo of this anguish, which sometimes goes as far as despair. Like us, the ancients bore the burden of the past, the uncertainty of the future, and the fear of death.”[6]
This live-in-the-moment notion reminds me of “The Serenity Now” episode of Seinfeld. In that episode, to keep his blood pressure down, Frank Costanza’s doctor tells him that whenever he gets angry to repeat “serenity now, serenity now.” This inspires Kramer to repeat “serenity now” whenever he gets upset, but then the neighborhood kids pelt Kramer with eggs—“grade A’s”— and toilet paper his “porch.” Finally, Kramer explodes and destroys twenty-five computers that George Costanza had been storing in Kramer’s apartment while screaming “SERENITY NOW! SERENITY NOW!” As a guest star in the episode put it, “serenity now, insanity later.”
People Are Happier When Connected to the Past and Future
Research shows that people are happier when they are connected to the past and the future. As Daniel H. Pink wrote in his book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, “Taken together… studies suggest that the path to a life of meaning and significance isn’t to ‘live in the present’ as so many spiritual gurus have advised. It is to integrate our perspectives on time into a coherent whole, one that helps us comprehend who we are and why we’re here.”[7] I couldn’t agree more.
Of course, this is easier to do for the maturing Christian as we see the Lord actually using all things, including suffering, for our good. Thus Christians can enjoy a sense of connection to the future, not only because we “know that God causes all things to work together for good” (Romans 8:28), but because we know that “eternal life” awaits us (John 3:16)!
In writing my book Immortal: How the Fear of Death Drives Us and What We Can Do About It, I examined how atheists handle death. To that end I paid close attention to their last words in their books. Here are the last words in philosopher Stephen Cave’s book, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization: “Our lives are bounded by beginning and end yet composed of moments that can reach out far beyond ourselves, touching other people and places in countless ways. In this sense, they are like a book, which is self-contained within its covers yet able to encompass distant landscapes, exotic figures and long-gone times. The book’s characters know no horizons; they, like we, can only know the moments that make up their lives, even when the book is closed. They are therefore untroubled by reaching the last page. And so it should be with us.”[8] What? The characters in books “can only know the moments that make up their lives”? That’s dumb! The characters in a book don’t know the moments in their lives because the characters in a book don’t know anything. They are “untroubled by reaching the last page” because they don’t exist!
Don’t Live In the Moment: Live for Eternity
I’m sad that some Christian “spiritual formation” educators have adapted the Buddhist idea of live in the moment. Living in the moment is spiritual malformation. Live in the moment is sinful because Scripture commands us to live for eternity! First Peter 1:13 tells us, “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” That isn’t three separate commands. We are told to prepare our minds for action and to be sober-minded for the specific purpose that we can “set” our “hope fully” on the grace that will be given us at the return of Jesus. This is the exact opposite of “live in the moment.” We are commanded to be future-focused. Now, that being said, of course, if we are carrying out this or that task, then we need to focus on doing the job well. But the answer to the fear of death isn’t mindfulness meditation, it’s focusing on eternal life.
Here’s another passage. Colossians 3:1-4 reads, “If then, you have been raised with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things, for you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” What’s the hope? Again, it is that in the future we will “appear with him in glory”!
Then there’s this from Hebrews 12:1-2: “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” What was it that allowed Jesus to endure the cross and despise the shame? He didn’t live in the moment! It was that He knew He would be glorified.
One more, Romans 2:6-7: “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” Join me in seeking eternal glory!
Poet and cleric John Donne (1572–1631) wrote a poem about how the church bell rings when someone dies, that this ringing is a continual reminder of death, and that because we are involved with our fellow man, each death diminishes us. So Donne advised, “never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”[9] And that bell always rings! People suffer and die all around us and if we’re going to bring them meals and pray for them at their bedsides, and if we’re going to attend their funerals and comfort their grieving family members, then it’s impossible to ignore our own impending deaths. We shouldn’t be like children who don’t want to hear bad news, putting our hands over our ears, and shouting “La, la, la, la, la, I can’t hear you!”
Jesus said in John 5:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” John Donne, who wrote “ask not for whom the bell tolls,” preached his last sermon wearing a funeral shroud to impress upon the hearers the shortness of this life. He concluded that sermon telling the audience “to hang upon him that hangs upon the cross” as He has granted us “an ascension into that kingdom which He hath prepared for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen.”[10]
I could quote many other passages. Therefore, don’t live in the moment! Live for eternity! If you do, you’ll have much more joy in life!
Amen!
This was partially adapted from my book, Immortal: How the Fear of Death Drives Us and What We Can Do About It? If you’d like to help support our ministry, here’s the link: www.liveforeternity.net.
[1] I think some spiritual formation programs that were doing this have now stopped.
[2] Sam Harris, “Death and the Present Moment,” A Celebration of Reason – 2012 Global Atheist Convention April 13-15, 2012, Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre, presented by the Atheist Foundation of Australia, posted June 2, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums, (accessed June 29, 2018).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Sam Harris, “Death and the Present Moment,” A Celebration of Reason—2012 Global Atheist Convention, April 13-15, 2012, Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre, presented by the Atheist Foundation of Australia, posted June 2, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums, (accessed June 29, 2018). “The reality of death is absolutely central to religion… We’re the only people who admit that death is real.” Of course, by saying that they are the only ones who admit that death is real he means that for the atheist there is no afterlife and so when you’re dead you’re dead. Obviously, Christians believe death is real but we also believe that there’s eternal life after death!
[5] Lara Hilton, Susanne Hempel, Brett A. Ewing, Eric Apaydin, Lea Xenakis, Sydne Newberry, Ben Colaiaco, Alicia Ruelaz Maher, Roberta M. Shanman, Melony E. Sorbero, and Margaret A. Maglione, “Mindfulness Meditation for Chronic Pain: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 2017; 51(2): 199–213, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5368208/, (accessed February 2, 2018). Emphasis mine.
[6] Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (Malden, MA; Blackwell, 1995), 222, 221.
[7] Daniel H. Pink, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing (New York: Riverhead, 2018), 217.
[8] Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization (New York: Crown, 2012),, 286.
[9] John Donne, John Donne: The Major Works, ed. John Carey (Oxford: Oxford University, 2008),344.
[10] John Donne, “Death’s Duel: or, a Consolation to the Soul Against the Dying Life and Living Death of the Body,” 1630, The University of Adelaide, December 17, 2014, https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/donne/john/duel/, (accessed February 9, 2019).Toggle panel: Yoast SEO
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