Everybody loves a great ending of a book or movie. I hate stories that end badly. If an ending is bad, the whole story seems like a waste of time. I wonder if that says something about how the story of our lives should end? Death only comes in two varieties: fast or slow. Having a fatal accident or heart attack would be a fast death-one moment you're alive; the next you're dead. A slow death happens after a prolonged battle with a terminal illness, or as a result of old age. It's this slow variety that affords us the chance to end things well.

Why shouldn't life end well or even grandly for us? Leaves are the most beautiful at the end of their life cycle. Why shouldn't humans be? True, the months and weeks before one's death are chock full of challenges and anxieties to address, but can't we run at whatever time we have left purposely celebrating life's memories, sharing cherished moments with those we will leave behind, and saying what needs to be said before it's too late to say anything? Why can't we move through the autumn of our lives with our leaves bursting with radiant color?

The problem is we are afraid to talk about death. But that doesn't make sense. We all know that, like taxes, death is unavoidable. The truth is, life itself is a terminal experience-the moment we are born the death process begins. Every doctor will tell you as much. Aging itself is the process of dying. It's just that when we are young, death doesn't seem real or relevant to us.

In centuries past, people were accustomed to death because it visited them more often than it does us today. The general attitude was one of acceptance and ars moriendi or belief in the "art of dying." During those days when serious illness occurred, the only choice was to simply let dying take it's course and to do it in the best way possible-at peace with God. Physicians were ones who practiced the art of medicine, using their skills and knowledge to guide patients with dignity to their final breaths. Today, physicians in their rescue saving efforts have, by and large, lost touch with helping people with the art of dying. Because of the advancements in medical science through extending life expectancies and stopping many terminal illnesses from being terminal, some unconsciously believe science will ultimately keep us all from dying. But medicine will never eradicate death; it can only postpone it.

All of us will reach the end of what science can do and death will be at the door. We will have to face it. Because this is true, we moderns must rediscover the art of dying-an "art" that helps us live all the way to the end. Dying is really the final act of living. We must take time to learn how to do it. When we are young, life is about learning and growing into adulthood. As adults, we must learn about productivity and family. As we age we learn about retirement and contentment. Then we start to die. Here we must learn how to exit life by getting things in order; remembering what should be remembered; forgetting what should be forgotten; being thankful for life (despite its ups and downs, successes and failures); and cultivating hope for the next dimension of living-eternity.

Dying is hard work. Lot's of t's to cross and i's to dot. Part of the work is being willing to talk about death-something many don't want to do. Our culture celebrates whenever a life comes into the world. We laugh and cry and gather together to talk about the new life coming into the world. On the other hand, we are reluctant to talk openly about death, and we find it hard to accept a report from the doctor that tells us we are going to die. Something in us hopes medical science (or God) will help us beat whatever threatens our lives (and for the bulk of our lives that hope is valid). But there is a time to die.

In the West, we only value youth, beauty, competition and individuality. Death to us represents physical weakness, loss of power and uncertainty...none of which we appreciate. Our cultural bias interprets death as a failure. Nobody likes to fail.

Other more traditional cultures, however, treat death as an extension of living, bearing testimony of a well-lived life and as an opportunity to begin again. The dying are given space to resolve conflicts, to celebrate, to prepare for their final journey, and to acknowledge that their life had great meaning.

Celebrating those who face death is long over overdue in the West. Families and friends need to laugh and cry and gather together in order to memorialize a person's life when they are about to leave this planet-we need to learn how. The good news is, when you do, understanding comes, peace comes, hope surprises you, and most of the creepiness about this subject matter leaves.

It is often said that everyone wants to go to heaven; it's just that no one wants to die to get there. The God story has an upside and a down side. We must partake of both until all things are redeemed and death is put under Christ's feet. I think Christians are not only live well but die well. But embracing the uncertainty of death in hope of a future in God's hands requires we overcome the fear of death. Faith helps us here.

C.S. Lewis captured the concept of crossing into eternity on the last page of the Chronicles of Narnia series that conquers some of that fear for me. He closes the series by writing:
"For us this is the end of all the stories...But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world...had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever and in which every chapter is better than to one before."

The biblical claim is that there is another dimension beyond this one. Jesus claimed he is working in that dimension to make it "home" for the believer-this means that, at best, Earth is a hotel. When we embrace this idea by faith (and there's no other way to do so) death doesn't sound so bad after all. In fact, it is here that we best understand the claim of the Apostle Paul: "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."