"It used to be said that the Victorians of the nineteenth century talked incessantly about death but were silent about sex, whereas today we talk incessantly about sex and are silent about death…In today's culture we chatter incessantly about both sex and death. Now there is nothing we cannot talk about in polite company. It is a great liberation. And a great loss, if in fact both sex and death partake a mystery. Mystery is attended by a fitting reticence." - Richard John Neuhaus, First Things

"Death: God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy.

"Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway." - Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on chlordane

"If you attempt to talk with a dying man about sports or business, he is no longer interested. He now sees other things as more important. People who are dying recognize what we often forget, that we are standing on the brink of another world." - William Law in Christian Perfection, a contemporary paraphrase by Marvin D. Hinten

"The most interesting time of human life, I think, is when your heart stops, and for between 2 and 15 minutes, your brain is still running, I think the most interesting part of my life is going to happen in those 2 to 15 minutes. Because time doesn't exist then. When the body's gone and you've got 120 billion neurons whirring, it's like LSD. More can happen in one minute than in a thousand lifetimes". - LSD guru Timothy Leary

"I mean, there's no control in life, is there? There's only one who's in control, and He'll take me when He wants me. I don't want to know about it. It's none of my business. But when it happens, I just ask that it won't be painful and that He forgives my sins." - Actor/comedian Chris Farley, who died of a drug overdose at the age of 33, Rolling Stone, Feb. 5

"So many Americans watched as Cardinal Bernardin faced his mortality... I think we were all edified by his acceptance of death as a friend and not an enemy. Any religion that doesn't deal with death realistically is not worth its salt." - Archbishop Rembert Weakland in New York Times Magazine (March 9, 1997)

"Approaching the end of life through the lens of assisted suicide is like looking through the wrong end of binoculars; the view is narrowed and distorted. Dying can be a rich and meaningful time. We must raise standards of clinical practice, reform medical education, and adopt health policy that expands access to comprehensive palliative care without pauperizing families in the process." - Dr. Ira Brock, hospice physician (quoted in Washington Post, Jan. 2, 1997)

Death

"We live in a time of unprecedented discoveries, many of which tend to make life longer and living more comfortable and enjoyable. But with change and progress the inexorable law of change and decay also operates. Strange that so few in this world prepare for the inevitable." - L. Nelson Bell

Depravity

"Mental and emotional depression are the new maladies of modern man. They are diseases as surely as cancer or diabetes. To dismiss them with a thoughtless statement like 'there's sin in your life,' or 'it's a demon,' is a display of ignorance that reveals a lack of compassion and trivializes the suffering of others." - Ron Dunn

"As an evangelical theologian, I think the teaching about disease and healing in the Modern Faith movement is both heretical and often cruel. This approach largely follows the idea that sickness - depression and other emotional problems - is always caused by unbelief and sin. The claim is that God has done all he is going to do to provide perfect healing in Christ's spiritual atonement in hell, not his physical death on the cross. If a believer fails to appropriate this perfect healing it is because of unbelief or sin. The Apostle Paul's illness and need of a personal physician is enough to cast serious doubt upon Faith teachers' claims that a believer can and should always manifest perfect health." - Dr. Ken Hemphill

Depression

"We have proved beyond any doubt that He means what He says - His grace is sufficient, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. We pray that if any, anywhere, are fearing that the cost of discipleship is too great, that they may be given to glimpse that treasure in heaven promised to all who forsake. - Elisabeth Elliot, on behalf of the five widows of slain missionaries to Ecuador one year after their deaths"

"Jesus promised his disciples three things: that they would be entirely fearless, absurdly happy, and that they would get into trouble." - W. Russell Maltby

"Mieczyslaw Malinski writes: 'It's easiest to see the cross on Jesus' shoulders. It's a bit harder with our neighbor's cross. Most difficult of all is seeing our own cross.' And sometimes even more difficult is to see it on the shoulders of a congregation, especially our own congregation. Yet crossbearing is for the body of Christ, as well as the individual." - Katie Funk Wiebe in the Christian Leader (Feb. 1995)

"It is not up to you to complete the work, nor are you at liberty to give it up." - from the Pirke Avoth (2:18)

"The dogs of doubt never sleep long. Our peace is forever stalked by two predators. The first is our culture of convenience. We are the well-fed, the secure. We are lovers of the large plate and the broad sofa. Material abundance keeps us from seeking any other kind…Our love of convenience trains us to believe that we can have as much as we want, of whatever we want, whenever we want it…No matter what life gives us, we always want more…We are walking wanton. The second predator that stalks our peace is narcissism. Narcissists worship themselves. This self-love produces only those inner values that we ourselves can create…When our self-contrived image begins to crumble, we always crave a more solid foundation; for 'the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: 'The Lord knows those who are His'" (2 Tim. 2:19). - Calvin Miller in The Unchained Soul

Discipleship