I just finished reading the biography of Rich Mullins and was completely moved and inspired by his life. If there were an award for the most authentic and genuine Christian, Rich would rock that category. "Wow" is all I have to say!
The last chapter talked about his views on death. Since Rich died before his time, though it seems he liked to think he lived beyond his time, it conveyed an amazing attitude of what it is to truly live life and also to accept death, and accept it with joy.
A few quotes from Rich on death:
(Rich learned quite a bit frm Saint Francis): Francis reminded himself daily that he would be dead...I think that while we live, the one sure thing about being alive is that we will die. Everything else is kind of "iffy." I mean, you may be rich, you may be poor. You may have a job tomorrow, you may not. Nothing is sure in life except that you will be dead. There's something really great about living in the awareness that we will someday die. For one thing, that makes all that is hard about life more endurable because we know it will pass. So I think that it teaches us to not hold on to things, to live with some sort of detachment. Not the sort of detachment where we are unmoved, but the sort of detachment where we allow ourselves to be moved easily and quickly, but we don't try to possess those things that move us.
Once you come to understand that life is unbelievably brief and that we really can't do anything that's gonna change anything, that we don't really amount to a hill of beans--then all of a sudden you go, "so it doesn't really matter if I'm not great. And if I don't have to be great, that means I can fail. And if I can fail, that means I can try. And if I can try, that means I'm gonna have a good time. "
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