Your Days are Numbered

A new book from a personal hero of mine, hopefully reminding each of us that tomorrow is promised to no one . . .but Christ's love is promised to everyone!

From publishers website :Since I was young, I have watched death come: for my grandparents; for a multitude of my church members; for my mother; for my brother; and then for me.

But I was not ready when I knew it was coming for me. I was scared to death the morning of the surgery to open me up to remove my left kidney, ureter, and scrape my bladder. I was not ready. I felt in an instant how much of my precious time on this Earth as a human being had been spent being distracted from the absolute and undeniable fact. I. Will. Die.

It was partly my fault – who wants to think about that? It was mostly the milieu in which I was born, lived, and moved through life: modern popular culture strives during our every waking moment to keep our consciousness from the fact of our mortality. We are distracted to death. Sure: it fills with near-pornographic glee the movies, television dramas, comedies, thrillers, gore fests with other peoples’ deaths, but never does it put death in first person singular.

So at 10:30 a.m. on the morning of April 24, 2008, I had my personal Garden of Gethsemane. I was alone (literally). I was mortally afraid. I was not ready or at peace with the fact that I was moving toward my death, and death was moving toward me.

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The surgery was successful, but in December of the same year, cystoscopy showed I had lesions in my bladder, and chemotherapy was prescribed. It was at moment that A Little Guide for Your Last Days began to be written. As much for me as for anyone else who might read it.

For any readers who are Christian, Little Guide is my express understanding of the grace of God in Jesus Christ to save us from both the penalty of sin and the fear and pain of death. Yes; it is Catholic in theology and understanding. That is where I find the most truth, the most hope, the most understanding of our human condition, and the most answers to our human plight.

I want A Little Guide for Your Last Days to be not only a memento mori – a reminder of your mortality – but a book of lessons for living your life more in keeping with the will of our self-donating, covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. And He is most clearly revealed in Jesus Christ: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.