Memento Mortis

On this blog, I wrote along these lines:

God did *not* "will" it. If you want to say He "allowed" this death, understand that He allowed it in the sense that He "allows" His world to function according to its natural tendencies and natural laws. He does not meddle, generally speaking, with the workings of the world. When He does, it is called a miracle, but it wouldn't be right, or just, or even good, if He were constantly sticking His fingers in to redirect the order of things. And we would cease to have miracles. We would cease to have a trustworthy world if it didn't function according to its own laws.

Death always is senseless and stupid and hard. We were not, in the original scheme of things, made for death. We were made for life, and not just life but a life lived in full, natural communion with our God.We were not made to say goodbye. 
It is sin, and sin only, which causes death and hurt and grief. I learned a long time ago that He does not ask anything of us that He has not already done, and done to an infinite degree more than we. Not that this makes the reality of the thing any easier. I know, too, that sometimes the worst thing of all is knowing that we are strong enough to take it. Strong enough to wake up every morning, to live each day, and survive. Sometimes that is the hardest thing to bear of all.
On the other hand . . . we were made to prepare for death. Our life here should not be one where we flee, constantly terrified, throwing our arms over our eyes or burying our heads in the sand in order to hide from the inevitable. And I cannot help but think that we lost that sense of victory over death so apparent in the Scriptures and early Church Fathers: that a good death is a triumph. That when a holy man or woman dies, we truly do not mourn them, for they have in point of fact run the race, and won. Oh death, where is thy sting? says the Apostle. And he means it. This was a man who lived in the shadow of death daily, for whom to be a believer was to seek a death sentence, and this was his answer. Where is thy sting?
I do grieve, for myself, for the family and friends left behind. But there is peace, peace in the knowledge that a body dead does not mean a soul, a self, dead. By death He tramples death. He has won, and through Him, so have we.
So grieve, but do not rage; weep, but know--know in your head and heart and bowels--that He weeps with you, and, like you, longs for the day when all things will be made new. And trust Him, that in His providence and might, He will, indeed turn the greatest grief to something beautiful.

Why stand ye gazing? Know you not that He has ascended to the Father?