Big Death and Little Death

Yes, it's another post about Sex! Or is it? Elizabethans used to refer to the act as "the Little Death", and therein perhaps lies the root of humanity's eternal preoccupation with the act of procreation. Sex and Death have been taboo subjects at one time in history or other. Sex was taboo for the Victorians, whereas Death was something of great fascination for them. Now the roles are reversed, Sex is the driving force behind modernity and Death something to be glossed over.

For the Christian, both are terribly important because they both mark fascinating singularities (almost in a mathematical sense) of what it means to live. Conception is the start of life, expiration the end of physical existence. Fr Basil Matthews, erstwhile Abbot of Elmore Abbey, stated that life begins with an inspiration and ends with an expiration - a breath. I'm fond of that picture because of its relationship with the spirit, the pneuma, the ru'ach. But nonetheless, life begins, not with a physical breath, but with the amalgamation of two microscopic gametes and this in conjunction with the inspiration of a soul. An organism comes together, and then a while later falls apart again.

The fact that there is an imbalance between our regard for Sex and Death means that our view of life is skewed terribly. "In the midst of life, we are in death" - the two go together! However, in modernity, our preoccupation is with Sex, as a way of forgetting about death.

"The look" is to be young and thin, full of vigour. Our teenagers are bombarded with images of scantily-clad peers, the natural drive being supplemented by the need to demonstrate that vigour. Our elders are held in disrespect, because they are old and ugly, steadily getting weaker until they disappear into boxes in the ground or behind a curtain. Death is the punishment for becoming unsexy, which we must all steadily become, if "unsexy" means older and less potent.

Mankind craves potency, control over his own destiny, and seeks to extend that potency artificially if need be. And Death comes along, and renders his power infinitesimal. Modern "Sex" then attempts to drive away Death, only the attempt is utterly futile, not least because Sex to stave off Death is already dead.

The Christian position has always been the greatest reverence for both Sex and Death, and this is why the Church is "obsessed" with both. Except that it isn't obsessed, certainly not as the world is. Sex is good - it means Life - and Death is good, because Death has no longer any sting for the Christian, but is the doorway to an eternity full of the ecstasy and passion that both life and death possess.

In accepting that we have no control over our life, but submitting to the will of Christ we are free to be born, to engender life and to die without the need to prove anything. We therefore enjoy Sex - and I believe that even celibate Religious Folk are given the sense of euphoria that accompanies it - and we actually enjoy Death because our passage from this world means the ultimate and aweful propect of being with the Someone who loves us all.

In Christianity, neither the Big Death, nor the Little Death has the sting, neither the grave nor the bedroom has the victory.