Dying With Dignity

House doesn't usually make profound statements. Revealing, yes. Insightful, yes. Vulgar, yes. Profound, no. But in a rerun I was just watching, he made a profound statement. A patient was dying and decided that it would be better to to just go ahead and die with dignity rather than being constantly tested. However, House finally made the correct diagnosis - she had a worm in her brain. (It's always something exotic on House.) So House goes in to talk to her and in the process makes this statement:

"You can live with dignity, but you can't die with dignity."

I suppose we have a romanticized notion of a dignified death where the family is gathered around the bedside and the dying person drifts quietly and painlessly into inanimacy. But this is a false notion that aids only mourners who have no faith.

For the believer, we have confidence that one who has had faith has been received into paradise to be with Christ as He promised the thief on the cross.

But the death of the body speaks of a need rather than a reward. Our bodies die because this world is thoroughly corrupted with sin. There is no dignity in that and the death of the body, whether of a believer or an unbeliever, shows the extent of the corruption that we have brought upon the image of God with which we have been created.

There is no dignity in death, but all dignity will be restored in the resurrection.

House With or Without a Foundation

I like to watch House. I haven't particularly known why. He's vulgar, impetuous, misanthropic, atheistic and so intelligent he thinks he's right all the time, which he isn't, and right often enough to make him annoying.

Today, as I watch the umpteenth rerun of House, I finally realize why I like to watch him:

He's what I would be except for the grace of God. Pathetically reliant on my own conflicted reason and rationale. Yet there is a more sure way and as I am submitted to God in the intent of His perfect way, I can see clearly the futility of this conflicted sinful nature that yet calls flames of judgment to lick the bottom of my feet as I press on toward God's perfect peace in His glory.

And may it be that I never look on such characters as House and consider myself any better lest I become the Pharisee who thanks God he is not like the sinner.