I have roamed the wilderness with the Romantics, marveled at the heavens with Copernicus, and navigated seas with Beowulf. To pursue education, I crossed more than the line between Ohio and Pennsylvania. I spanned the bounds of time, exploring ancient Rome and the New World. I crossed divisions of culture, learning from Native Americans and Anglo-Saxons. Academics sculpt a bridge between the finite mind of the created and the infinite mind of the Creator, offering mortals a taste of God’s immortality, transferring students to the past and preparing them for the future. Ultima Thule beckons beyond…but what if we never reach it? Will a future devoid of worldly accomplishments render null years of grueling studies? What if we never listen, like Keats, to “airy voices” or crest, like Montgomery, the Alpine Path, gaining an immortal name? G.K. Chesterton found another road to immortality. Like another Teacher, he believed that only by dying daily may one gain true eternal life. The Romantics and Copernicus and Beowulf gained earthly fame by dying once. What if we gained eternal renown by dying daily? Only through dying to self and living for Christ may one attain immortality.
First, what does it mean to die to oneself? Every Christian agrees that faith in Christ requires death to self, yet I, at least, often forget what that entails. We experience the peace of God through dying to our own passions. Sometimes these desires of the flesh are unrighteous lusts, sins we easily recognize that we must kill, however grueling the battle. However, often such passions appear good, yet they further our kingdoms rather than God’s. These apparently good dreams often prove more dangerous than the inherently bad ones since we deceive ourselves into believing that whatever we think is good must be what God wants…but God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways (Isaiah 55:8). I foster many ambitions and aspirations: ambitions and aspirations which I hope God may fulfill for the furtherance of His kingdom. However, I cannot forget that dying to myself involves sacrificing my dreams on the altar of God’s will, that from the ashes of selfishness God may forge the self-forgetful life He plans for me. We fail to comprehend much on this side of eternity, yet one day, when the grey rain curtain fades away, we will “no longer see in a mirror dimly but then face to face,” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Still, on this transient side of the curtain, one may savor a taste of eternity: life in Christ. Thankfully, Christ, in bearing the burdens of the world on the cross, began and completed the difficult work. As Peter reminds us, “He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness…”(1 Peter 2:24). The lives we live for ourselves pale in comparison to the lives we could live in Christ. Although the fear of dying to oneself may discourage one from the pursuit of life in Christ, the reward of immortality overcompensates for the precursory troubles. A rose waits somewhere beyond the thorns, a fragment of the imagination of the Creator: something too beautiful and awful for our mortal frames to bear: something that burns like ice and numbs like flames that would break us now but that will build us one day. God grants us this hope of something greater and grander if we only pursue life in Him, for life in Christ is immortality of soul. Someday, if we, like Sir Galahad, persevere through adversity as we attempt the first teetering steps on the path of adulthood, we also will find our “holy grail.”
One may attain immortality through death to self and life for Christ. Just as the heroes who die gain immortality in the hearts of followers, so we receive life from Christ when we die to our own sinful desires. However, education presents obstacles, and it requires great discipline. Like learning in school, this lifestyle proves a daily process of training the mind and guiding habits. The habits we have fostered throughout the years will pave the paths to our future, as we, like Paul, “strain forward to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13). Though the past lurks behind us, and what the ancient Greeks termed “Charmolypi” or “sweet sorrow,” tinges the present, the future beckons, and Ultima Thule awaits. Like the guarantee of a sunrise after the qualms of night, so our future hope of eternal joy in God serves as guide. The same God who requires us to live in Him cultivated the wilderness the Romantics roamed, mapped the heavens Copernicus pondered, and tamed the seas Beowulf swam. That same God beckons us to not just the distinction of an immortal name that these historical figures earned but also the blessing of an immortal life as we die to our own desires.
