Dylan's prayer...

"And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

- "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," 1951 Dylan Thomas

    The Welsh poet wrote these words to his atheist father as a means of dealing with his own understanding of the inevitability of death for us all. He mentions many different kinds of men from all walks of life as they approach their mortality in this poem, but ultimately ends with his own words to his father, as stated above.


    Dylan was reared in a household by his atheist father and a staunch Christian mother, which likely made his developmental years more than a little interesting. Scholars have long debated just exactly where Dylan himself stood with regard to his own spirituality or religious leanings, however, he intimates a deep spiritual connection in many of his writings.


    This poem spoke to the means by which we ought to know that, even though death is inevitable for all of us, to enter into that last mortal act should not be done passively, but courageously, with every ounce of energy we can muster. Images of light and dark demonstrate the truth of life and death of all of us in the human condition. Knowing that it is coming to everyone, Thomas offers how many men face it. Finally, in the last stanza, he shares his thoughts to his father to muster every bit of strength he has to fight the dying of the light.

    My own father, in the last stages of lung cancer and suffering from pneumonia, kidney failure, and a second recurrance of MRSA, has entered into that phase where he is not really here in this world, but not yet in the next. In spoken conversations from dreams and visions he's having, people from his past, both distant and recent, have come to present him with last minute to-do lists of obligations from his childhood, work life, and somewhere in between. Like hearing only half of the conversation of someone on a telephone call, we can only guess at the context of many of the comments he mumbles from his hospital bed, which is so out of place in their living room.

    I struggle with the dream-state into which he has now entered. I know that when I ask him to repeat what he's just said, I can only imagine that startled interruption I must be to the vision he is having from his past. He still recognizes me, but seems confused, as though I am out of place in the time and place where his mind currently occupies. Like being awakened from a dream in a startling manner, disorientation takes hold for just a moment, and he's trying to piece together the dream he had with this temporal reality, and the pieces do not fit well. And so I am left with the impression that to interrupt him for clarification of what was just mumbled only leads to more confusion, frustration, and anxiety. It is best to just let him be.

   The pain has increased, and the medication has begun to increase in potency and dosage according to the hospice instructions left by the nursing staff to help offset the effects of the disease and infections that are ravaging his body. The mumbling and dreaming have calmed down a bit, but he on occasion will still reach up to an imaginary tool rack and adjust a knob, or help send a television chassis down the assembly line. Recently, his visions have included his sister, who died several years ago, and her two dogs that were fighting in the yard. According to those who know more than I do, this is a normal phase in the last days of one who is dying.

    Waiting is the hardest part. It only manages to add to the helplessness of watching someone whom you love travel a road that each of us will eventually take. At this stage, one wonders who has the more difficult path to trod - the dying, or those who witness.

    Dylan's words come back from the shadows of my mind to whisper that there must be something that I can do to help my father fight the fate that has overtaken him. The cry to "rage, rage against the dying of the light" hits my consciousness like the impassioned impulses of a bleacher denizen screaming out for the favored team to press on toward the goal line.

    And yet, the inevitable remains. The suffering haunts. The gasps bring tears. And the memories flood.

    I do not fault Dylan Thomas' prayer for his father. Ultimately I begin to understand. He wants not that death should come, but that it should not come easily. It is a final wish for his dying father that he offer up one last valiant effort to combat the mortal enemy of life, even though the battle cannot be won. Passively acquiescing is not the valiant way to die, according to Dylan's wishes for his father.

    The Apostle Paul had quite a different take on death. Sitting in a Roman prison cell in the last years of his life awaiting his own death by capital punishment, he would share:

"For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain." - Philippians 1:21 NRSV

    And yet, I am ever reminded of the Apostle Paul's comments to his protege, Timothy, in his second letter:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." - II Timothy 4:7 NRSV

    Unlike Dylan's wishes for his atheist father, Paul had surrendered long ago to the power of the Resurrection through the One who experienced it first. And in his surrender, Paul was more than victorious, promised the crown of life from the Author of Life himself. Thus the bold assurance to the believer is that death is not to be feared, dreaded, or even fought. Rather it is a means by which we see completely and clearly the Eternal reality of faith.

    So, raging against the dying of the light is to misunderstand the Light itself. The Light had already died, and behold, is alive forevermore.

"Where, O Death, is thy victory? Where, O Death, is thy sting? But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord."

See you in Church!


Grace and peace,

Brad