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Show Your textbook prices have drop • ed! Views&Opinion Page 14 Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010 WERE NUT BOTHERED BY HARRY REIM COMMENTS AIKUTOBANIA WING laft-SKINWP" AND LACKING A "NEGRO DIALECT," JCOM 1500 was: $117.20 now: $74.65 used even lower Faith: Journey's end acontinued from page 13 experiences, and one day that will stop. One day the way I understand everything will cease and the ashes of my body will drift in the wind over the San Diego mountains. I don't know what will be after that. There is plenty of despair with that reality that most people I know share, but I don't believe religious ideas are dodging the reality of death, I believe they are embracing it. Death is, strangely enough, our most genuine experience. Everything else we do can be done by someone else, or could be an illusion. Death solely belongs to each of us. It can't be copied or imagined, predicted or denied. This is not a call to despair, however. I believe faith is the seeking of reality and truth and embracing them, and nothing is more real for the individual existence than death. This is why many religions connect death and divine understanding. Halakhist Nachmanides, in his commentary on Deuteronomy, said while death is emotionally jarring, the "children of God" must remember their identity and obligation. For me though, it is also the courage of people like my uncle, the late Ted Kennedy, and countless others whose faith was a catalyst for keeping to their work and joys in life regardless of their condition. Death can be a frightening reality, and all the nice words of theologians, philosophers and counselors still fall cold within the personal experience. Still, my faith teaches me that fearing it simply denies the world. The embrace of death's reality is also the embrace of life and living in this life, not just an afterlife, instead of merely existing. To quote the great Eddas, "Fearlessness is better than a faint heart for any man who sticks his nose out of doors. The length of my life and the day of my death were fated long ago." Will Holloway is a senior majoring in philosophy. His column appears every other Wednesday. Comments can be left on www.aggietownsquare.com . iv* Did you know you can have a favorite photo from The uld we kid you? Statesman made into a puzzle. Yeah. Wo Go to www.aggietownsquare.com and click on Photo Reprints. Just one of a hundred things you can do at AggieTownSquare. A lecrettw I P |