Years ago, as I mention at our retreats, back around 1993, I was asked by the monks at the Trappist Monastery in Gethsemane Farms, Kentucky, to stay over on a Saturday night, a wonderful experience in that prayerful, peaceful place where -- for decades -- there was the vow of silence (no longer). In fact, the next morning, after Mass, when I had breakfast with all the monks, one of them told me he had been the room-mate of famed Trappist writer Thomas Merton's for more than twenty years, yet had never spoken to him (if we can imagine!).

But that wasn't what I most remembered about breakfast that day. It was our little round-table discussion on near-death experiences.

During that chat the monks described how there had been a short, jovial, and uplifting brother-monk who'd recently died, a treasure of a man who was always smiling and making others feel good about themselves. In my mind I pictured a monastic version of Mickey Rooney: energetic, jolly.

What I remember most is the description of how this monk died.

The monk, in his older age, had fallen into a deep coma, they told me; they took turns holding vigil around him. I don't recall if it was for hours or days. The upshot was that after an extended time of total unconsciousness the monk had shocked them by suddenly coming to, sitting up with a start, looking at them happily, calling out, "Ciao!" -- and then collapsing back into a coma and death with a smile on his face. That's the way I'd like to go: with cheer. With a smile. We all can.

This was a monk, I would speculate, who enjoyed purity; who had accomplished what God had for him to do; who was free from the shackles of this passing world because he had released what he had to release and cut himself free from his last hold.

Have we? Have you? What binds you? What may be your last hold" -- or holds (plural)? What might still keep you tied to this earth and cause fear? For we all have holds -- burdens, "hang-ups," sin challenges, inclinations, temptations -- that we must shake free from to avoid purgatory. What keeps you "hanging on"? What do you hold onto? What are the "hang-ups" that could trip you up on the way to the best entry into the eternal?

A hold is a root cause of imperfection.

And it's like the web of a spider, a thread that is nearly invisible and yet super-strong.

Like what a spider spins, it can grow and interconnect with other threads that entrap us and keep us bound to this place of exile with fear instead of joy. It can be lust, which at its base is the inclination to generate a powerful force or emotion, including anger, jealousy, gluttony, greed, and sinful sexuality. Lust is a root hold. So is anger. So is pride -- for sure. Ego. Money. We hold on to such imperfection like a first-time parachutist might hold onto the door of a plane not wanting to make that first jump. Every cardinal sin is a "root hold." As author Janice Brown Carbon points out, in her book, Fully Alive!, some of us remain caught in an infantile mode; we have traits that are narcissistic, that are selfish, that are "me, myself, and I," that cause us to be impulsive and difficult to get along with; that compel us to self-gratification. We lack empathy. I would add that we are argumentative. There is also the childish thinker, the person -- those among us -- who avoids conflict, who seeks to get along with everyone, who has a good heart. That's all fine -- as long as it doesn't include insecurity and trouble saying "no" even to evil. A childish spirit can be a real benefit if it isn't motivated by fear and guilt.

There is the adolescent in us.

Hallmarks of that: motivated by anger, oppositional, reactive, no respect for authority, claims not to care, self-defeating, difficult, has trouble saying "no," but also, writes Carbon, will not accept "no" for an answer.

What is your "last hold"? What weighs you down? What repeats (and repeats, and repeats). What transgression or inclination and temptation or unforgiveness do you still hold dear?

Like gunk, we must ask God to reach His Hand through us -- to the very bottom of our souls -- and remove it.

Every last drop of sullied water must be emptied or it will sully the pure water poured into us.

No water is pure once it's mixed with tainted liquid, no matter how vaguely tainted the mixture is.

This should accompany Confession.

We all can do it.

We all have time.

And when it happens, we are light as a bird. We're free. We are untethered and fully feathered (for full eternal flight).

On a deathbed, we may even be able to wake from a deep swoon to send final love on those who love us with the simplicity of a word like, "Ciao!" and a smile before passage into what is timeless, through stars that, as in time-lapse photography [top], form a passage around us.

-- Michael H. Brown (10/25/13)

[resources: The Other Side and A Life of Blessings]

[Retreats: North Carolina; soon to be announced: southwest Florida; Texas]

[photo at top by Jerónimo Losda; does a time-lapse photo of stars resemble the "tunnel" of passage, indicating that upon death we are simply moving at a different speed in a place that is timeless?]

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