Thomas Merton wrote that our life is divided against itself. We are torn between the love of life and the fear of itself, the fear of death. Death operates in the midst of life, but not at the end of life.

For me, death is the fear of life. Death is life afraid to love and to live and to trust itself because we are so obsessed with our own anxieties, the things we are told we must fear. We are so preoccupied with life’s ending that we are afraid to live it while we can.