I’m sorry to have to tell you this: but you are going to die.
The reality of death is a sad outcome we don’t want to think about. Evangelicals have built an entire theological system to deny it. They indulge the doctrine of the rapture as a popular delusion that promises this generation of Christians that they can escape death in God’s great eschaton.
This website is about an “end of the world” scenario. But whether that scenario plays out or not, we each will face our own personal “end of the world” scenario when we die from other causes.
About a year and half ago, I fell and broke my back. It was bad. At first, I was paralyzed from the waist down. Now, I have most of my functionality, mobility, and feeling back. I still have a neuropathic condition. It might be permanent. I don’t know.
At an earlier time, men who broke their backs died or were permanently paralyzed – and then they died. There was nothing surgeons could do for them. Today, it is different.
That difference is expensive. I had an insurance policy that paid up to $100k of my medical expenses. That was not enough. They were over $180k. And I was lucky.
The hospital gave me a discount. I had to only pay $40k out of pocket. I have a family business that was able to pay the balance. Most people don’t have those kinds of resources. It’s scary.
Many people want government to take over medicine – as if it hasn’t already. That is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
I can guarantee you that I would not have lived had we not been living with a private health-care industry. In a state-run system, the bureaucrats would have been wrangling in triplicate over what to do with me and the window for an effective surgery would have been lost. For many injuries, death or permanent loss will occur if surgery is not performed right away. I benefited from a medical industry which – although regulated beyond belief – still is a “performance-based” industry.
In recent weeks, we have been mourning the loss of Robert Felix. His medical condition killed him. He has left a legacy to us all in his writings, but I’m sure there was much more he wanted to leave us.
After I returned from the hospital, I started this website. I had been procrastinating. My injury forced me to begin writing again, to be thinking about my legacy to my family and to the world.
In 2046, I will be 87 years old. I don’t know if I will make it. But I know my descendants will and so will many of you. I’m trying to help you to get ready: not for death – that would be the easy way out – but for survival. That will be the greater risk and the greater burden.
I hope you are prepared to face it.
James Stivers, July 17, 2021
