I Mentioned Watching Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics

last night.  There is a reason that Rod Serling's early death was such a disaster to the arts, and this one of them.  The first of the story's either a descent into mental illness, or a supernatural discovery of dangerous predestination as were many of the episodes of the original series.  The second story is one of those reminders of how much of the mainstream of our culture has changed over time.  Like many of Serling's stories, death is an inevitable process not to be feared, even if there is nothing afterwards, but as one line observes, "like going to sleep after a long and tiring day."  In this Serling captured well the dominant Judeo-Christian perspective of Western Civilization even ignoring the assumption in Daniel 12:2:

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.

The older and sicker you get, the less frightening death becomes: only the prospect of a painful death remains truly frightening.  I have obviously spent a lot of time contemplating the inevitable since my 2013 aortic valve replacement.  Even without the hope of John 10:28:

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Death becomes more and more: "like going to sleep after a long and tiring day."

Along with the Good News, the good news is that since I started on the iron supplements this morning (and a wonderful medium rare steak tonight), many of the symptoms have been alleviating.