Re: is dying a bad thing?

I believe the question is intimately connected with spirituality and anthropology; the understanding of the person.  I'm going into a line of work where I will see death on a regular basis, in many different forms.

 The reality is, people die.  Old people die, kids die, everyone dies at some point.  As an experience, we cannot truly understand death until it befalls us.  From a relational perspective, its a bad thing.  It represents an end in relationship.  Its a transition from someone contributing to our lives in community, to existing only in our memories, and that's painful to experience.

 Personally, as a Christian, I hold death to be a good thing.  In Christian history, the experience of death was a mode of separation between humanity and God.   But because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, death is now an experience that we share with God.  Instead of death separating us, it now brings us closer in relationship through shared experience.

 I understand that other spiritual perspective will differ, and I am excited to discuss them here.