Sickness Unto Death

The title above is taken from a book by Soren Kierkegaard.  I don't mean to give away the punch line, but the specific "sickness unto death" Soren is concerned with here is despair.

Today, this sickness claimed the life of Bernard Madoff, son of the most infamous swindler in history.  Bernard claimed that he and his brother who both worked in the family firm, had no knowledge of their father's crimes.  This is likely the case since an ocean of motivated prosecutors have never indicated that charges would ever be filed against any Madoff family members.

At one level, it is easy to see this case is a matter of the sins of the father being visited on the sons.  This is likely at least partially accurate.  Indeed, this is a tragedy that would not have occurred were it not for the most monstrous embezzlement in history.

However I think that Bernard's unnatural death points to another kind of despair; one that is all too common with all of us.  I would guess that Bernard felt both the need and inability to escape from who he was. He needed to become someone and something other than he was.  He didn't realize that this is common to all of us.

We all need to be something other than we are.  Some of us see it sooner, others later but we all see it eventually.  This is the primary point of Kierkegaard's "Sickness Unto Death."

It is in the depth of this sickness that we encounter our profound need for the divine.  Many religions promise changes of circumstance and attribute.  Only Christ promises to change our very nature and the nature of our identity.  Christ is the only cure.

It is a tragedy when a life passes without recognizing the value of the lifeline that we're offered, of the potential for being other than we are.  Such is the tragedy of Bernard Madoff.