My Career Isn't Going How I Thought It Would: Psalm 90, Cathedral Thinking, and Remembering Your Death

Some thoughts regarding a poem Moses once wrote, medieval cathedral-building, and why coming to terms with our inevitable death can unlock value in the present.

**painting is “Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds” by John Constable

“You are going to die”: after graduating college, I had a roommate whose default homepage on Google Chrome told him this every time he opened his laptop. Below the morbid headline was a countdown that reinforced the principle — an estimation of how many days, weeks, and hours he had left to live (based on a variety of factors). So each day when my roommate logged in to get started for the day, he was reminded of his death.

At the time, I thought this particular Chrome widget was a bit insane. Now I think it’s wise. I typically forget that I am going to die one day. Perhaps you do too.

While we’re (graciously) about a decade removed from the YOLO movement, it actually wielded ageless wisdom. We do only live once — but not to simply “eat, drink, and be merry…”, because tomorrow? Well, we may die.

Memento mori is a Latin phrase meaning, “remember your death.” These days, I’m trying to live by it. For what it’s worth, I have been reflecting on the reality of death quite a bit amid this Lenten season. As the great novelist Walter Wangerin said, “Whenever the journey to Easter begins, it must always begin right here: at the contemplation of my death, in the cold conviction that I shall die.”

But what good does reflecting on death do? Life is too good, too rich, too short to think about death. It’s just not…not fashionable. Young folks don’t want to think about death. As a matter of fact, we are already dreaming up ways where the reality of death can be delayed, or perhaps even avoided altogether (as an unsolicited recommendation, the 2021 film Swan Song starring Mahershala Ali unpacks the tension of these themes quite well). “We Will Never Die!” is a trending, satirical song on Instagram right now that jabs at the covert (dangerous) millennial belief that we can outlive our death. But as is the case with most satire, it makes us a little uncomfortable because within the satire, there is a kernel of truth. Admittedly, most of my days look like days lived by a person who believes he will not die.

This world-outlook, of course, has ramifications for our professional lives as well. Death rules the day, but we certainly don’t want to believe that it does. Thus, many of us chase earthly success with our careers: another promotion, another year-end bonus, another trip to Cabo. We’re then shocked when the rug is pulled out from us and we’re fired, laid off, or whatever else. We get a little taste of death. Maybe your venture fails, or you have to pivot careers again, or you’re hustling to pay back an investor but (yikes!), you won’t be able to…and you think to yourself: “...my career just isn’t going how I thought it would.” Our vision for an autonomous eternity has creeped into our disposition toward our careers. And so, we work very hard to build a mirage of security, stability, comfort, and death-avoidance in our careers, such that it often leaves us feeling completely helpless when a foretaste of death comes calling (i.e., a layoff). We build houses upon sand. Which, for my part, indicates that many of us are unprepared for the day that death knocks.

As Jon Foreman was apt to point out, “all the riches of kings end up in wills. We’ve got information in the information age, but do we know what life is outside of our convenient Lexus cages?”

I suspect this problem of ours was not an ancient problem. The reality of death was a constant in centuries past. As Saint Benedict used to instruct his monks in the sixth century, “keep death daily before your eyes.” There are modern clerics like Sister Aletheia who are working to recover this kind of wisdom — the wisdom of memento mori (the New York Times wrote about her work among the Catholic community here) — but largely, our historical moment is (to use a very overused 2020s word) “unprecedented.” Unprecedented in the sense that, we are more removed from death than any other group of humans throughout all history.

For these reasons, I remember where I was the first time that I heard Psalm 90 preached on. It was a day when I truly came to terms with my own death.

In Psalm 90, Moses — who for the most part, was a historian — writes a poem. That ought to grab our attention. What does he have to say when he chooses to create art with his words? In short, Psalm 90 is an artistic reflection on death, and the brevity of life:

“You return man to dust…” (90:3)

“For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past…” (90:4)

“You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream…in the evening it fades and withers…” (90:5-6)

“All our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sign. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away…” (90:9-10)

Even Moses — the great leader of Israel — had to do what Saint Benedict instructed his monastic order to do: “keep death daily before your eyes.” Memento mori. Moses is even specific enough to reference the average Hebrew lifespan. In other words: life is a flash in the pan. It will end before we know it.

Yet, what is fascinating to me — and why Psalm 90 is like thunder to my bones — is that this reality does not necessarily depress Moses. Instead, it is wisdom to him. That’s right: remembering your death is wise. Here is what he says next:

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom…” (90:12)

“Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil…” (90:15)

“Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” (90:17)

Alongside Moses, my hunch is that living each day memento mori actually helps us better understand why we are to do what we do in the present. By remembering his expiration date, Moses sees the wisdom of creating in the present. And so he found joy in laying another brick in the cathedral that day. As I age, I crave wisdom. I want to know that the choices I am making on behalf of my family, my career, and my life are wise. Moses locates wisdom in the “numbering of our days” — and perhaps it’s for this reason that my wife and I decided to sing this song at our wedding: I know my time is passing away, but the works of Your hands are what will remain!

If there is anyone who had reason to lament the brevity of human life and all the “micro-deaths” that one experiences along the way, it was Moses. He died overlooking the Promised Land — the place that he worked his entire life to enter. It was his earthly vision of success; it was “the good life” that God had promised to him. Yet he dies on Mount Nebo, where God tells him “I have let you see it [the Promised Land] with your eyes, but you shall not go over there” (Deuteronomy 34:4). Death came knocking. And that was that.

What are we to make of this? My hope is that we can begin to see the wisdom (as Moses suggests) in the collective force of what so many ancients have told us: we are going to die. And yet, this is where we can find wisdom and unlock the true value of human living in our present.

Perhaps this is why one of Chicago’s greatest preachers (D.L. Moody) was famous for saying that “death is the great evangelist.” Death reveals what we believe to be true of human life, in an ultimate sense. For the person who follows the Triune God, we believe that “death is just another path, one that we all must take” (Gandalf, obviously) — and thus, we are right to remember death in its rightful place.

So I suppose the fair question at this point is then, “what am I supposed to do about this when I show up for work today?” How does memento mori inject beauty, value, and thriving into our daily lives?

Faith-Driven Investor introduced me to the concept of “Cathedral Thinking” a couple of months ago. It’s the logical outflow of “remembering our death”…it’s how Moses was somehow able to cry out “establish the work of our hands!” right before dying on the edge of the Promised Land.

In the medieval era, kingdoms would ask their master architects to design glorious cathedrals. The kicker was, those master architects would (with near-certainty) never get to see the completion of the cathedral that they had labored their entire life to build. They too would have to “die on the edge of their Promised Land”, and trust that it was up to God to “raise the house.”

Friends, my hope is that we can approach our careers and our Christian lives this way. That we can trust God is building a cathedral with the works of our hands, which we do not even have vision for — and that it will outlast our human lives for centuries upon centuries. That we see how a memento mori life does not take us to a grim plateau, but shows us the horizon of “white shores…and beyond. A far green country under a swift sunrise…there is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet” (J.R.R. Tolkien).

So, may we see the brevity of our earthly lives as a doorway for the glory of God. Lord, take our blueprints, our tools, our materials, our hands…and build a cathedral that will outlast us, for Your Glory.

Friends, remember your death.

Keep going.