Death, Where is your Victory? Where is Your Sting?

This past week has been one of inner tension for me. To write about the event of death, and consequently introduce a scary and depressing subject in my blog. Or ignore my ruminations and write something a little lighter. Our lives are filled with the tension of the mundane and the eternal.

So, feeling prompted from within and to explore these thoughts aloud, and promising to look on the lighter side of this journey in the next blog, here goes.

Over the past several weeks, there has been a loose circle of people following the downward physical spiral of a young lady named Jenny. The facebook entries have been numerous, with some insightful and heart-rending, some cliche, others..well thoughtless. But that is the way we deal with this imposing event. We plead, we ignore, we try to move on, we try not to personalize. Yet this event is deeply personal. It hovers like a mist over all our efforts. We can't escape the eternity of it. We can't escape the inevitability. We are the only creature on this earth that lives with the understanding that it will one day end.

So I followed the story from afar. The roller-coaster was evident in my bride's updates. The emotions and the reactions chronicled through modern technology on a subject as old as time. The responses were predictable, the conclusion forgone.

How do we handle this? As judeo-christian adherents we console each other with the words that we have applied to this..she is in a better place..she is now with the Lord.. our prayers are answered. If you can allow me to let you glimpse at my cynicism for just a moment. These are mere platitudes we have developed to prevent others from seeing that we do not understand what all this means. I will tell you as one who lost his mother when she was only 57, these platitudes don't work when your world has turned dark and the shape of your heart has been changed forever. This is deep and mind-boggling stuff. The words above may be true, but they do not give us insight into the world of loss and pain and foreverness.

As I have studied over the past several years, it has occurred to me that God does not like this event any more than we do. The single most powerful example is the story of the cross and a day turned dark and curtain torn in two. He hates this event as much as we do, it clearly shows the power of the other side is still evident and is an affront to His desire that we live life as it was intended. I think we should tap the brakes a little on the "triumph" aspect and tend to the ones who were close to the deceased. They are not living a life of unanticipated joy, but are in the depths of dark and loneliness and loss.

Here is my advice. If you have lost a close one, remember what it felt like and offer a shoulder to cry on. Shed tears with them, share the mourning. Time doesn't heal the wound, but it scabs over enough to be functional. If you have not lost a close one, or don't remember the trauma, keep your mouth shut. Do what you can to help. I remember a man named Bobby McMillon driving me to the farm after my mother died, to reunite with my family. In great wisdom he said nothing. He allowed me my mourning, he allowed me my pain. I have remembered that non-conversation all these years, and have used it a multitude of times. Richard Foster says that in each situation we should consider whether the situation might be better served by our silence, than by our speaking.

Those close to Jenny's family have a very tough task over the next few weeks. To console, to help, to be available. Those of us who are not close have the task of being reflective on what this means, what is at stake, what is to be considered.

Godspeed, sometimes we have to see the pain, hitch our packs a little higher on our backs.. and continue the journey. Fewer as the trail moves along.
Don