death

Unless a kernel dies...

Abbie Smith — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:30:09 -0800

"Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12.24

In Northampton, Massachusetts, stands the old cemetery where David Brainerd is buried. Brainerd, a pioneer American missionary, died in 1747 at the age of twenty-nine after suffering from tuberculosis. His grave is beside that of Jerusha Edwards, the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan theologian of that day. Brainerd loved Jerusha and they were engaged to be married, but he did not live until the wedding.

Imagine what hopes, dreams, and expectations for the cause of Christ were buried in that grave with the witherred body of that young missionary. At that point, nothing remained but memories and several dozen Indian converts! Yet, Jonathan Edwards, that majestic old Puritan saint, who had hoped to call Brainerd his son, began to write the story of that short life in a little book. The book took wings and few across the sea, and landed on the desk of a Cambridge student by the name of Henry Martyn.

Poor Henry Martyn! In spite of his education, brilliance, and great opportunities, he--after reading that little book on the life of Brainerd--threw his own life away! Afterward, what had he accomplished once he set his course toward home from India in 1812? With his health then broken, he dragged himself as far north as the town of Tokat, Turkey, near the Black Sea. There he lay in the shade of a pile of saddles, to cool his burning fever, and died alone at the age of thirty-one.

What was the purpose behind these "wasted lives?" From the grave of a young David Brainerd, and the lonely grave of Henry Martyn near the shores of the Black Sea, have arisen a mighty army of modern Missionaries. (Leonard Woolsey Bacon)

"Is there some desert, or some boundless sea,
Where You, great God of angels, will send me?
Some oak for me to rend,
Some sod for me to break,

Some handful of Your corn to take
And scatter far afield,
Till it in turn will yield
It's hundredfold
Of grains of gold
To feed the happy children of my God?

Show me the desert, Father, or the sea;
Is it Your enterprise? Great God, send me!
And though this body lies where ocean rolls,
Father, count me among all faithful souls.

(Streams in the Desert, November 14th)

Why 9/12 Matters

Christian Buckley — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:57:18 -0700

9/12 matters because it is Monday morning and I have already forgotten.

It is hard to believe that I can return to the ordinary affairs of the day without even a blink of the eye, already violating the solemn and ubiquitous slogan – We Shall Never Forget. It’s not that I have forgotten 9/11 or everyone that was directly and indirectly impacted in profound and subtle ways. I have already forgotten that today should not be the same.

As I watched show after show over the weekend where survivors from the buildings were interviewed, first-responders recounted their feelings, or those touched by the tragedy explained the impact – several compelling threads emerged.

First, that there is some God, some heaven, and some punishment. If the adage that there are no fox-hole atheists is true then so is the apparent adage that there are no 9/11 survivor atheists either – at least that I saw. Whether it was the bag-pipes playing amazing Grace at the memorials, the still remaining addition of God Bless America to the 7^th inning stretch at many baseball games, or the simple number of times that someone while telling a story mentioned God, prayer, heaven and seeing their relatives again – there is no escaping the fact that the existence of God is very much ratified by 9/11. In the face of every growing hostility to “faith” in whatever form that takes, it is good to see that when really pressed to our guts – the knowledge of God emerges.

What also emerges is the recognition of punishment for evil deeds. When the firemen went up they accorded themselves worth of praise. When the towers came down they accorded to the terrorists eternal condemnation. While I heard many express solace in the fact that the terrorists would be punished in some form or another I heard none that said their actions were okay in their eyes so they must be okay in our eyes. That their truth and choices were as valid as ours.

Finally, and most importantly, every story involved a statement that 9/11 made you question what life was really all about, whether the life you had built was really the one you should be living, that we must live every day with the knowledge that there are no guarantees and that most of the stuff we spend our lives for probably doesn’t matter at all.

I didn’t hear one person say that when they were pounding down the steps of Tower One they realized it was a good thing that they never saw their kids, put their family second to the their careers, spent every waking moment on the pursuit of money, or abandoned the things that they really loved about life.

Yet, one day later, I was back at my desk. 10 years later we are back at our lives- spending many days on stuff that doesn’t matter, mortgaging today for a future that in the face of 9/11 is anything but certain.

The problem is that more people die every year from car accidents than died on 9/11. In 2010: 32,708. In 2009: 33,808. In 2001: 42,196

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

A friend of my wife’s was murdered this year and another friend just died by lightening strike – both very rare occurrences – but both an end to life.

It is estimated that 560,000+ people died of cancer in 2010. One day you wake up without it - the next you find out it might kill you in 3 months.

Life is extraordinarily fragile and for the most part we live in constant denial of that fact.

In Dead Poets Society, a movie worth watching again or for the fist time today, Mr. Keating – the teacher of a group of boys at an east coast prep school reminds his students, while looking at a photo of a much earlier class, to “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” You should watch the 5 minute clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVXKz0j9fvs

Intuitively we know that we get one shot at this story – one go around – and we spend it one day at a time. We occasionally get big and small reminders of this fact, but most days we wake, waste the day, and don’t even think a second about it. Most of my friends suffer through the week and live for the weekends. Many of us focus on retirement because we can’t stand our lives. None of the people that died on 9/11 got to retirement and none of them lived to see another weekend. You and I have no better a guarantee.

9/11 was the last day for many and the first day for the rest of us. We can choose to Never Forget that we get only this day, or can we return to living with the illusion that our towers will never come down.

Carpe Diem.

Life is Inherently Tragic

Phil Towne — Wed, 11 May 2011 21:48:54 -0700

A professor I once had used to say “life is inherently tragic.” He would go on to explain how death is a part of life, and without one, we cannot have another. Death gives birth to new life. Life gives birth to something that will one day die.

In life, we certainly have our fair share of tragedy. Both of my own parents died before I was 30. I have no siblings, and in some ways have had to forge my own way through life.

We have a friend of ours living with us currently who is a recent widow. One year ago yesterday her dear husband of over 30 years was taken by the horrible disease of cancer. She has gone through some real and undiluted pain over the last few years, and is now in a process of recovery.

A child gets killed in an accident, or worse, on purpose. Death, disease, hunger, and struggle appear all around us. We nearly become numb to this pain.

And one of the worst parts about it all, is that in the midst of the chaos and pain of life’s tragedies, it often feels as if we are surrounded by people who just don’t get it. They haven’t walked the same path, they haven’t experienced the same pain. They say stupid things that hurt deeply, and sometimes it feels as if their “words of encouragement” turn to us comforting them instead of the opposite.

I don’t understand all of the bad, but no more do I understand how all of the good that happens in our world can actually happen in spite of the bad.

We are temporary travelers on the road of life. There is more, much more to life than that we see. We are wanderers, seeking our way, part of a history and future that we neither created nor can control. Yet we are held in God’s hands, the hands that hold the entire world, see a larger perspective, and know what is really going on.

The pain we feel allows us to see the joy that we feel.

We will miss those we lost, and we will hurt still more when others are lost in the future. But by and through this pain that we feel, there is a richness to life that I wouldn’t want to miss. Somehow the depth of the feelings of pain and despair enlighten us to the “more” that is present in life besides simply existing.

(The attached pictures are of a man I saw at the cemetery yesterday. A man whose hunched and tired body looked so downcast as he sat by the grave of presumably his wife.)

Death & The Neo-Politics of Bad Guys in Post 9/11 America

Daniel Hodge — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:37:52 -0700

So, what do we celebrate when a social villain is killed? I got the news on my phone while I was running around Chuck E Cheese (A local video/ mini-amusement restaurant) with my four year old: Osama Bin Laden Dead; Killed by U.S. Forces. My initial reaction was nothing. What could I feel? A man, who had allegedly done all these horrific things to our country, was now killed. What did that mean to me? Not a damn thing. During the Vietnam war era, hundreds of African Americans carried signs that stated: No Vietnamese Ever Called Me A Nigger!” I have to, in context, say the same thing in regards to Bin Laden: What did he do to me? The nine police officers that brutally murdered friends of mine during the late 80’s are still alive—and well I might add. The police officers that shot and killed a bi-polar elderly African American man because he wouldn’t come down off his roof are still alive and were never brought to trial. The people and entities who brought crack cocaine into my neighborhood and addicted millions for decades to come…are still alive. Therefore, what should I celebrate? The death of an entity? That ideology is still very much alive and well. Moreover, part of that ideology was created in the “heat of passion” when the U.S. was making love with members of guerilla Afghans who would in turn, kill the infidel Soviet Union soldiers, so that we could avoid World War III during the late 70’s and early 80’s and still flex our military muscle—using Bin Laden and his merry men as grunts.

I in no way want to take away from the viciousness of 9/11/01. I in no way want to minimize the lives that were lost on that day. I in no way want to tarnish the lives lost, hard work given, and effort put forth from the women and men in the armed forces over the last decade. Still, there is something greater at work. An almost cinematic ending to what most Americans wanted the next day after the attacks on 9/11: blood. But what does this all mean? For many who are oppressed, marginalized, treated as outsiders, and overlooked by society in various ways, this day might not mean much.

I remember I was working as a Youth advocate for the organization Young Life at the time of the 9/11 attacks. The organization sent out a mass email and letter (they used paper in those days) stating that counselors were on standby if any areas needed them and that we should spend time debriefing this event with our kids. So, I took it seriously and set up the rest of the week to talk with kids about this event. But what I found out almost blew my mind. Almost every kid I spoke with was like, “Man, this is every day in our ‘hood… I feel for those people, but what makes my family members death any less important?” The same question is asked here too. The great documentary Crips & Bloods: Made In America stated the statistic that over 16,000 deaths a year are from just South Central Los Angeles, but there is no response from any governmental agency and workers in South Central who work for change have to compete over private funds. But what does that mean? Nothing to most people; they’re a bunch of barbaric animals who deserve to die—typical worldviews. I’ve even known some people to celebrate in that—“They’re better off dead anyways Dan.”

Thus, when I think about Bin Laden’s death, I take it with a grain of salt and know that in post 9/11 America, things are not what they seem. Lies, spin, and corporate jargon are what sell today.

In the Hip Hop world, some are contesting the authenticity of this story to begin with.

In a world that seems to be lopsided with its priorities—privatization of the prison industrial complex, disgraceful schools in the inner city, consumers looked at as cattle, human rights seen as a privilege not a right to corporations—I’m just not convinced that yelling “USA, USA, USA” on camera is the “right thing” to do. Moreover, how did you feel when you saw Middle Easterners doing the same thing (yelling their mantras) after the attacks on 9/11?

Yeah, I get that people are “united.” Yeah, I get that Obama has a political victory. I get that this gives some type of “hope” for America. I get all that.

Osama’s death marks a notch in the “war on terror,” but, I ask you, what terror are we fighting? Gas is close to $5 a gallon, the Gulf of Mexico is still in shambles, gas companies are posting record profits, racism continues to abound seeing ethnic minorities as outsiders (birth certificate anyone?), women still make about $13,000 less than men on average, and I still haven’t got a full time job with 4 degrees, 3 books, over 10 years of teaching experience, and references that are stellar…what are we fighting? What’s with all the damn celebration?

Watching a Father Die Slowly – How can you not weep?

Christian Buckley — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:34:14 -0700

Have you ever felt your heartbreak slowly and completely - when you know it is happening and can’t do anything to stop it?

Today my wife came home from Target around lunch time and told me a story that broke me down. She had bumped into a friend of ours who gave her the news that a friend of hers who we had met casually at family events was in the middle of a devastating three months. Her husband had been diagnosed with late stage brain cancer and was given three months to live of which the first thirty days might be bearable. They have a bunch of kids, boys and girls, and were struggling through the process of preparing for his death. Creating photos and letters. Purchasing and engraving meaningful items that each child would have when he passed. We talked about what to give the boys – what I would give the boys. We talked about how they were trying to figure out how to make three months or maybe just thirty days somehow matter in the lives of kids 4 to 14 years old.

I wept. I tried not to, but I couldn’t stop it. My son was sitting at the counter eating lunch talking about how is egg had survived the “drop challenge” at preschool that day. I pictured my daughter at school and looked at my watch to see when I would pick her up.

I couldn’t help considering what I would do in their lives. How I would look into my seven year old daughter’s eyes and explain something of the reality – anything of the reality. How would I convey something to my three year old son let alone make sure he remembered what I said?

I am crushed and I didn’t even think about the father’s death – my death. I looked at my wife and said, “Should we write letters for our kids? Should we engrave something? What if one of us died in a….” I couldn’t finish the sentence and buried my face in my hands.

I yelled at my kids this morning for playing around in the bathroom. I got mad before my run because my IPod wouldn’t work. I told my daughter I would read to her last night and then didn’t.

As I write this, trying to get rid of the sickness in my stomach, I can’t help from welling up and pushing back the tears, thinking about what it might be like to tell my kids, the treasures given to me by God, that dad is going to die and they are going to watch it happen.

I want to make sense of it, I want to wrap it up in a nice connection to Easter, or providence, or trials, but I can’t. All I can do is weep.

I walked out of the kitchen and then turned back and kissed my son on the head. He pushed me away and made a super hero gesture.

This life is brutally precarious and we waste so damn much of it. God give me the power to stop. God give me the power to do better, at least a little, at least today.

Homecoming Parties Thrown by God

Laurie Russell — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:00:24 -0800

My husband, Mark, worked in microfinance a couple years ago. Periodically he’d be gone for a couple weeks at a time, traveling to countries on the other side of the world. This seemed like eternity, especially to our children. They love their daddy and his absence was torture to their hearts.

The homecomings were awesome. They’d help clean the house and made sure I was planning a big meal for him. When it was time to head to the airport Anastasia would put on her prettiest outfit and Noah his coolest shirt. They wanted his homecoming to be special.

At the airport we’d wait outside of security, look through the glass doors and randomly check the status of his flight. They'd see Mark walk around the corner and a surge of excitement would rush through their bodies causing involuntary jumping up and down. The automatic doors opened wide and Mark’s spread arms were soon filled with two children eager to see their Daddy.

Homecomings are priceless. They remind the weary traveler that they are loved and were missed.

God also loves a good homecoming and gave us a few glimpses in the Bible on how He welcomes His children home.

The prophet Elijah wholeheartedly served God. When it was time for him to pass into the next life, the Lord sent a flaming chariot and fiery horses to usher him into heaven (II Kings 2). He sent nothing but the best for His faithful servant.

I think my favorite homecoming in the Bible is Stephen’s (Acts 7). False accusations were made against him and he goes on trial before the priests. At the end of his testimony he looks toward heaven and here we read…

“He looked towards heaven, where he saw our glorious God and Jesus standing at his right side. Then Stephen said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right side of God.’” Acts 7:55,56

Death was near for Stephen but God and Jesus were looking on. Often we read of Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, but here He is standing. Is He standing here as if to honor Stephen and his faithfulness? I don’t know but it seems that way to me.

This blows me away. I can’t imagine doing anything that would bring the Lord to His feet - unless it deserved discipline. Jesus standing for Stephen gives me goose bumps and challenges me to live a life that draws God’s glorious attention - one that brings Him to His feet as He welcomes me home.

Do you have any good homecoming stories?

How do you see or interpret the homecomings God throws in these two instances?

Wasting Time and Hoarding Love

Laurie Russell — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 08:57:43 -0800

I heard a great sermon recently. My sister’s family lives in Atlanta and we all traveled there this year for Thanksgiving. They have been attending a fairly new church called Passion City Church. It’s pretty amazing. Louie Giglio teaches and Chris Tomlin leads the music. Talk about powerful praise and worship. I didn’t want it to end.

Louie’s sermon was titled Fully Alive and it really did a job on my soul. One point really stuck with me and I find myself continually talking about it with others. Louie highlighted Paul’s letter to the Philippians and focused on chapter 1 where Paul shares his struggle to die or not to die. If he were to die he’d instantly be in the arms of Jesus but to remain on earth he’d be able to continue sharing the love of Christ.

I’d always viewed this passage as encouragement for us to be content in all circumstances. Good and profit can be found anywhere. But Louie put a new twist on it for me. The goal of the people in the early church was not to live a long life; they worked to live a powerful life – one that served Christ and made his name known no matter the cost. If that meant a shortened life – so be it. It only meant that they’d be united with Christ sooner.

I was struck by the thought that so much of my time is wasted. I spend countless hours working hard to live long and look good as I’m doing it. I try to prevent my body from aging but allow my soul to wither. I then look in the mirror with discontentment. Paul did talk about a “thorn in his flesh” but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a need for a facelift or liposuction. He knew his days were limited and he was single-minded in spreading Jesus’ message to love God and to love others.

This passage revealed to me how egocentric I’ve become, especially when compared to the “other-centric” views of the early church. I’m consumed with the quality and quantity of my life. I work hard to obtain this so we can enjoy that. On the other hand, the early church worked hard to share this so other people can receive that, meaning eternal life with Christ. I desire a long, prosperous life but the early church longed for eternal life.

I do think there is value and great need in taking care of our self. If we have poor health, we’re limited in what we can do and where we can go to serve God. Plus, it’s often when I’m outdoors or on a run when I hear God clearest.

The take-home God gave me that day was not to work out less. But He did challenge me in how I use my time. The early church faced death daily. They lived in a time of occupation that purged those who challenged the system. But in spite of it they changed the world.

I’m blessed to live in a free country, in a time when medicine has enabled us to live longer and engineers have made it possible to travel the world in hours. I’ve been given the gift of time, freedom and ease of travel (except when traveling through Salt Lake City – we always seem to get stuck there). What am I doing with my days? Am I using my minutes to truly loving God and neighbor? Or am I wasting the extra time I’ve been given and consuming God’s love and hoarding it for myself?

I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions but this year I think that I will. I want to begin truly living my life fully alive. I want to live like the early church as if I may face death at any moment. I want to use what God has given our generation to help change the world. If enough of us do it together – imagine what God will do through us.

Are you living your life fully alive?

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?

If not, will you join me and fully live the time God has given us and give His love to others?

How I Breathed Past the Lie of Disease

Won Kim — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 08:11:24 -0700

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from a dear friend of mine, William Melendez. He is like no other person I have ever met, his battles unique and his writing, hauntingly good. This is an honest account of his literal fight with death. Being that he wrote this article, we can assume he won that fight, but not without walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

Being a person who suffers from mental illness I have dealt with the vicissitudes of aberrant mental and physical states. Nevertheless, after enduring years of mental illness and several gastric diseases, dear reader, I began to succumb to the lie of a sick man’s philosophy: life, with its ups and downs, was always something that happened to me, and of which, I had no control over. I was clinging to a deflated lifeboat, buffeted in the winds of an unruly sea. Two things controlled the course of my raft, sink or swim: the happenstance of life and the constant intervention of God on my behalf. Mostly, I spent my time praying to God that He would get me through whatever was happening to me. My only contribution to my circumstances seemingly consisted of begging.

At the end of a decade of gastric diseases, I found myself once again in the hospital, having gone through two surgeries, several procedures and about to go through another one. I had been taken from ICU to Interventional Radiology for a procedure. The resident began to work on my arm for the third or fourth time. But I could no longer stand the pain that he was inflicting. My veins were burning. I begged for him to stop.

The pain had been building up to a roiling boil while in the ICU; even the enormous amounts of opiates the doctors gave me were of no help. I had given up on pressing the button to my morphine pump: it was useless. Not to be dissuaded, the doctors persisted on maintaining an intravenous morphine drip and plied me with larger doses of methadone in order to continue working on me.

The resident paused and an argument between him and another doctor began over what to do with me. They left the cold room. It was then that the arm he had been working on began to go numb. Within seconds I could no longer feel my fingers or the water pick in my arm. Through the pain I tried to stay calm but to be honest, dear reader, I was so scared. I thought that there was no one to cry to for help.

The room was frigid and quiet. I heard a nurse somewhere. Out of my confusion, in a broken and anguished voice, I begged her not to let the doctors kill me. She swallowed back a laugh. The room went quiet again, except for the sound of my breathing.

The numbness in my arm began to spread to my other extremities. I could no longer sense my legs or my other arm that had been on fire only moments ago. At last I felt only the burning of my chest. Knowing that Jesus was right there with me I started babbling to Him about what was happening to my body and my rising fear and panic. My mind screamed for mercy as the absence of feeling raced up my chest. I could no longer perceive any part of my body. The brush of air through my nostrils as I tried to keep breathing was all that I could feel. The room was no longer cold and I was no longer on fire. I was nothing.

However, dear reader, as you well know, the Holy Spirit was there. He’s uncanny like that—no matter where or when He is there. He moved over my lack of me and quieted my mind with a warm comfort. He became my something.

God spoke into my consciousness. Now, you may be piqued with curiosity or, alternatively, you may be feeling wary by the preceding sentence. God spoke to him? Dear gentle reader, let me dispel any demons that may be tickling your ear and appeal to your better angels. He brought thoughts to my consciousness. The thoughts He brought to my mind were distinct, decisive and powerful. In contradistinction to how I was starting to devolve into a confusion borne from panic, His thoughts resounded with clarity. No diamond could be as pure, hard and perfect as those thoughts. I understood Him.

He wanted to give me a choice. I could die in that hospital, the pain would end, and I would finally be free with Him. Or, I could live. Nothing else, just live. No promises of a better or carefree new life, just life itself. However, He let me know, regardless of what I chose, neither one good or bad, He wanted me to make the decision. He would honor me either way, but He would not make the decision for me. I had to choose.

Now, dear reader, it is important for you to know something about my history of mental illness in order for one to fully appreciate the enormity of what God had done for me. For years I had struggled with protracted periods of suicidal ideation. I had been in and out of the psych ward again and again from repeated attempts I made on my life. Even when not suicidal I felt that death would be a release from all the pain: I could go home to Jesus, see Him face to face, and the pain would be gone. And yet, I have to admit to you, my dear reader, I was very unsuccessful at suicide. It was not due to lack of sincerity or effort on my part; the truth is that it was others who persisted in thwarting my ambition. I was even powerless to take my own life. To remind you, dear reader, it seemed to my mind that the lack of influence or say I had on my own life had left me with the sole option of groveling like a wretch so that God would pity me and make the painful situation I was experiencing end.

But now, my body lost to me as it lay on a cold, hard hospital slab, free from all sensation, God had given me a choice that would occur. No one would be able to interfere with the outcome, my decision. It was going to happen. Most importantly, God, himself, had ordained that I must make the decision as to how my life was to proceed. Now you can understand the relevance of my earlier digression, I had never in my entire life felt like I had the power to choose what would or would not happen with my life. What responsibility. What empowerment! I could decide the outcome of my life. What a gift He had given me! No begging for cessation. I was restored even before I made a decision because God had made it my decision. My body was not lost to me, but rather, for the first time God had given it to me.

Why did I choose to live? There were no promises attached to that choice. No promises of riches or fame or anything else to follow. No promises of a disease and pain free life, a life bereft of hardships with no worries or cares. Just life, unadorned and simple. Just a life, and because it was to be a life it suddenly seemed worth living. That was enough for me, for some reason. I had made my decision and He honored it. Not just for my life on that occasion during that hospital stay, but ever since, for as you read this right now, dear reader, the spectre of suicidal ideation has not visited me from that point onward and, what is more, I believe it never will. When God honors a decision, He makes it final; it truly is the end because He always has the last say.

He ended our conversation with one last piercing thought. He told me to breathe, just breathe. Never forget, breathe. So I did. I knew that as long as I could feel the air in my nose I would be all right. I breathed with all the strength of my mind. Since I could no longer feel the rest of my body, all that was left was a breathing tube. I was a breathing tube. I breathed. Always feeling the air coming in to reassure me of God's honoring my decision. I breathed with my lost body that had been found.

Later, after I went through my third surgery, the surgeons had punctured my lung and it filled up with blood. Nurses would get off their shift and gather around Caroline, my wife, comforting her for the inevitable that was coming for me. Sorrow hung over my ICU room like a shroud. But, dear reader, I laughed in my spirit. I knew that no matter what these people thought I was going to live! What irony. If you had asked any one there, they would have told you that I had no control over what was happening to me, what was going to happen to me. How wrong they were! I had made the decision that God had given me. When all around me thought me dying I was busy living!

If you will forgive a little poetic dalliance, dear reader, I saw Death as she passed by the door of my room. She never even looked inside. She kept walking down the hall. She wasn't there for me, nor would she be.

William Melendez lives in NYC with his wife. He is currently learning how to love the Christians in his local community in more devious and irritating ways. He is also very, very hard to kill.

What Death Taught Me (Again)

John Barry — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:55:25 -0700

Death recently taught me (again) that words can fail us.

This is a hard fact for me to accept. Here's why: words are my medium. And Metaphors and similes "are my favorite" (That's a quote from my favorite elf. I know, it's not Christmas, and you probably haven't seen Elf in 10 months, but just roll with it.)

Metaphors and similes work for situations like these:

But sometimes nothing works: metaphors and similes can't explain death. They can't justify loss. They can't make you feel better, and they can rarely make you grateful in the midst of a tragic circumstance.

I recently lost someone incredible. When my aunt passed, countless people felt it. There are few words that can describe the lives she changed, the incredible amount of love in her heart, or the difference she made. The lives of those who knew her, though, are living metaphors for the type of person she was.

Time and time again, as I looked around at my family, it hit me: no words can help when you lose someone. The best thing you can do is just stand beside someone, sit with them, grieve with them, eat with them, and love them. I kept thinking: what would my aunt do, and what would Jesus do?

They would both acknowledge that actions indeed do speak louder than words. Metaphors help. But they don't get us all the way there.

Death is not a respecter of persons: It doesn't respect us, or those around us. The only thing death respects is God. And when we turn to him, we find the greatest metaphor of all: Christ with us, among us, in the mundane that follows the unexpected and the unexplainable.

Living With The End in Mind

David Swanson — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:14:13 -0700

Time is such a precious thing.

For most of us, it is precious because with live with the knowledge that we do not have a limitless supply of it. We all wish we could find a 25th hour in the day. I have petitioned the Lord for such to no avail. On a larger scale, however, we are oblivious to what "not enough time" really means.

As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15:24, the end WILL come. Time eventually runs out. The odd thing is that I often live in ignorance of that truth. I live as if I have all the time in world to do the things I really need to do - things like loving my wife well or building Christ into the lives of my children. I live with a youthful, though misguided, notion that I am in control of my days and my time. William Henley's concluding words to his poem, Invictus, resonate somewhere deep within me:

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Those word are so American, aren't they? I want them to be true. I want to be, and often believe I am, the "captain of my soul." While it sounds inspiring, it's also a lie. I don't control my life or my time. Life circumstances reveal this to me over and over again. But here's what I've found: when I live with the end in mind - when I realize that time is not in my control and that my time is limited - I discover how precious every day becomes. I discover that even in my limited form, I have been given this life - this day - this hour - and as a gift of God, and I want to live it with all the joy and all the love that I can. The urgent things seem less urgent. My true priorities fall more easily into place. I sense God's presence more clearly and more deeply.

Yes, the end does come, but far from some morbid obsession, living with the end in mind has allowed my life to become more of what God wants it to be. Not a bad way to start each day..