I’m really looking forward
to the day death dies.
I've taught myself to think
of things from distant perspectives. This is not difficult for a
Believer.
At some point, in the church lessons of my youth, someone gave us a handout or a bookmark that said:
“Will this matter in a thousand years?”
It really struck me
at the time, and it has obviously stuck with me. Even now, at this very moment,
I am sitting at my laptop doing my word of the day/Lent writing while floating
in a sea of playful destruction; toys and books scattered all around the family
room, a bowl of peanut butter with half gnawed celery stalks sticking out of
it, a matchbox tractor peeking out of a toddler size sock and a broken
Jack-in-the-box clown staring at me.
I seriously said to my
achy head, spent from a day full of grandkids (their mom was working a 12 hour
shift at Farmington Urgent Care Clinic) “Will these toys and such, being strewn
about, matter in a thousand years?" And then I chuckled without chuckling,
because I’m too tired to laugh…”Heck, it won’t matter tomorrow, even.” And so I
sit in a colorful pool of grandparenthood.
I get to thinking about a
thousand years from now and I wonder if, by then, we will finally have been
through the much anticipated, mysteriously unpredictable but threateningly
close Second Coming.
Then I get to thinking
about the fact that I have sung at an average of three funerals a month in the
last while. It’s been sort of insane. I’m a real believer in being present at
these pivotal times in life. Funerals pretty much trump all other activities
for me. I finally had to change the payment method for my daytime guitar
students because I had to cancel so many times for funerals. I am blessed to be
able to use my voice to comfort, and not have my own emotions overtake me. I
acknowledge this as a gift and I do not take it lightly. I don’t mind the time,
and travel, and rescheduling that funerals require, but the picking away at the
heart that repeated loss brings is disconcerting. And exhausting. And frankly,
is hurts.
So I, for one, will be
celebrating in a major way, however spirits get to celebrate, when we as a
massive family of God finally get to be done with death. Can you even imagine?
Years ago, when it was
possible for people to buy up to four city cemetery plots per household, our
family purchased 20 plots in the Farmington City Cemetery. I was really
surprised how comforting it felt to know where we were going to end up, unless
we were lost at sea or caught in some other catastrophic demise. Libby and I
even tried-out our spots once, laying our bodies on the warm summer grass. Our
friend Cindy Gardner was with us, and she tried out hers up above us. Our neighbors
the Baileys have plots next to the Gardners. The Hefners are just west of us,
and the Barlows and Palmers up east of us. Each of those families, come to
think of it, has already planted one of their treasures in one of their plots.
Ah, me.
Death, from the
underbelly, is such a mysterious unknown. Really, so much guesswork for us that
remain. Faith is comforting. But faith, by definition, is not knowledge. We
have somehow trained ourselves as humans to trust knowledge more than we do
faith, which from the perspective of a thousand years from now, will seem
pretty juvenile I think. But even that is a guess.
All I’m saying, because my
head hurts and I don’t want to think that deep tonight, is that one day we will
all be dead. And when we are all dead, and God says, “OK Folks, time for the
next phase.” Then we will get to have bodies that do not get strep A or lung
cancer or congestive heart failure and there won’t be car accidents or planes
flying into buildings and there won’t be death.
On the other hand, I also
have this strange thought that repeatedly visits me, where we are all sitting
around in heaven and someone starts a conversation like this:
“Well, and how did you die?”
Then we will all get to
tell our stories, exciting or boring as they may be, and the rest of us will
shake our heads, or put our arms around each other, or gasp with shock and awe
or even laugh at what adventures we had in our bodies, with their varied
entrances and exits.
On days when the evening
news sputters the tragic information of massive killings or tsunami-like
tragedies, I imagine the wafting of spirits floating upward. I picture the
gates being flung open and hosts of loved ones running out to meet the crowd -
the jubilation on the other side creating a perfect counterbalance for the
sorrow that is here.
