Afterlife on Facebook

A dear friend of mine died suddenly in early January. Strangely - or perhaps not in this strange and modern world - his facebook friends continue to post things on his page. It has transformed from a recollection of his life through his own eyes into a recollection of his life through our eyes. Nobody sends him, "Join my fan page" messages now, or "help me win at Mafai Wars." That's all useless in memoriam.

They say stuff that matters.

"I miss you every day."

"You were my number one."

"Wishing you were here to talk to. You always listened to me."

"Thank you for loving me."

I could pontificate about the finality of death, quote John Mayer with "say what you need to say", and encourage you to tell everyone you love them. But that's not what his Facebook obituary is prompting in me. Rather, I'm seeing how much that we pursue is superfluous, how much of life is distraction from what matters most.

I'm at peace with my friend's death. I was a good friend and pastor to him, best I could be, in fact. I have zero regrets about our relationship. He and I were at peace with one another and our friendship was an exercise of mutual edification. When I was with him I liked me, and I think he liked himself when he was with me.

Oh, I miss him, don't get me wrong. But today I'm taking an inventory of my relationships and asking myself if I've pursued peace with all whom I should, and if I've built up others in every way I can. The list is long, the time is short, where am I to start? And how to proceed? I am, after all, subject to the ideas in Tenneyson's ode to his dead friend,

So runs my dream, but what am I?

An infant crying in the night

An infant crying for the light

And with no language but a cry.

What Kind of Death Are You Choosing?

This work week has been book ended by two different kinds of funerals.

The first, on Monday, was your basic "most dreaded" scenario for a minister. Part of the reason it's "most dreaded" is that I didn't know the man all that well. I've been pastor at his church for five years, but he's been bed-ridden for all of that time, refusing visits from me or our deacons who take communion to our homebound church family. That made it difficult to eulogize him gracefully or accurately.

The other part of it is that not many others knew him, either. Aside from his wife and two adult children, there were a total of 8 people at the funeral, counting me and the pianist. It was truly heart breaking for me to watch this widow grieve virtually alone. Perhaps he just outlived all his friends who might have come to his funeral. I don't think that's the case, though. The surviving family seemed so oddly out of synch in how they communicated with others that I suspected their eccentricity explained a little about why the chapel echoed when I spoke. I and they moved stiffly through the liturgy, we each speaking holy words of care and consolation ringing hollow in a relational vacuum. It was empty.

The second funeral was different. Not just because the main sanctuary was respectably full. Not just because I knew this woman more personally. Something was different, and I'm not able to put a finger on it. The liturgy lived, the holy words of care and consolation were spoken from a relational context, and those same words fell on ears that knew them to be true - not because they were spoken more eloquently or passionately, but because they were drawn from the same deep well common amongst our congregation.

Neither of these people chose their death, rather their type of death chose them. The man in the Monday funeral died in his sleep of old age, "not with a bang but a whimper." The woman in the Friday funeral died after a hard fought three year struggle with cancer. But whether they went gently into that good night or whether death was fought - well - to the death, the result is the same and neither of them could stop death's advent.

But more of us choose how we'll leave this life than you'd think. All of us want to end on a high note, a blaze of glory, or as a widely watched "season finale." My father says he wants to die at age 93 having been shot by a jealous husband. I suppose that's not a bad way to go. But most of us choose the death of a thousand cuts, making small decisions, taking tiny actions that lead us up to and over the brink of oblivion.

So this lonely afternoon in my study, I turned aside from preparing a sermon for the weekend to ponder - "What death am I choosing?" Is it bold and faithful? Or is it slow and timid? Or more importantly, what life am I choosing? Am I squandering precious moments and experiences, stuck in self-absorption, arrogance, and jealousy? Or am I choosing a life that means something, gives something, leaves something worthy behind?

Bitter in My Stomach

This piece was written by a friend of mine named Mark Bethune. It is not particularly cheery, but it does seem to fit well with my latest phase of angst over death. It is well written and takes God to task. It also stops short of answering the question it asks, leaving that up to you, the reader, to think for yourself.

Mark is pastor of First Baptist Church, Eden, Texas. You can reach him at edenfbc1@wcc.net

March 2007

Rebekah cries.

My preteen daughter shouldn’t have to mourn the loss of a friend. Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children. And Sheol shouldn’t open her cavernous mouth and receive the Communion of a precocious spirit. But she is; they are; and she does without discrimination.

Rebekah, the second angel breathed from the Mark/Liz union, typically a child of awe inspiring wonder and boundless imagination, endowed with the spiritual gift of infectious laughter and happiness, today, is a broken soul. Last week, Brandyn walked with Rebekah to art class. Today, she walks alone, not for junior high drama that seems all-important in the sweet days of youth, but because last Sunday her companion left this mortal plane. Brandyn died. It’s real. And it should be the stuff of adults, but death is no respecter of persons or ages.

I hurt for my daughter. I did not experience the death of any of my contemporaries until I reached my late teens when Jay, fellow trombonist and 3 years my senior, decided to exit this life in a blaze of glory one Sunday morning as he sat in the office of our small-town grocery. Even then, we weren’t exactly close. Our intimacy consisted of sharing a bottle of Southern Comfort on a band trip. His death was a surreal experience; it is almost like my memories of him were Platonic shadows on the wall of my mind.

I am quickly approaching 40; death has steadily increased her pace. Sometimes, I hear her panting right behind me, and I gasp as I consider how near I am to losing my footing. She is beginning to overtake some of my friends, friends whom I intimately know, friends who are more real than my fleeting ethereal memories, friends whom I miss, friends whom I love. If God grants me another 40 trips around the sun, death will increase her stride exponentially. But if mind and body do not fail at 80, and I am granted another score, death’s sprint will fade to a crawl; not because her thirst is quenched, but because she has exhausted the corporal resources of the Class of ’85. This is how it should be. But today, death has lapped us and taunts as the runners’ cramp burns. Oh, that my daughter’s pain is a mere anomaly!

I am cursed, vocationally and paternally. In the soul-wrenching gloominess of the presence of the grave my children look to me with heads cocked and watery-eyed expressions that search for meaning and comfort. And I give them neither. I refuse to blame, question, or otherwise publicly impugn God’s character when I suffer from myopic selfishness and an abundance of ignorance, though I may be so bold or grief stricken to go a round or two in private. He is big enough to take care of himself. As for comfort – all that I can offer is my silent presence, hopefully Christ in flesh in bone, Christ with the name “daddy”. But, ultimately, Rebekah must recognize the face of Jesus on her own; he won’t shout for attention.

I refuse to enter into the debate. Well intentioned as it might be, ultimately it is a futile playing-with-words. We may defend God’s honor and coldly defer to God’s Inscrutable Will by reciting that “as Heaven is above the Earth, so are His ways higher than our ways,” or perhaps we might embrace the Potter/clay imagery and rest assured that it is his prerogative to crush vessels made by his hands. We could be carried away to the opposite pole and advocate humanity’s free will; but in doing so, God comes across as a charitable wimp who wants to help, really, he does, but just can’t overcome the force of our will. I judge both positions wanting.

It is my custom to leave you with a ray of hope. Well, the sun is not shining and a chill hangs in the air; in fact, I think it’s going to rain. But, as Little Orphan Annie sang out in that saccharine shrill, “The sun will come out, tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun.” Even so, come dawn quickly.

Mark

A Slow Dying Observed

There's a house around the corner from mine where someone is dying. I'm sure of this because I used to be a hospice chaplain and I know the signs that it's happening.

Back in late January I noticed that a car was parked in front of the house every morning and then again in the afternoons. Then about a week later I was coming in from the office and saw a woman standing in the yard talking on her cell phone. It's ironic that she was smoking a cigarette and wearing nursing scrubs.

The next day I'd gone home in the middle of the day to grab a quick sandwhich and saw the next tell-tale sign: the delivery truck bringing the in-home hospital bed.

Every few days I see the elderly gentleman who lives there. He is usually in a wheelchair being pushed by a the woman in nursing scrubs and he is always holding an oxygen tank.

Every weekend there are lots of cars at the house. Some of them have out of state license plates, and I imagine those cars have brought family and friends in to pay last respects. Several times of week I see a nice Acura there and when it's there a man in his 40's is frequently in the front yard. He's well-dressed and always on his phone. He looks tired and burdened, but he's there. Is he a son? A nephew? A kinsman in some way?

I wonder how much longer my neighbor has to live. The in-home care providers are now there all day every day. I think how terribly sad it is for me to observe this death not even knowing his name. I've thought about stopping in to be neighborly, but figure I'd look more like a stalker or an estate hawk than a caring pastor.

What would I say anyway?

Anyone here dying? It sure looks like it from the street.
Can I help you with your oxygen? How some more Ensure?
Have you said your last goodbyes?
Are you seeing the spirits yet?
What is it like to know you are dying?

I wonder. What stories are being lost to the world because of this death? What wisdom do we lose when he is gone? Which of his relationships will go untended? Which will be restored? Who will be my new neighbors? Will I know them any better?

So it is, the ebb and flow of life laps at this man's front door, ready to flood the house and drown the life within. At just the right moment his light will be gone and he will leave, exiting the house - first in spirit, and then later, feet first in a body bag. I wonder if he knows this?

I suppose the real truth of this has little to do with whether or not he knows he's dying a slow death. The real truth lies in whether or not I know that I am dying a slow death.

Morbid thoughts, I know. Enough to make me want to really live. Very, very slowly.