Some random thoughts on death…

It seems as though death is all around me at the moment.  I have moved recently to a country coastal town, and met a local woman whose five year old daughter died last year from cancer.  A couple of weeks ago I learned that a former work colleague lost her partner to asbestos related cancer.  Another former colleague lost her new born baby that same day.  Yet another colleague from that same team found out two days later that her father had died suddenly and unexpectedly from a stroke.   And then we hear of the catestrophic events in Haiti.  Death too great to comprehend.  It almost seems as though it is closing in, like a sea mist that chills and pervades everything in its path.

Hearing about the tragic losses of others invariably leads to pondering one’s own mortality, and the lives of loved ones.  As a parent, I sometimes wonder about my children, will something happen.  It could be very easy to become paranoid about death, to imagine it around every corner.  I think that most people experience anxiety about death.  We are programmed for life.  Everything within us screams out for survival.  Yet we have this fear that something is going to get us.  Death is part of life, and we will all die at some point or another.    The fear is more about something happening before we are ready.  Arguably, we are never ready to face our own mortality.  Perhaps I reflect on this as one only can when one has not faced down the barrel of a terminal illness.

Death is always sad, but is somewhat more palatable when it comes in due time, at the end of life fully lived. The emphasis of the loss is shared with the celebration of the life that preceded it.  But it is hard to understand the life that is snatched away early – like the newborn child I referred to earlier.  Or the five year old girl.  Or any one of the thousands that perished in the Haitian earthquake.   The mother of the five year old girl feels that it was her child’s destiny to die young.  And that it was also her own destiny to experience losing her child, part of her own personal growth.  The kind of growth I could do without I think!

Thinking about death invariably leads me to God.  At the moment I am not wrestling with why God lets people die, or fails to stop death- whichever way you look at it.  The thoughts for this post came to me while driving to work, and I found myself wondering how God himself experiences death.  If we take a literal reading of the creation story, death was never intended to be part of human life.  Death is a consequence of our separation from God, part of “the curse”.  I wonder if God grieved the entrance of death into his creation. We read that God communed with first man and first woman.  How did God experience relinquishing that communion?  There was death of both relationship and the body itself.  I also wonder, (and here I may venture into theologically dangerous territory), why bodily death was the consequence of disobedience.  Was that a natural consequence?  It seems like “all or nothing” thinking.  And maybe, that is exactly how it is.  There is no half-walking with God, partial obedience can never substitute full trusting obedience.

I also wonder about the death of Jesus.  How did God experience the death of his son?  Of course, this question and those that follow presuppose a particular trinitarian perspective.  Did God fight the urge to stop the events leading up to and including the death of Jesus?  Did he feel paternal?  Or was it something accepted as a painful fait du complete.  Does the term “paternal” have any place in the relationship between Father and Son?  We sing about the fact that Jesus could have called “ten thousand angels” but did not.  We don’t sing about the Father torn asunder by the desire to spare his Son and to save his creation.

One of the things I love about Jewish traditions and writings is that nothing is too small to be examined.  I love the way Jewish writers enter the story and entice the reader to likewise look at familiar stories with the wide eyed wonder of a child seeing for the first time.  There is permission to wonder, even if it leads to less trodden paths, or paths that don’t lead anywhere.  I find it refreshing.

I am concluding with a disclaimer.  This post is an attempt to capture my rambling headspace at the moment.  It is not meant to be well thought out theology, my own personal treatise.  It may not even express my final or future opinions.  It is just an intellectual meander down a path that probably leads to a dead end.

The not so merry-go-round

Love it Asbo Jesus!

Theme change

I haven’t got the energy these days to play around with wordpress much.  I really didn’t like the last theme, but this one seems a bit cleaner.  Need to try it on for a while.

Beautiful

I wrote this as a meditation for Sunday worship  a week ago…

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer.  It is three o’clock in the afternoon. Imagine you too are going to the temple to pray.  Perhaps you are tired, thinking of other things you need to do, or mentally replaying your day.  Perhaps you bring a burden for yourself or someone you know, and you have been earnestly waiting for this moment to present it to God.  Perhaps you are here without knowing why, or because you feel you must.

You notice Peter and John, and decide to follow behind them from a short distance.  They had been with the mysterious man called Jesus, who performed miracles, spoke of great mysteries, ate with common people, and died horribly.  There is a buzz around his former followers, they seem full of life, purposeful.

You see Peter and John stop, and notice they are outside a gate to the temple.  Ironically called “Beautiful”, as it is a gathering point for people who are not.  People broken in body and spirit.  Waiting for something.  Anything.  You see a man being carried in on a stretcher.  You recognise him, a man you have seen many times before.  He is always at the gate looking for money.  Today he is noteworthy because the followers of Jesus are looking at him.  Talking to him.

“Look at us!”  You hear.  Look at who you wonder.  The busy bustling line of the faithful going in to pray.  The sea of infirmity clustered around the gate.  Nothing out of the ordinary to be seen today.  Same outstretched hands, longing hungry eyes.  Weary faces lined with sadness. The lame man fixes his eyes on Peter and John.  What is he waiting for?

“I don’t have any money” says Peter.  Not surprising.  Jesus’ followers were not known for their wealth.  “But what I have I will give you.”  What I have.

What does Peter have, you wonder, in the brief moments before he speaks again.  What do I have?  The question rises unbidden.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!”  In the name of a dead man, a lame man is told to do what has never been possible.  The speaker reaches out a hand, not to give charity, but to grasp the hand of a man shunned.  The crowd around the three hush, wondering if Peter is mad.  They wait. You wonder if it is possible.  As the man rises to his feet, the kingdom of God rushes in like blood to the head, ringing in the ears, minds and hearts of an estranged humanity.  In this man, in this moment, weakness is replaced by strength.  Sorrow gives way to leaping and dancing.  Yearning by praising God.  Beauty is given hands and feet outside the temple gate.

Casting stones

I wrote this post a while ago now, on my iphone using an application that clearly failed to post.  Anyway, while it is less current, I thought I’d post it now anyway….

These rambling thoughts are probably going to ruffle a few feathers, including my own. But I feel stirred to write, a rare occurrence these days. I have just read a story from the ABC website about David Ferguson, convicted pedophile who has served his time and is in the process of trying to establish a life of sorts on the other side of the bars. Except that he really has nowhere to live. Understandably, his current neighbours don’t want him living next door. Would I? Probably not, if I am really honest. But the man has served his sentence. One hopes useful interventions were put in place while he was a captive audience as it were. Perhaps he is rehabilitated. Or maybe he has learned to harness himself. I am saddened,because I feel as though he will never have opportunity to be anything other than an abuser. I am not suggesting placing children at risk, but surely he should be given an opportunity to live in a manner that takes even the tiniest step towards reintegration in society.  Where does grace fit in here? The man has most certainly been placed outside society by his conduct. The damage done to his victims is not repayable.  His conduct is barely forgivable.  But the question remains – where is grace for him, and what does it look like, if he is our neighbour, both literally and figuratively.

Leave me alone

I am not one for following celebrities. I find the scene irritating and shallow. Not to mention fickle. Today’s darlings are tomorrow’s sources of mockery. Elevated or torn to shreds by tabloid one-liners. Airbrush or not to airbrush? Depends on whether people love to love them or love to hate them. And somehow, we think we know them, and have the right to pass judgment on them.

This morning I caught some of a video history of Michael Jackson on Rage. It was a walk through his catapult to fame. The collection of clips marked the sad transition from a charming energetic little boy to reedy slick-moving teen, to eighties pop icon, culminating with a slow diminishing of the man himself. One of the clips stood out to me – “Leave me alone“. An old song, but I have never heard it or seen it before. The clip is startling because it features all the nasty headlines, innuendos, aspects of him that have been regularly mocked. Throughout the clip it seems he pleads “leave me alone”. It saddened me.

He is now dead. And still not left alone, as jokes, media etc pick over the bones to see what will sell another magazine. He certainly had issues. But how can we separate that from falling into the hands of the cult of celebrity, our need to create and elevate others to superhuman proportions. When they can’t handle it, we tear them down.  The results can be catastrophic.

I would not have liked to walk in his shoes.

It must be love…

For a long time I have been pondering what it means to love God.  Contrary to some obscure what kind of “defective personality test are you” test I took randomly on Facebook (why take such things you may well ask? At least I didn’t publish it!), I am not wooden, but nor am I given to gushing emotion.  I am not one to splash the “I love you”  words around liberally.  And so I have come to wonder about God and love.  What and how do I love him?  We often sing songs at church about loving God.  ”Jesus I am so in love with you” one song-writer croons.  But are we?   For me the “in love” phrase conjours up the domain of romantic lovers, exciting and passionate for sure.  But this love, for all its fire and energy, but lacks depth, commitment, the burnished resilience that only the gritty journey of life together can forge.  It passes, readily kindled and extinguished.  I don’t love Jesus in this romantic way.  However, I am not decrying intimacy with God.

I am reading Michael Frost’s book “Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post Christian Culture” at the moment.  He takes an interesting meander through the old testament’s language of God and love, and while the analogy is often used of the relationship between a man and a woman, it is always unflattering.  A relentlessly tragic story of unfaithfulness, the language often sordid and emotive.  A sad story of God remaining faithful to a people who continue to betray.  (Song of Solomon is a notable exception and probably an unecessary digression for the discussion here).

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  And the second is like it.  Love your neighbour as yourself.”

Frost asserts that this passage “underscores the fact that for Jesus, it is impossible to love God apart from expressing that love physically and practically into the lives of our neighbours.”(p308).

Now this is something that resonates more for me, it is loving as a verb rather than some feel good sensation in my heart, stomach or whatever is the culturally acceptable seat of emotions.

Frost goes on to list nine different ways we can “love God”, beginning with a piercing quote from Rowland Croucher – “You love God just as much, and no more, than the person you love least.”  Here are the nine headings:

Love God by loving others

Love God by obeying Jesus

Love God by lingering in God’s company

Love God by speaking about the things of God

Love God by longing for the return of Christ

Love God by forsaking all other gods and idols

Love God by laying down our life

Love God by loving what he has created.

Love God by forgiving others.

I think Frost is onto something here.  There is much to unpack in nine sentences that hold a light to  the ways in which I love God, and the ways in which I fail to.

So then, of what shall we sing?

Way to go Harvey

I just read this article in the Age (thanks for the tip off Cheryl).  From the article:

Asked in a new book about his community role, Mr Harvey said giving to people who “are not putting anything back into the community” is like “helping a whole heap of no-hopers to survive for no good reason”

“He said it was arguable that giving charity to the homeless was “just wasted”. “It might be a callous way of putting it but what are they doing?” he said. “They are just a drag on the whole community.”

This statement could only come from someone someone who has never known what it is to struggle.  And someone who is totally ignorant of the issues that result in homelessness.  Nothing like the billionaire armchair perspective on society’s most vulnerable.  If someone’s intrinsic value is only based on what he or she can put in to the community, we can all be written off at one stage or another of our lives.   Yes Harvey, it was callous. Not to mention Darwinian.  And your stores won’t be getting another cent from me.

pointless but beautiful

I have just finished reading Tim Winton’s latest book “Breath“. The book is a coming of age tale with unsurprisingly, a strong theme of breathing and its association with the strangely entwined experience of both seeking to feel truly alive and soliciting death. A lesser theme that resonates in the background as consistently as the rumbling of the sea venerated by the book’s narrator is the notion of something being pointless but beautiful. Winton raises the idea that there is little room in our culture for men to engage in something that is pointless but beautiful. That apparently, is the domain of women. Except for the relationship between men and surfing. Winton’s romantic descriptions of the sheer exhilaration and beauty of catching a wave are enticing. There is something entirely wondrous and magical about being in a wild sea with the sun dancing on glossy waves. Not to mention the thrill of inter-mingled danger and beauty. I love being out in the sea with my surfboard. I can’t say I love surfing, for I would not call my messy relationship with waves and fiberglass surfing. However, I don’t think proficiency is required to understand Winton’s interest in pointless beauty. Oddly, I sense God’s presence deeply when I am being tossed about in the ocean. A strange sense of both smallness and bigness.

I agree with Winton – our culture doesn’t mind a little shallow surface beauty for both men and women – the lifeblood of the fashion industry. But beauty that invades the soul is another thing altogether. I think that this is part of what it is to be human. And maybe, it is part of what it is to reflect God. I am not saying that God is pointless but beautiful”, but to say all that God is and does (as far as we can grasp this) is all about function, achievement and outcome driven purpose seems empty. One only needs to spend a little time in nature to witness beauty that is perhaps beautiful simply for the sake of the pleasure of the beholder.

I wonder if there would be less angst in our culture, greater depth to our spirituality, and more complete expressions of man and womanhood if we allowed room for pointless beauty. Get out your surfboards, paintbrushes, guitars or walking shoes. Whatever it is that gives you glimpses of beauty.

Dig it

We recently acquired Nick Cave’s new album “Dig Lazarus Dig”. I found it somewhat jarring at first. I think I prefer Cave’s ballads – to me they best suit his sultry voice and brooding subject matter. But I have to say it is growing on me. And once again he stirs me to think.The wikipedia references Cave as saying this about Lazarus and the inspiration for the title track:

“Ever since I can remember hearing the Lazarus story, when I was a kid, you know, back in church, I was disturbed and worried by it. Traumatized, actually. We are all, of course, in awe of the greatest of Christ’s miracles – raising a man from the dead – but I couldn’t help but wonder how Lazarus felt about it. As a child it gave me the creeps, to be honest. I’ve taken Lazarus and stuck him in New York City, in order to give the song, a hip, contemporary feel. I was also thinking about Harry Houdini who spent a lot of his life trying to debunk the spiritualists who were cashing in on the bereaved. He believed there was nothing going on beyond the grave. He was the second greatest escapologist, Harry was, Lazarus, of course, being the greatest. I wanted to create a kind of vehicle, a medium, for Houdini to speak to us if he so desires, you know, from beyond the grave.”

Further confirmation that the bible is full of stories that are not really “kids stuff”. Thanks Nick, for reminding us what a story might look like from the perspective of a child. Fresh life can be found in the seemingly most unlikely of places.

As this article from the Age puts it: “perhaps minstrels will convey something to us that ministers cannot”.

I am not wanting to read too much into Cave’s morbid musings about a dysfunctional Lazarus who crashes and burns with the pressure of his miraculous second go, but never-the-less, Cave’s work is rich with spirituality, and much of it speaks with a prophetic albeit uncomfortable edge.