Strangely enough, with the celebration of Yeshua's birth, I find myself contemplating many aspects of death. Sounds morbid maybe, but, along with taxes, isn't it one of the certainties of life?
Charles Dickens, in A Tale of Two Cities, described death as the closing of a book or water freezing over. "It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore." Each one is a mystery, Dickens says, to every other. When that life has ended, the mystery is buried.
What is it in human nature that seeks to know, to understand, to solve? Even the tritest thing--an allusive fact one should know, a name--irritates one's mind until it is recalled. Might this not be a small thread in the large shroud of death? Might this unsolved mystery in a loved one be what keeps us wanting to know more, even unconsciously, and thus the feeling of loss, of being cheated when death cuts short the breath and stills the heart?
In Love Letters from Cell 92, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his fiance' Maria write of the hopes they have that the Nazis will find him innocent of the conspiracy to kill Hitler, and they will at last be able to marry. Reading these letters is both beautiful and tormenting. Watching the dates of the letters progress and knowing that Bonhoeffer will die a couple days before the Allies victory, sets an eery back-drop to their love. It also poses the question--why? Why so close to victory, does he have to die? Why with all their hope in God's deliverance is he not spared...is she not spared? It's too easy to come up with answers: answers to defend God, answers that might try to comfort the grieving.
We probably all know many who grieve during this season. Memories of celebrations past always seem to make Christmas' time one of the hardest to bear loneliness and grief. Friday afternoon, I heard the cries of a co-worker on the phone, "Oh, no! No! Please, no!" then heart-wrenching sobbing. It was repeated. I have heard it before. Cries like the dry vomiting of the heart.
Even with hope, with knowledge that the one who died is in heaven, will be seen again, there is an earthly finality. The mystery is cut short. Their touch is lost. Death itself is a mystery. Our Creator's thoughts are a mystery. Maybe the greatest comfort I can give to one grieving is not words, but touch; not knowledge, but presence.
I'm trying to grasp reality: the balance of laughter beside grieving, of hope beside despair, of comfort beside helplessness; to give the hugs, to hold the hands, to say the words now before the mysteries I love close to me and open in eternity.
14 December 2008
06 December 2008
Northerness
This time of year--fall, winter, Thanksgiving, Christmas--sets me thinking about years past. Almost inevitably, I feel an ache for an intangible day, an idyllic childhood, a memory of complete acceptance in my family. Almost inevitably, in my memory, I come up empty of such a life, day, moment. Why?
One of my favourite authors, C.S. Lewis, tried to capture and analyze this feeling throughout his lifetime. He called the ache "Joy" and described it as different from both pleasure and happiness. In his youth, Lewis discovered the feeling inexplicably rising up in the midst of a piece of music or a story. It could never be duplicated at will from the same music or story, however.
Looking back in his autobiography, Lewis wrote, "I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is.... Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.... All Joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still 'about to be'.... I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy."
At this time of year when Nostalgia settles in with the bustle of activity, what is it really that you are longing for? Could you go back to it or is it just a stab of Joy?
One of my favourite authors, C.S. Lewis, tried to capture and analyze this feeling throughout his lifetime. He called the ache "Joy" and described it as different from both pleasure and happiness. In his youth, Lewis discovered the feeling inexplicably rising up in the midst of a piece of music or a story. It could never be duplicated at will from the same music or story, however.
Looking back in his autobiography, Lewis wrote, "I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is.... Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.... All Joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still 'about to be'.... I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy."
At this time of year when Nostalgia settles in with the bustle of activity, what is it really that you are longing for? Could you go back to it or is it just a stab of Joy?
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