I am convinced that everyone should periodically walk among the dead. By the phrase “walk among the dead,” I mean that everyone should, from time to time (once a year or so), quietly and thoughtfully walk the grounds of a nearby cemetery. Why it that the only time we walk among the dead is when someone we know dies? I’m not saying that we should have a weird fascination with cemeteries, but rather that walking among the dead gives us a humble sense of our own mortality, that we are made for something else, for something more. We are made for eternity, specifically eternity with God.
All this talk of death and cemeteries was prompted by my involvement in a family funeral for an elderly lady who was a strong, spiritual pillar in the church we are leading. Not knowing how long it would take me to reach the grave site, I left early enough to allow for an extended drive. I managed to reach the cemetery fairly quickly (nearly thirty minutes ahead of time), which allowed me time to slowly peruse the memorial park. The experience was overwhelming, and I found myself tearing up numerous times.
The truth of the matter is that I was overcome with a keen sense or awareness that my lifetime is a speck or fragment of eternity. There is only so much time to love others, to strive for Christ-likeness, to grow and learn from my mistakes. And I was overcome by the thought of my parents and family members getting closer to the end of their physical lives. There is a difficult tension within me: I hate the idea of death and losing those I am closest to, but I also know that fellowship with Christ beyond this temporal life is so much sweeter and better. It is a good and necessary tension, I think – but certainly not an easy one. Perhaps this is why Paul wrote Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” From the context of the passage, one can tell that he was wrestling with the same tension.
5 comments:
Interesting that we should find a closeness to God and awarenss of our own mortality in a place that all Christian hope tells us is not at all the place we in fact are when we pass from death to life. I'm not getting into a debate over the nature of when we receive our new bodies (soul sleep, etc.); instead I'm asking why would objects of stone - flat or erect - and the inevitable questions of "Who was so and so?" or "I wonder how they loved, lived, died, etc?" more facilitate such feelings of finiteness and humility than any other opportunity to ponder such realities?
Is it only in the face of fear that we recognize our frailty? We see moss-covered stone and choose - only then - to believe that one day we will be encased below (should we choose that "expensive" option) with an unknown standing above us wondering about our life. If we hold so desperately to the hope of something better, and the finality that must come before passing from here to there, why do cemetaries create such a sense of fear and anguish?
I'm asking a bunch of questions about something that's very obvious - of course cemetaries create such inner dialogue. For me, I've got a beautiful wife and lovely children I can't conceive of leaving. Don't sign me up for an early exit! Nothing else speaks to our finality - not human finality as it were, but our own, very unique end. We invariably read the stone with our name in a Scrooge-like future journey coming to a hideous end. I just wonder if we concern ourselves as much about what progress we will have made in the Christian life as we do about what the stone craftsman shall mark and the unknown person above us shall ponder.
Coming from someone who has largely planned his own funeral - down to the casket color and choir music - cemetaries are a very pleasant walk indeed. But, I do not contemplate God, only those lying beneath and what kind of life they lived.
Its interesting how perspective can change things. My dad worked as the groundskeeper for a cemetery when I was little, so I don't really get the "typical" feelings when I go to a cemetery. I think back to my own childhood. What is the purpose of a cemetery anyway? Remembrance...and as you said a reminder of our own mortality.
Rog and I watched Tuck Everlasting this week. It was a movie I'd wanted to see for a long time. As much as I agree with Jamo on not being in a hurry to leave, that movie solidified my own thankfulness that this life doesn't go on forever. If I had to choose there would be no thought needed. I'd rather die to this world and spend my eternity with my Savior than live and live and live here. Obvious...for a Christ follower yes...but so nice to know that I don't have my eyes fixed here so much that I don't know what's better.
Than, when your dad and I went back to North Carolina, he wanted to go to the cemetery where his grandparents on his father's side are buried. For him, it was a part of his heritage, a sense that we live in a continuum of a natural family that has imparted spiritually, morally, mentally and physically to us much of what and who we are.
The cemetery was on a lovely hilltop location in Tryon, NC. But the cemetery was horribly run down. There were beer cans, rags, and needles used to shoot up on the family plot surrounded by a low rock fence. I was angry that the present ills of society should so crowd out and desecrate the family cemetery of the Browns. There was a steep drop off on the lower side of the plot, so I began to kick the cans and needles over the built up rock wall on that side and watch them roll down the hill.
So even the cemeteries succumb to the here and now world and we are asked to live in the here and now as eternal beings. Mom
I have for the past few years had an unusual awareness of my mortality. Two books I read this year on the subject of mortality: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom and Everyman by Philip Roth. I highly recommend both.
Than, I agree that theology is not a sterile, laboratory science. It is intertwined with our experiences and culture. But I'm not sure what you mean by theology.
Hopefully, theology is connected to the Bible and an unchanging Word that God has spoken. Our soteriology is meant to be a summation of what we believe the Bible teaches on the subject of our salvation through Jesus Christ and His atonement. That is just one area of theology. But you speak as if all of theology is just a culturally defined thing apart from God's Word, something we can alter and change at whim to make it more culturally appropriate. To your old mom, that is treading dangerous waters.
The core of Christianity is the concept that God has spoken an unalterable Word that transcends all cultures, all life experiences, all trials and is TRUTH in all cultures and is meant to create a culture that is going to be counter-cultural in any culture in which it is presented. That TRUTH stands above any individual experiences and will remain even though the earth as we know it shall pass away.
In all your "diligent work to develop new theologies" don't forget the eternal Word of God that does not change. That is our hope and anchor in constantly changing cultures. I love you Mom
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