death at a funeral

so Alexis & I saw a movie- "Death at a Funeral" entertaining movie, funny, sometimes thoughtful. anyway other than timing and word association this movie really hasn't much to do with what I'm about to discuss

what actually triggered my thoughts was when Alexis told me that her grandmother wasn't doing very well. her health is declining. the pain of death has crept upon Alexis & her family, again.

(I feel like I must express that death, no matter how... joyful for the Christian, still carries a sting, a pain that even Christ experienced. a pain caused by the separation that this earth adheres to)

immediately my thoughts scatter because I'd love to have the right thing to say, but instead I say, "everything's going to be okay." then I turn back to my thoughts- death.

I know at some point in my life I thought death was final. I'm sure this was around the same time that I first ever pondered death. (for some reason this seems to be our first natural, and yet such an unnatural thought, instinct as to what happens after death) I think I thought that death was the end and that there was nothing after death (I really think I thought there was a level of existence equal to "black" ...whatever that means)

but as I have grown (and grown closer to my own death) I have welcomed the existence of Truth. God. the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. this awareness of Truth has completely altered my original creation (which left much wanting) or "after death"

now I am aware of eternity. now I am aware that life does not end with death. I now think of "life on earth" and "life after earth." it's hard for me to comprehend their existence, their simultaneous existence. their existing because of Truth. now this may sound funny but- they have an existence equality. I say this because I want to make one a dream, or a non-reality when in Truth they are both existent. I'm the caterpillar tellin' the butterfly that he isn't real, and vice versa. and I know- the butterfly & the caterpillar are both real. life on earth and life after earth are both real.

(even my favorite author, Lewis, expresses similar feelings of a disconnect from this life to the next when he said, "it'll be nice when we all wake up from this life which has indeed something like a nightmare about it.")

so here I am, I just told Alexis, "everything's going to be okay" and now I'm thinking about death. the first thought that I can capture is- awful.

death is awful. aw-ful. full of awe. devastatingly awful. I think part of dying must be witnessing the unveiled awe. I imagine that death must feel like drowning and learning you can breath water.

we will experience what Adam experienced in the garden. what Moses experienced before the burning bush and on Mount Sinai. what Saul experienced on the road to Damascus. and what John experienced while on the island of Patmos. what these men saw as a glimmer in this life, we shall see with them in eternity

for the Christian, welcome death.

or as Dr. Criswell said it, "After death what? After death, to the Christian, is a glorious life, incomparably beautiful and precious, with Jesus our Lord in heaven. For to me to live is Christ and to die is a gain."

communicating

It is much more comfortable, of course, to go on speaking the gospel only in familiar phrases to the middle classes. But that would be as wrong as if, for example, Hudson Taylor had sent missionaries to China and then told them to learn only one of three separate dialects that the people spoke. In such a case, only one group out of three could hear the gospel. We cannot imagine Hudson Taylor being so hard-hearted. Of course he knew that men do not believe without a work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, and his life was a life of prayer for this to happen, but he also know that men cannot believe without hearing the gospel. Each generation of the church in each setting has the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms, considering the language and thought-forms of that setting.

by Francis A. Schaeffer

'I have chosen you for one another'

Friendship, like the other natural loves, is unable to save itself. In reality, because it is spiritual and therefore faces a subtler enemy, it must, even more wholeheartedly than they, invoke the divine protection if it hopes to remain sweet. For consider how narrow its true path is. It must not become what the people call a 'mutual admiration society'; yet if it is not full of mutual admiration, of Appreciate love, it is not Friendship at all....

For a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you', can truly say to every group of Christian friends, 'You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.' The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host.

by C.S. Lewis

tattooed my face

"everybody has a plan until they get hit."

-Mike Tyson