I wrote this in my journal in early December. Thoughts running through my head. I wanted to go back and write more/springboard off of these raw thoughts, but then I read it today, and I kinda like it just how it is.Also, since it is the end of our time in Africa, I am in the middle of experiencing a transition myself. Closing the file, etc. So it is kind of suiting and appropriate to come across this and post this at this moment.
We are confronted with death a lot here. So naturally, I think about it more, and am drawn to explore this concept.
Here it is.
I hope this will be -- encouraging.
december 7th
Death...
During worship I was thinking about death... we had communion, and I was thinking about how Jesus
died.
And how there is a cycle,
even in our seasons (winter) before there can be new life.
And even every day,
there always must be night before there can be morning.
Death and life,
such a natural part of the cycle,
uprooting and planting, waiting for the sunrise.
So, I’m just thinking,
In my own life, grieving about things is healthy.
The death of a childhood to become an adult.
The death of the old life to enter the new.
The winter season of transition: to embrace it, because it is the very thing that will hold the new seed.
Finishing chapters, closing the file. It is to be welcomed and embraced.
So death, then,
we perceive is not the end,
it is a change.
A transition that will bring forth the sunrise and new day. In every other circumstance, that is the case.
So how then, should it be with our lives?
I feel like there can be so much fear surrounding death, scared of dying, etc.But we are only on the beginning side -- “this side of heaven”, as Christa says.
How do we arrive in heaven? Must die first. And heaven, what is to come after death, will be so much more amazing than anything in this life!
I feel like this life is only the rehearsal, the training ground, the shadow,
“the evening” if you will... and we have yet to see the glorious sun rise,
how it will burn hot and bright, illuminating everything, exposing colours and creation...
yes, we have not seen the full of it yet.
“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then face to face:
now I know in part; but then shall I know
even as I am fully known.” 1 Cor. 13:9-12
Death is the hard gate that opens to a more fuller, broader, deeper, wider life than could have been imagined before.
Approaching the gate, human perspective says, “No!”
After coming through the gate, we say, “How could I have not?”
For as those who look back, we realize that death was the means to get us through to the other side, and no other means would simply accomplish the same result.
So it is the same as birth.
The fetus grows for nine months, but even after nine months he is not yet a baby.The only way forward is through the tight passage of the birth canal. It is only when the fetus can say goodbye to his home that grew him, then he can make the hard journey forward.
Through the laborious descent, perhaps the fetus has deduced that his previous womb-room was much more comfortable than this one.
But those on the outside, eagerly awaiting his arrival, say,
“Keep coming, don’t shrink back, fight through...wait till you see this place! The possibilities and opportunities and experiences of sight, taste, touch, love, choice, thought, movement, creativity are incomparably beyond that which was possible in your previous home. Trust me.”
And this is how we enter the world.Making the tight and laborious descent, from our comfortable starting point to something indescribably -- more.
But the only way out is through the abandoning of one habitation and the pushing through (no matter how blindly) to another.
Perhaps this will be how we enter heaven.
To be birthed into eternal life.
Yes, we are both living before and after the tight, dark passage, yet the first home is merely a preparation for the second.
And though the ones approaching the death of all they’ve ever known could have reason to fear, it is from the perspective of the “other side” they must need to keep in mind.
And once out, he too will say,
To now be here, was worth the passage.For here,
I have truly arrived, and Life has just begun.
And thus the Kingdom law is confirmed, there must first be death before there can be life:
“Truly, truly, I say unto you,
unless a grain of wheat
falls into the earth and dies,
it remains alone;
but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
John 12:24,25
In order to truly enter Life,you must die first.
So do not shy away from “the end”, “the close”, “the finish” of something,
because the end is serving its purpose as a means of transition
to prepare the way of the glorious fulness of what awaits you on the other side.
And it is better. Than what you knew before.
“Now to him who is able to to do
far more abundantly
than all that we ask or think,
according to the power at work within us,
to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations,
forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20,21
And God reminds us with this
everyday,
each evening and each morning;
every year with each winter and subsequent spring.
How quickly we ignorantly, distrustingly, and fearfully choose to believe
that death will be the end.
When God has faithfully shown us in every instance for all of time before us,
that death is merely the gate
to open the way
for us to enter into an even
fuller
Life.
***
a poem follows..
December 31 poetry jam/January 17
inspired by contemplations on being with newborns in the first minutes of birth, feeling the absence of this with stillborns, and experiencing an unforeseen maternal death. And the only time we stop to really think about Life itself is when one starts or another ends.
“Tension” (colossians 1:14-17)
what is it about life;
how do you measure it?
is it breath
or the beating in one’s chest
the ability to open your eyes?
oh the joy it brings to hear
the strength of a cry
to see a pattered bundle of cloth
squirm.
It must be the Spirit.
for a pump can give breath
and a machine can pump blood
So it is God
that sustains this
intangible concept
that,
yet
is so normal and obvious:
what keeps us afloat,
us breathing
beating
blinking
thinking
feeling.
And now
we want to talk about it,
think about it.
we want to even sing,
and harmonize about it!
because it’s us,
all of us:
Walking this tightrope
-what we know as earth-
held in the tension
between here
and there
unaware
of the crowd below
and the crowd above
watching
and it seems like the only time we notice
and turn our heads
and become
aware
is when we feel a quiver on the rope:
an adjustment to the tension;
a weight is added,
or a weight is lifted;
when someone steps on,
or when someone
falls.
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