Living in a season of death

While it's been less than a month since school let out for Christmas break, the memory of that hectic period of my life is still fresh. Life has certainly calmed down since then. I wake up late, stay up even later, and fill my day (or night as it may be) with tasks which I'm intrinsically motivated to complete. The tranquility of Christmas break has forced from my mind the white noise of life: the papers, classes, and exams which allow us to escape from life's dilemmas unscathed and unenlightened. Left alone with my thoughts, I had no reprise from confronting that which I couldn't approach or chose not to deal with out of convenience when the circumstances of life allowed me to so. I was living in a season of death, in the throes of the bleak midwinter and reluctant to come out of the cold.

As the semester was coming to a close, and consequently to its climax, I received some awful news. A new friend, HELM Leadership Fellow Jenny Faenza, had died. I had known her for less than a month, but somehow it seems fitting to classify the relationship as friendship. As I read the email which described what had happened, I was truly shocked. I was not filled with profound sadness — just shock. Part of what disturbed me the most was that fact; I wasn't distraught. Nonetheless, even this shame was consciously whisked from my mind. I told myself not to think about it, "I need to concentrate on my responsibilities." Every time the subject reentered my mind it was replaced by the sound and fury that was my everyday life.

After the semester had ended, I was driving home with my dad. While we sat in unyielding traffic, he told me suddenly, as if he had just remembered, that something bad had happened at church. "Mr. uh… the older man who came to the farm with the youth," he said. "He died in his sleep last week." I remember being truly shocked. I murmured something like, "Mr. Caves… wow, that's awful." He explained that everyone thought it would be best if I wasn't told until after I had finished my exams. After a lengthy silence we proceeded to talk about sports.

It was ironic that my family had attempted to temporarily shield me from the knowledge which I had so successfully blocked out anyways, but I had evaded the topic for as long as I possibly could. It seemed that death was everywhere I turned. A mentor of my brother died around the same time, leaving behind a large and young family. It was shocking. Why was I only capable of feeling shocked when thinking about death? Why couldn't I empathize with his daughter, who I knew more directly and whose world had just been turned upside down. Why didn't it hurt more to be informed that Mr. Caves, the man from my church who I had known for so long, and so well, had passed away? Why didn't it sting to know that the Christian Church had lost a great young leader in Jenny Faenza, and that a potentially great friendship would never come to fruition? I found that the pain I felt entitled to was simply delayed. It isn't that I didn't appreciate my personal loss and the loss that others faced, but rather that it took some time to accurately evaluate just what these people meant in my life. The old saying, "you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone" seems appropriate.

Perhaps I, like so many others, thought it wasn't productive to dwell on subjects of such pain, for if we ever really stopped to consider the great suffering, the injustice that is tied inexorably to our world, we might not be able to care about the insignificant tasks that we fill our lives with. That perspective, however, is what gives the Christian life meaning. To ignore life's pain is to delay our principal task in fulfilling God's kingdom. We cannot ease the world's suffering if we cannot approach pain. I made a great mistake in ignoring the calls of my conscience. I felt ashamed of myself because our society is one that fears death, but such fear is not consistent with my own faith. If we truly believe in the life eternal then it is illogical to lament the passing of a loved one, at least for their sake.

I entered the sanctuary of my home church for the first time since leaving for college, during a youth lock-in not long before Christmas. The lights were dimmed and my eyes were drawn to a white choir robe draped over the back bench of the choir loft. It was a memorial to Tom Caves. I had sat beside him on that bench for years. As I was always unprepared, he would share his music and describe any issues with the pieces he thought to be problematic. On Sunday morning he would invariably tell me how glad he was for the choir to have me singing. His warm smile and enthusiasm made that hard bench the most comfortable seat in the sanctuary. I realized at that moment the depth of my own loss. He, however, has lost nothing. As it was so poignantly stated, Mr. Caves went to sleep and awoke in the presence of God. While the world may suffer for their loss, I celebrate the passing of Jenny Faenza, Dr. Tom Caves, and The Honorable Larry Etheridge into heaven.

I may be living in a season of death, but the circularity of eternal life is apparent. We recently celebrated the birth of our savior while the world was gray. We simultaneously celebrated the end of one year and its frustrations and the advent and hope of a new one. We will soon celebrate the demise of a governing regime and the rise of another, and more importantly the continuity of freedom. Even when it seems that we are in a season of death, the nature of our world guarantees that we will always be living.

Alan Moore is in his first year as a HELM Leadership Fellow and is a member of St. Paul's Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Raleigh, North Carolina.