love : life :: curious : death

I love life. I am not contemplating suicide. Really.

But sometimes I am the smallest bit impatient to face death.

2007, Hayden Lake, ID

My grandfather is dying right now. He may live through the night, but it won't be long until he passes away from life into death.

His name is Argonne, but most people call him by his abbreviated middle name, "Joe." I've been calling him Pampa since before I could pronounce "Grandpa." He was born in 1922 and just celebrated his 90th birthday a couple of weeks ago. The family game in my tribe is a card game called cribbage and Pampa is an amazing cribbage player. I've never seen anyone beat him. And he never let me win, either.

I have really fond memories of him and my dad fishing in Coeur d'Alene Lake, while my sister and I paddled around the dock and scared away all the fish.

The last time I saw him was in June 2007. He was still wearing the thick suspenders and trucker's cap he always wore. He had a scruffy white beard and glassy blue eyes. He laughed just as I remembered him laughing when I was a child.

I think of him there on his hospital bed at home, with a hospice nurse, head laid back and chest exposed to the open air. He's tired. He's very tired. He says as much. He says he's tired and he's ready to go be with Fran---my grandmother. Thirty-seven years ago he lost her to cancer after 28 years of marriage.

I think of him at 90 years old, finally facing death. It's not the first time death has been close, but it will likely be the last. And I envy him a bit. Because I am sometimes the smallest bit impatient to face death

because

death is THE existential problem. It is the heavy concrete base upon which we must build our philosophies, activities, families, and legacies.

I have this idea that the quality of life is measured by the experience of death. And so how can I know if all of this work, this life, is worth anything until I can secure a successful death? Death lived (so to speak) in hypothesis or conjecture is meaningless. I want to face it, to have a certainty that my life is ending, and only in that moment will I know myself and the quality of my spirit.

I won't rush the experience by drinking bleach or walking on train tracks. I'm intensely curious, but only a little bit impatient-- certainly not eager.

In the time between this moment and the hour of my death, I remember that

since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death---that is, the devil---and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. //  [hebrews2.14-15] 

"God, have mercy on me": a page from my journal

To some who were confident of their own rightness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:

"Two people went into a chapel to pray: one, Kessia Reyne Bennett, an educated Adventist pastor and theologian; and the other, well, not. Kessia Reyne stood up and prayed about herself: '

God, I thank You that I am not like other people---Sunday-keepers, pork-eaters, evolution-believers---or even like this "Evangelical." I understand Daniel 7 and I affirm sola scriptura.' 

But the other person stood in the back. He wouldn't even look up to heaven, but he lowered his head and said, '

God, have mercy on me and be my Teacher.' 

I tell you that this man, not Kessia Reyne, went home justified by God and accompanied by His Spirit. For everyone who humbles himself will be exalted, and everyone who exalts himself will be humbled."

[

luke18.9-14

, as He spoke it to me]

Jesus, I don't feel very righteous... but a lot of times I do feel pretty "right" and see all the ways that others have got it wrong. Theological correctness can make us look down on everyone else. I don't want to be like that, God! I'm sorry for the us-them mindset I've had, my judgmentalism. I know I've thought I could judge someone's relationship or standing with You based on how their theology compared to mine. Yes, it IS important to have right theology, but I want to be "right" without being smug or suspicious, and I don't want to be right in the wrong way! I want to be teachable, generous in spirit, and humble before Your unsearchable Spirit... God, have mercy on me and be my Teacher.

The Miracle in Me

(if God can change a wretch like me,
then surely He could calm a troubled sea.)

(if God from proud to meek can make,
then wine from water He could take.)

(if God can from guilt make me free,
then why not make blind eyes to see?)

(if He can the heart convert
and purify what sin perverts,

then surely He might've blessed the bread
and from two loaves five thousand fed.)

Though miracles may impossible be
I now believe, for I have seen

that God has wrought a wondrous thing:
the unbelievable, inconceivable, impossible miracle in me.

the fragrance of the Gospel

The feast was going well, just as Simon had planned it. Jesus of Nazareth, the famed Healer and Teacher, was staying in the town of Bethany, a village close to Jerusalem. Simon was hosting this dinner party in Jesus’ honor, and many, many people attended. The crowds that filled his house were a testimony to the importance of Jesus. And Simon loved being in the midst of it all, sharing the head of the table with the two most famous people in the country: the resurrected Lazarus, and the Jesus who raised him from the dead. 

The food was good, the company was high-profile, the conversation was pleasant. The party was a great success! Until. 

Until

SHE 

came in. No one invited her to the table, this improper woman. She snuck in, clutching a vase to her chest and tip-toeing over to the head of the table where Jesus was reclining and eating, speaking to Simon himself. But if this intruder thought that she could go unnoticed, it didn’t last for long. The jar she held was made of alabaster—an expensive material. And inside of that alabaster jar was a very expensive perfume, an ointment made of pure nard, fragrant and rich.

So when this woman broke the jar, it was not the sound that arrested the attention of the room. It was not the sound of the breaking jar, but the fragrance of spilled perfume. Without a word she poured the perfume over the hair of Jesus, anointing His head with the priciest fragrance that could be purchased. As the disciple John would later write in his Gospel retelling, “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” The trespassing woman was weeping at Jesus’ feet, anointing His feet with the perfume, with her tears, and wiping those feet with her hair. This was a scandalous thing to do. And in public! and to the prophet Jesus! and at Simon’s dinner party! 

Ugh. Simon had long been called Simon the Leper until Jesus had healed him, and in gratitude Simon threw this party. But Jesus was ruining it! Why was he letting this woman cross the boundaries of decency?! Was Jesus a prophet after all? Didn’t He know what kind of a woman was touching Him like this? It was gross. It was offensive. As Simon murmured in his heart, others began murmuring with their lips.

                                                                           * * * * 

The jar was broken, the perfume poured out, the house full of its fragrance, the room was silent— silent except for the sound of the woman weeping softly at Jesus’ feet. Then the sound of disgust could be heard. It was Judas Iscariot, shocked at this inappropriate display of affection. “What a waste!” He was talking with the other eleven disciples. “That perfume was worth a year’s wages and she ruined it. Why wasn’t it sold? Why wasn’t the money given to the poor? A wasted extravagance.”

The other disciples were nodding in agreement. Yes, that was a lot of money she just poured out. What a waste. Some others in the room felt the rising indignation. “Why this waste of perfume?” they asked. So they rebuked her harshly, chastising her for what she had done. Had she no decency?!

                                                                          * * * * 

No one expected to hear what Jesus said next. 

“Leave her alone.”

What? She should be leaving YOU alone. She should be leaving US alone. She should be leaving!

"Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor? The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have Me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for My burial. I tell you the truth: wherever the Gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will be spoken of in memory of her.”

People are stunned into silence. His words linger in the air with the fragrance of pure nard. This gift of hers, he says, is Gospel. It is the preparation for My burial. 

His feet are soon to be pierced with Roman nails. His head soon to be crowned with mocking thorns. His death was coming and she honored Him with the most extravagant gift she could give. Her gift, His death—

this was the Gospel

. Until they could see that, they didn’t understand the Kingdom of God. 

by Aaron Watt