on Death

This morning we received a blow to the chest.  And I can’t catch my breath.

I don’t care what you say.  I don’t want to hear the detached Bible verses promising “happily ever after”.  I don’t want your clichéd remarks read right off a decorative pillow or that ugly embroidered flower mosaic hanging on your wall.

There is one thing we all share in common.  One thing alone that every 108 year old grandma shares with every 8 week old unborn baby – and all the helpless saps in between.  Death.  And if we’re all headed towards it anyway, what does it really matter how it happens?  At a ripe old age, snuggled in bed, surrounded by loved ones, life full of happy memories to usher you in.  Or only a few years inside, cold in a ditch, no one to grieve you, anguish and injustice left behind.  It doesn’t, right?  So let’s baptize those babies, slit their throats, and wish them Godspeed on their way to Paradise.  Everything after conception is just useless noise.

But it does.  Matter.  And they don’t.  All go to Paradise.  And it sucks.  Every heartbeat.

I’m tired of the journey.  Of the noise.  Of the rising and falling and failing and praying and hoping and resolving.  Of the promises and the breaches.  Of the fine print that lines every luminous ray.  I’m emotionally ravaged and physically disabled by the woes of this world and the wrapped-up-in-a-pretty-bow well wishers and the least of these.  The least of these.  I’m numb.  Disjointed.  Isolated.  Severed.

And I’d run if I could.  But I can’t.

You’ve hemmed me in.

From the start of Creation, I was marked off.  Designed into the blueprints of this crazy mess.  And try with all my might, I can’t get away.  Though I beat at Your chest and I spit in Your face; You touch my hip and I’ll never be the same.  And You promise anew to never forsake.  And I resolve afresh to not wander.

And until this very moment, this desolate moment, I didn’t understand how anyone could urge, with a straight face and steady heart, “Come Lord Jesus, come.”  I’ve screamed, “Take me!” more times than I can recall, but that’s not the same.  It’s about taking me away.  Not bringing You back.  Ending the night.  Not striking the day.

With eyes open wide, I’m ready now.  Take it back to what it was supposed to be.  Right the millions of wrongs that lead to an empty death.  Expose every last inch, wipe every last drop, shift and sift and separate and unite.

I don’t understand this business You’re about.  I don’t know the purpose of the waiting.  I just know I’m tired and life isn’t fair and I’m ready to stop the rotating.