Friday, November 15, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Given
On that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding grain; one will be taken, the other left. If you’re in the field, don’t return for what you’ve left behind. This is how it will be when the Son of Man is revealed. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it. Where the body is, there the vultures will gather.
Death comes in a heartbeat, once for each of us. Until then we are told to be on our guard for another moment, when the Son of Man arrives. “Then we who are still alive will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And we will be with him forever” (1 Thess 4:17)
We don’t know whether our death or Jesus’ return will come first. Before he died, my friend Earl in Waynesville carved and wood burned a plaque for his former hot air balloonist buddy (that’s me) with the reference “1 Thessalonians 4:17” engraved on the side of a colorful balloon. I cherish that plaque.
I also cherish many friends around the world, in Texas and Illinois, in Wisconsin and Indiana, in California and Arizona, Pennsylvania and North Carolina … so many friends, so many places, so little time to be with them except in memory and imagination. I love my friends, and they love me. We don’t talk about politics or religion, because we have a variety of disagreements and agreements. There are more important things.
We also talk less about health and wellness than we might. Our bodies are wearing out, as they should, so why belabor the point? What we do talk about, besides the weather and our grandchildren, is how we live our lives while we await one of those final moments. We have ideas about how to live, and stories about how we fail and succeed to live up to those ideas. We talk about “living right on.”
In Hannah Coulter, his doctor told Wendell Berry’s Nathan Coulter:
“Mr. Coulter, you are gravely ill, or you soon will be. Without prompt treatment you certainly will not live long.” Without changing his look or expression, Nathan nodded. The doctor described the radiation treatments. Without exactly interrupting, Nathan stood up, put out his hand, patiently, quietly. “Thank you, doctor.” he said. “Thank you for all you’ve done.”
Back home sobbing into a bowl of eggs as she made a cake, Nathan’s wife Hannah finally looked over at her husband and shouted at him.
Well, what are you planning to do? Just die? Or what?
Nathan folded the paper. After a minute he said, “Dear Hannah, I’m going to live right on. Dying is none of my business. Dying will have to take care of itself.” And he came to me then, an old man weakened and ill. He held me a long time as if under a passing storm. I fixed some supper, and we ate.
… Nathan looks at me with a look I know. The shiver of the altogether given passes over me from head to foot.
Yeah, that’s it. We talk when we can about  “living right on,” and what we know is “altogether given.” Not up to us, not created by us, not insured by us … that’s a whole different animal that we are somewhat obliged to protect. No, this is the gift that will never stop giving, that resides inside each of us, the mark of God, and we … talk about that.
(2 John, Psalm 119, Luke 21, Luke 17)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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