Sunday, December 10, 2006

Death.Life.Love

It is interesting to observe the reaction of people when you talk about death. Often time’s people grow uneasy and squirm around in their chair as if they have a rash of some sort. Recently, the subject of death has been the object of my thoughts and conversations. A little over a week has passed since a good friend of mine died, not a day has passed since then that I have not thought about him, nor has a day passed that I have not pondered my own death. Josh was younger that me, it was as if he had just started to live. But that all depends upon our definition of life: is life a unit of measurement? If so what does it measure?

Does “life” measure time or quality? When I think of Josh, I think of both. In one way his “life” was rather short, in another he lived an abundantly full “life”. For each day that I was around him it was as if he was savoring each drop, his heart was always curious and looking for adventure. But, Josh never had to look too far, for adventure seemed to follow him.

Last night as I was sitting on my window seal, I repeated a phrase that has become a part of what I call my “night time reflection”, often times I simply look into the sky and say, “the night has come once more.” I reflect upon the day and embrace the reality that I will never get to relive it, what has passed is done, over, history. I ask myself some questions and sometimes simply have a prayer like conversation.

I have been having some great conversations with one of my friends here on the subject of love. We come from two different backgrounds and have two different perspectives on the word. It really been great, indeed some of the best conversation I have with any of my friends here. Furthermore, this subject has come to mean far more in light of Josh’s death, for he was guy who loved deeply and that is what I want. It seems rather simple right? Often times I hear people bash preachers who talk too much about love, they think he has gone soft and would prefer him preach more fire and brimstone, there is somthing attractive to rules and structure that I do not understand. We always sell love for some unit of measurement. I am not so sure why we do this, but I am tired of it and realy, I don't think it works.

To understand love as something soft is to not understand love. As Brennan Manning once said in a sermon, “The love of God is like a raging fire, everyone wants to get close enough to keep warm, but few fall into it and allow it to transform our lives.” It is a beautiful and terrifying thing, a paradoxical idea that is simple and complex at the same time.

In my little world, it is Christ that embodies perfect love. To read of how he treated people, how he interacted with the lowly as if he did not see what others were seeing. I often wonder what it was like when the disciples and Jesus approached a beggar on the street. Maybe the disciples simply saw the dirty clothing and smelled the urine, while Jesus was able to see beyond the external into the man’s heart, almost as if looking at two completely different people. You know, I have no idea how all this works, but I am starting to feel as though I am getting a little close to something truly beautiful. Like a dog that has picked up a scent in the woods, he runs around often looking like a fool, often times he gets distracted by other scents, but he continues looking for he knows that somewhere in those woods is something beautiful and that beautiful thing is worth living and dying for.

6 comments:

Sohailah said...

Interestingly enough, I saw the mark of Colby on Josh's life...

can't believe I missed your phone calls again. dang it!

Stephen said...

I think that's one of the coolest things you've ever written.

cPipe said...

Those are sober words.

Anonymous said...

Colby,
Your thoughts on death and life are extremely provoking. Tony Campolo aks this question as he travels and speaks "How long have you been alive." When people begin to answer by stating their age, he replies, "I am not asking how long have you been breathing, but how long you have been ALIVE, how long have you LIVED!
Colby, you are one of my beloved friends, I pray that you will continue in your search for God. I pray that you will feel the presence of his Spirit as you go about your day. And may you have the eyes of Jesus to see what he would see, the heart of Jesus to feel what he would feel.

Clayton

Anonymous said...

Wow Colby! What great words that display your heart. I miss seeing you around.

Unknown said...

funny thing, I've been delving into the same questions of life and death for about a year now. it seems to me life isn't what happened this morning but rather how you chose to embrace the situation, whether or not you take full advantage of the opportunity you were given. good or bad events can be taken and changed into good or bad life depending on how you embraced the situation. life is not a measure of time but of quality, it is a measure of how well you embraced the opportunities you were given. when we are at a funeral, we talk about what opportunities they took hold of and made the most of. we meet the guy in rags in the soup kitchen, do we ignore him, do we serve him a meal, or do we sit down and talk, show him love, then help him out. sure the last one takes the most time, but isn't it worth it to see what you could have done and know you did your best, to know God would be pleased?

as for death, i think of it as the final dying off of my fleshly desires, with my body gone, it leaves behind my soul and my spirit to continue on. sin is in your body, and with that gone your spirit, saved or not, is what determines your future in eternity. beyond that i can't be sure...

as for love, that is a little hard to put into words. i guess the best analogy is that we are all cracked cups, until we love ourselves for who God created us to be we cant be whole. once we are whole we can fill up with God's love and spill out into others. God's love completely fills us and the faster you let it out, the faster it comes in. you reach a point at which friends aren't enough to contain the love, you start spilling out into your enemies, people you've never met, the poor guy wearing rags sitting on the sidewalk as you walk by... God's love is more than enough for me, and no matter how much i give, i will always get more than i can contain, i will always have too much and feel the desire to find someone else to pour out into. but it is so hard to describe what love feels like other than purity, once you get filled by god's perfect love the impurities inside you get washed away, it also feels explosive, if you try to hold it in you feel like you are going to explode.

people want rules and structure because they don't want to have to figure it out for themselves, they want to say, "we do it because it's the rules". whereas we, as followers of Jesus, do what He asks out of love. He is like a perfect father that tells us not to stick the fork in the electrical outlet and we trust and love him enough to believe that what He tells us is for our own good. in risk of sounding cliche i still say that love makes the world go round; whether that be a fullness of it or lack of it... i love the ponderings that you have written here because they are the same questions i am still answering for myself, this is only the scent of the perfect apple pie figuratively speaking...