Seeking Death
A good friend of mine was killed tragically in a car accident about three weeks ago. I hadn’t actually spoken to this girl for several months, and I can’t remember the last time that we saw one another. Yet, we attended college together, and upon reflecting on those short years I realized that her passing would certainly administer a profound effect on the lives of many. She was one of these folks who is involved in everything, and somehow appears to be fully committed to everything—not for the approval of others or for self-glorification but out of a genuine concern to make life better.

My purpose here is not to compose an exaggerated eulogy of her virtues but to articulate how death has suddenly become a real thing to me again. The most sobering moment for me during this time did not occur at the visitation when I met her parents, or at the funeral service where friends and family gathered to pay our final respects, or even at the subsequent informal gathering at a friend’s home where a small group of us reflected on her life and the fluid give and take of life and death. No, the incident that touched me most deeply occurred several days later when I taking a break at work, searching for a particular phone number in my cell phone directory. It was then that I unexpectedly came across Rebekah’s name and phone number.

As that contact information gleamed brightly at me from the screen, I was gripped by several emotions that I honestly was not in the mood to experience on my break from work. I became frightened—maybe because I realized my own mortality. Nostalgic—maybe because my college memories of Rebekah are such fond ones. Pensive—maybe because I became immediately aware of the trail of memories that all humans (for better or worse) leave behind them on this earth. Saddened—probably because I understood the personal repercussions of this death, that a person in my private phonebook had left this world. Torn—and this is the strange one, at the prospect of either retaining Rebekah’s contact information in my phone, or deleting that information, thereby severing my last personal connection to this life that had been taken.

While “penning” this entry, I’ve done something that writers are wont to do...or at least should be wont to do...I’ve reviewed some of my earlier ramblings on a similar topic. I once considered the idea of home and irony that any home on this earth is not really a home because we are constantly wanderers in this transitory world. Along with that idea comes the observation that we consistently use terms of bondage and deliverance metaphorically, a habit which perpetuates our inability to see ourselves as real wanderers.

I have also been considering a different sort of metaphor—one that is overwhelmingly more true than the modern Christian verbality of which I formerly wrote. That metaphor is the Christian conception of dying to live. St. Paul speaks of this figurative death consistently in his letters to the church, but his teaching is actually no more than an echo and reverberation of Christ’s message that any man wishing to follow must die to self daily and “carry his cross.” I’m constantly perplexed at what Christ actually means by taking up my cross daily and dying. It’s become one of those catchphrases that preachers can say really easily, but it does not seem to carry much water when applied to daily living. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean making decisions that are the best for me only. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean complaining about others. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean worrying about the potential of being harmed by others. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean getting even, or staying on top, or having the upper hand. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean seeking respect at all costs. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean looking impressive, or being comfortable, or becoming established. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean having time and space to oneself. In fact, it must mean complete reckless abandonment of my own needs. How such a proposition actually plays out in day to day situations is personal and circumstantial; however, the spirit is inescapable. Any thing that is done for my own benefit may not necessarily be wrong, but it should certainly be held suspect and viewed in light of Christ’s call.

More interestingly though, it occurs to me that Christ’s language is problematic because it is figurative. He uses the image of death—something that is very real and concrete to mankind—to illustrate the spiritual transformation that is to occur in a person who follows Christ in the sort of lifestyle noted above. Somehow, Christ means to argue that true life is found in this sort of “death.” Yet, if we view Christ as God incarnate, it seems odd that he would apply metaphoric speech to an issue as paramount as individual salvation; he obviously wouldn’t want us to miss his point.

In considering Rebekah’s death, I have become convinced that Christ’s language is less metaphoric than we initially realize. For the Christian, along with “spiritual life” comes the tangible reward of eternal life; hence, the spiritual life that a Christ-follower receives by “dying daily” is paralleled by the real, concrete life that follows real, concrete death. The idea of Christian conversion here becomes a reflective image of God’s eternal purposes. It is as if Christ takes God’s eternal truth and compresses it into the basic step of faith so that human beings, as shortsighted and as prone to experiencing life in momentary spurts as we are, can grasp an idea that is humanly ungraspable. Christ’s choice of figurative language, we now see, presents us with the eternal truth in the only way that we can understand it, and though it is metaphoric in a sense, it differs from the real only in degree—exchanging one sort of life for another, the physical for the spiritual.

You may be interested to know that I didn’t delete Rebekah’s phone number from my phonebook. I suppose that I wasn’t quite ready to sever those ties completely. If nothing else, the existence of that contact information has spurred me on to dwell more on these eternal truths. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is often quoted from his book The Cost of Discipleship: “When Christ calls a man, he calls him to come and die.” I am somehow comforted by the thought that Rebekah has preceded me in dying both kinds of death…and in knowing that each kind leads to life.

The Spiritual Function of Nostalgia
I was struck this week by the power of nostalgia. On Tuesday, I moved to a new house, which is always a time of excitement and anticipation. For some reason, a change of environment seems to signify new things, a new outlook, new opportunities...maybe I can even be made somehow new on the inside. Yet, as things calmed down after the initial adrenaline rush and I considered the immense work that still must be performed to make the new place habitable, I found myself longing for home--that is, for my bed and desk and nightstand at my old house--and realized that the place no longer existed for me. The thought seems ridiculous to me even as I write this because there is nothing about the old house that I rationally should be missing. It has perpetual foundation issues, the air conditioning unit is a money pit in cahoots with the power company, the locks on the doors can only barely be called locks, and I swore continually for a year and half that I would get out of that place at the earliest opportunity. Still, an overwhelming sense of loss crept over me as I recalled the countless memories that are tied to the old place.

Human nostalgia is intangible yet powerful. It is like a mist--it cannot be contained but trails behind, blurring our vision and making us susceptible to abnormal impressions. As such, it points to the spiritual dimension of mankind. Man is such a spiritual being that he can create intangible perceptions of objects that are purely physical. That concept is striking and fills me with fear. How am I using this power?

If I myself am a largely spiritual being, it means that other humans share this characteristic. If other humans share this characteristic, it means that there are things happening all around me that I seldom take time to notice. I wonder how my decisions are impacting the spiritual beings that comprise my community. I wonder if my impact is positive or negative. Most importantly, I wonder how the decisions I make resound with the greater spiritual entity to whom I am tied. Though my spiritual perspective is a Christian one, followers of other religions may ask the same question, which makes the question an appropriate one for humanity in general.

If two functions of nostalgia are to bring the past into the present and the physical into the spiritual realm, I believe that the progression can be continued from God's perspective. God, an eternal being, cannot exist in time as we understand it; there is no distinction between past and present for such a being. Similarly, the future cannot be properly distinguished from the present. Nostalgic feelings then provide a god-like perspective for humans where time folds over on itself. I wonder if these times additionally provide a glimpse of future glory, a longing for the future, since all are the same to God. Also, if humans are able to "spiritualize" the physical things that they have created, such as houses, it is an encouraging thought that God can do the same thing with his creation, mankind. How much greater would our transformation be than that of our houses when it is God doing the transforming?