One of the challenges of working with students in the aftermath of the death of a friend is trying to find words to say that speak genuine hope. It all too easily degenerates into cheap cliches, hallmark greeting card vapidity (is that a word?) that means absolutely nothing.
As we've been thinking and praying about how to handle it this week, particularly in our Thursday night weekly large group meeting, is to have Easter be the big Story that makes some sense out of this (littler) story. That forces us to use more substantive words as well as to be more humble in our understanding of what's gone on in the past week.
I've been thinking some about the need that we have to remind ourselves of what is true during times like these. Are we just trying to scream a fairy-tale over the thunderous noises of death? Are we just trying to make ourselves feel better? Or is it that we live this life as a free-fall. And every now and then, someone's parachute opens and their fall as we know it is over for them. And so we gather together, with that one now removed from our presence, and remind ourselves that, we, too, have parachutes. That these things actually work. That what is true is still true for us, even though someone else has passed beyond our understanding of what's going on.
Or is that just a dumb cliche analogy that I thought sounded good in the shower this morning but really sucks, just like most of the rest of them?
I'm grateful to the many of you who have personally e-mailed me or who have posted here on the blog. Thanks for speaking truth and doing a darn good job of avoiding the Precious Moments trinket theological cliches (like the one that I just posted).
I'm also extremely proud of my students who are working to process this as well as serve fellow students who are sometimes in more dire straits than they are.
3 comments:
Our prayers are with you and your students, Alex.
(and, fwiw, I thought that was a pretty good analogy.)
The whole campus and the IV chapter especially have been in my prayers and I'll continue to lift you all up. A friend of a friend died very suddenly a year or so ago, and the thing that really helped me work through it was the fact that this is not what we were meant for and God is really working to make things right again. Maybe it's cliche, but it seems that without the reality of death, the victory over death is meaningless.
And I think the parachute is a good way to put it. Because we're all really in a lot of danger in our current situation, but I trust in the Lord that Jason is safe at home now.
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