Through The Window

Life is fragile.  We hold on to it for dear life, yet in the blink of an eye it is ripped from our grasp.  We take it for granted, yet it never really belongs to us.  This weekend I have once again realized  how transient it is.  A beautiful young man, vibrant and energetic, alive with laughter and mischief, touching lives around him with his faith and enthusiasm, alive the one moment, then gone...

It is crazy how life and death is so interlinked and entwined.  How life and death walk alongside one another.  I have always been fascinated by how a baby is wrapped up in his mother's womb, yet it is only the moment at birth that he truly comes into existence.  Suddenly he is a living, breathing entity.  His date of birth is registered and celebrated.  It is inscribed with a day, a month and a year.  Suddenly he becomes the center of attention, decisions are made around him.  His cries mobilize people, and his laughter lifts their spirits.  His gurgles and chuckles fill the room.  Yet, at the very moment of his birth, there are others who leave this world.  They have finished with the dash that separates their date of birth from the new date inscribed  on the stone.  It is as if there is a window through which the one soul slips into this world and another soul slips out.  

I think that Death is the most difficult reality we as humans have to deal with.  Most of us do not even want to whisper the word.  Most of us fear it.  Yet it is as present as Life itself is.  The membrane separating it is very delicate.  Fortunately, we are mostly not aware of how close it is, for if we were, death would become the thief of life, it would rob us of our joy, our hopes and our dreams.  We would live in its shadow and we would miss out on the sunlight with which Life fills our days.

The wonderful news is that we have a powerful weapon against Death.  The best way to live in victory over Death is to live everyday to the fullest, to grab hold of each day and squeeze every drop of living from it, to say at the end of the day that we have truly lived our dash.  Our dash is God's gift to us, but what we do with it, is our gift to God.  By a miracle we have all found our way through the window into this life, a room filled with all life has to offer - love, joy, companionship and opportunities to name just a few.  It is ours to explore and to enjoy, to share with others and to guide and help others through it, but someday we will all pass through the window again to where a new world awaits, there where our spirits will soar freely.  Sometimes those we love will pass through the window before us, and we will be so terribly sad.  Yet, when we believe they have not died, but have simply slipped through to the other side of the window, just maybe we can bear it a tiny bit better.  Maybe through our tears, we can see the rainbow spanning the valley where they now soar, where we too hope to be one day.

"Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. "
2 Corinthians 5:1 New International Version