I write this post as I approach the 10th anniversary of the trauma we experienced in the earthquake and tsunami in Samoa. It was in itself a story of death and life. For many people, death came so suddenly and indiscriminately, while many more of us were left with physical injuries and continuing psychological trauma. But that is only a part of the story. The tsunami story beings here: http://www.tobefrank.com.au/reflections-on-text-and-context/the-tsunami-story/
In the month immediately prior to that drama, I had the exceptional privilege to make a stem cell donation, which provided life-saving therapy for a person elsewhere in Australia, for some years to follow. I wrote at the time about this marvellous opportunity and privilege. http://www.tobefrank.com.au/reflections-on-text-and-context/the-gift-of-life/
Then, just a couple of months after Samoa, even before I had recovered fully from the physical injuries, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and a short while later underwent surgery for that condition.
My recovery from these events and experiences gave me an extraordinary sense of the gift of life: so profound that I would almost see the experiences themselves as gifts to me, to deepen my sense of life and its meaning. Basically, I believe I was given another period of life and from that time I committed myself to live fully, to make the most of the time, gifts and opportunities I have. Since then, there are things I simply will not waste time on, such as the manipulative games many people play in the workplace, at church, and elsewhere. Positively I choose to use my energies and talents for worthwhile purposes and to rejoice in life, travel, and most of all the mutual love and care of people and the earth. And all of this with so many wonderful people to share the journey, the laughter and tears, work and play. Life.
At this anniversary time, I am going back to those thoughts because another wonderful gift has come to me (and to all of our family) in the birth of our first grandchild. A baby boy was born two weeks ago today. This is profoundly moving, in so many ways.
This little boy is so complete, in one sense: he has all the essential physical features of a perfectly healthy person. He is full of life. He has such potential. In another sense he is so utterly dependent upon others, being as yet unable to do anything for himself. He is a perfect parable of the reality of life: he is, in the terms of an earlier post, apart—in the sense of being an individual, his own person with his own name and unique identity—and he is a part, in the sense that he belongs, in a family, a local community, and ultimately to the whole world. His dependency is a parable for all of us. In reality we all depend upon others for life itself. That reminder, too, is a gift to us!
These thoughts lead me to contemplate two further aspects of life and death, death and life.
As we have waited for this little one to arrive, we have thought a great deal about the world into which he is born and will grow. I read this weekend of couples who are choosing not to have children of their own because the future of the earth is at such risk. Indeed. Will the children born today be able to live, to eat, to breathe (even) in the middle and later decades of this century?—not to mention the state of things for their children?
This is an appalling challenge to us, who are responsible beyond any generation of people for this crisis. How can our political leaders remain so complacent about this? This very day our Prime Minister lauds it with the President of the United States, congratulating one another on what they think are their achievements, and refusing even to attend the United Nations Climate Summit where the warning is being presented that we are way behind in what we need to be doing to avert this crisis. We are making it far worse and congratulating ourselves for doing so!
Of death and life: since Samoa, I have grown ten years older, closer to the reality of my death. Truly, I live with this prospect and possibility. I am like the Apostle Paul, who used somewhat unusual imagery to acknowledge these realities, suggesting that the life we live now is like a tent (he would know, having worked in that trade), whilst there are other dimensions he likens to a building, much more solid and permanent. (Second Corinthians 5. 1 – 5). In this current life we live with transitoriness. It can all be swept away in an instant. It can be torn, cut to pieces, or corrode from within. So it can. But the point of all this is not to say how bad it is, not to deride the body (as many ancient ethical and religious perspectives did, and some do today); nor was it to lament the misfortunes of his own circumstances compared with others. The Apostle, and I with him, was deeply grateful for all that life had given him and, with due acknowledgement that it is indeed all as transitory or vulnerable as a tent, he celebrates life and looks forward to all that is to come, seen or unseen.
Paul affirms life in the face of and indeed in the presence of death, simply trusting that this is not all lost, not without meaning, but will rather be taken up into a greater, richer, more permanent reality for which we have only images, metaphors and hope. Perhaps Paul knew what this acute vulnerability of the present life meant for him, as for some period of his life he was imprisoned and awaiting likely execution. I have no such crisis, though such horrors are the reality for many of our fellow humans today, in war zones, in refugee camps where life is so fragile, and in many kinds of prisons and detention centres. I do not pretend even to know what it can be like for them, and do not presume to speak for them. But I do acknowledge their reality.
For myself, in this week of anniversary, I rejoice in the gift of life, for me in these last ten years, and my family with me too; for the gift of a new life, the promise of life long beyond my time and what I will know; and then too the gift of a quality of life, life with hope, with love, with meaning and possibility, for as long as it lasts.