Pilgrimage Ponderings
On Facing Death and Embracing Life
This morning, we have been scanning the various news shows trying to learn more about the fire in Charleston, South Carolina that resulted in the deaths of 9 firefighters. We lived in the Charleston district for 11 years, and on the same side of town where the fire was for 5 years.
A tragedy like this one always grips me. But realizing that we might know some of the lost firefighters, or at least their families, is even more heartbreaking. We are in that all-too-human place of being terribly sorry for the loss of life but hoping with all our hearts that the loss does not affect people we know and care about.
One thing that struck me this morning was just how commonplace loss of life is in the news. This morning, news reports skipped from the fire in Charleston to flooding elsewhere in the nation that resulted in the death of children, to the car bomb in Baghdad that killed over 60 people in a mosque. Death and loss are a part of the reality of life that we as a society want to overcome, cheat, and defeat.
Since my brother-in-law died, I have been much more tuned in to how many folks in the world suffer great loss at the "wrong" time of life. I have been thinking about how important it is to treasure every moment and to not wait for "someday" to create special memories with family and friends.
We live in an either/or society when it comes to work. It seems that people are working all the time, except for when they take a vacation and play as a hard as they work. I think this attitude comes, in part, from trying to deny the reality of death. When we face that reality, it gives us the opportunity to make some different choices about how we embrace life in each moment of the day.
