Death Interrupts

Over the weekend I officiated at two different memorial services. Along the way it occurred to me that death in our lives always comes as an interruption. We plan for births, for hot dates, for the perfect marriage, and quality schooling. We block out time to work and play and sleep. But death (with a few disturbing exceptions) never fits neatly into a schedule. It comes too fast or lingers too long. It arrives with abrupt impact or slowly strips a gifted friend of all we cling to as worthwhile.

And because feels so disconnected from the rest of “life” death forces me—and others I suspect—to a unique kind of attentiveness to the possibility or reality of God. Something in our gut says death is not something we can control and yet something that must be controlled. Death running loose is a terrifying thing and I think we intuitively feel death must not have the final word. Enter God.

The temptation is to use such a moment of corporate hush to try to close some “deal” spiritually. All too often these efforts become crude attempts to manipulate emotions or prey on fears by the militant ‘Church Nazi’ just begging to get out of too many of us. Yet I doubt if anything damages real attentiveness in us more than manipulation and fear-mongering.

The more I chew on it, the more I think I’d rather try to honor such openness that appears when death interrupts with honest grace: grace that lifts up God’s love with equal conviction whether the life we gather to remember was lived well or poorly.

The challenge is to avoid going Nazi or slipping off the other edge into sappy. In between is a dance floor where I think the real God waits for us with hope and the promise of resurrection for all willing to step onto the floor. And something tells me the music—even when death interrupts—sounds a lot like Salsa.