Thoughts

Benedicamus Domino!

I usually come to this journal when I'm feeling pensive, and tonight is no exception. I just heard of the death of a man whom I only vaguely knew. He appears to have died in his sleep of what may be a heart attack. He was in his forties. I saw him in January and he seemed in good spirits, but he didn't know the end was coming. He had no way of knowing it. Indeed, very few of us do know when our lives will end, none of us very precisely at any rate. It always gets me when I hear of deaths like this, deaths not due to accident or anything but which happen while a person is asleep or in some instantaneous way which is completely unforeseen by the person or unpreventable.

As a Christian, I'm supposed to sort of take these things in stride. I'm supposed to remember that death comes to us all and that we know not when our souls will be required of us, to speak biblically about it, but it still gets me. It still shakes me up. It still makes me feel like I've wasted my life or am wasting it, that I take time for granted and not as a gift to be treasured and used productively. This man has left children behind, older children yes, but they are barely out of their teens. What could be the reason for that? I know what the reason is according to the theology to which I subscribe. We live in a fallen world, a world filled with death, that is with decay. Things in this world are transitory, including our mortal lives. Did God take him as some sort of mercy? I'll never know of course until my own life ends in this world. Still, this news has come as a shock and a troubling thing. It is good to be troubled, for the pot to be stirred, so I have decided to let this troubling news act on me as it is supposed to. I will embrace it and learn its lessons. May this man, who will remain unnamed in this journal, rest in peace, and may his memory be eternal!

Deo Gratias!