I didn't know Bob except as an acquaintance, only that he was a marina regular, had suffered a debilitating work-related injury at some point in his past, had lost almost 60 pounds in the past 3 months and had recently given up drinking entirely ... running, working out & exercising instead.
Oh, and he spoke with a raspy New Jersey accent so LOUD I'm surprised the Statue of Liberty didn't hear it and call someone to complain ... because the more Bob drank, the louder and more incoherent he became.
I hardly knew Bob at all.
The last time I saw Bob was Tuesday night: he was entering the same steak joint down the street just as I was just leaving. It was the only time I'd seen him sober ... and the only time I clearly understood what he was saying.
Working out, losing weight and giving up alcohol seemed to have taken 20 years from his appearance and turned him into a different person, one I'm not sure I would've recognized ... except that of course, Bob still couldn't outrun or work-out his gritty accent.
Wow Bob was happy and looked great on the outside that night; the difference from the Bob I knew was more than startling. But Bob died just 56 hours later.
And Bob was two years younger than me.
-- -- --
You can already feel the curtain of indifference closing in around Bob and his sudden, unscheduled departure. Sure folks were stunned upon hearing the news, but only because we live in a culture of egotistical denial that perceives death as a perpetually postponable event.
In other words, we like to think that dying is Something That Happens to the Other Guy: if we're careful enough, wear selt-belts & drive responsibly behind airbags, race to the doctor at the first sign of snot or a cough, munch seeds for lunch and grill soy patties (insteak of fat-marbled steak) for dinner, then why ever bother with dying in the first place? Why can't life just keep on going, without interrupting our plans?
We think of death as though it's some kind of preventable condition.
Because our lives ... our careers, our relationships, our wealth and our selfish ambitions are too important for reality to ever confront and supercede. Thank You for ordering life your way ... want fries with that?
Now pull around to the next window, please.
-- -- --
When the world treats D-E-A-D as the ultimate 4-letter word, is it any surprise that expressing concern or anxiety about What 's Going to Happen to Me When I Die? is an intellectual taboo? Isn't that what the world wants us to believe?
"You dummy, what happens when you die is simple: you die. That's it, the end, period. Finito. Just like what happened to your chimpanzee great-grand daddy two million years ago. And to his great-great slimy amoeba father before that. You die, you go back into the ground ... and eventually get recycled to become part of harmony of the earth."
Huh?
If you believe that, then why are we alive in the first place, except as an evolutionary accident ... and if our lives amount to nothing more than a haphazard 70 year-or-so sequence of chemical events, why does anyone even bother thinking about "What's gonna happen when I die?"
Why do so many people live according to the world's standards, yet still feel such a spiritual hunger and emptiness in their lives?
Because the world's interests are its own, with values and doctrines geared toward satisfying what the world believes matters most: itself.
-- -- --
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
- Genesis 1:27
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.
- Romans 5:12
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
- John 3:17
For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
- John 6:33
-- -- --
But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
- 1 Timothy 1:16
