For Kamile

 Today I learned that a colleague of mine entered hospice. Her husband made a post on Facebook, which a friend of mine shared with me (I don't have Facebook). She had been battling liver cancer for the last half year or so. She taught classes Wednesday, ending by telling her students, "I love you all."

Thursday, she had terrible pain and went to the hospital, and thence into hospice. Her husband says she does not have much more time.

I knew her only a bit, but she always greeted me as a friend. I saw her present some of her work--music therapy, how mothers' songs comfort their babies. She sang the song she created for her own son when he was small. I heard how much she loved him. I saw how much she loved her work. I saw her stretch herself, try out for and be cast in a play at the local community theatre. I saw how delighted she was to discover this new way of expressing herself through art. 

News of her illness was a blow to us. This latest news is hard and sad.

I need to tell my students I love them more often.

Lord, bless Kamile and her family. 

Grant her peace and comfort as she passes out of this life. 

Grant her family--her husband, her kids--as much peace as they can have. 

Spirit of peace, work through the hospice care folk and the medical professionals to unburden her and her family of any worry about her pain or distress. 

May she and her family know without any question their love for each other. 

May they share the assurance, undimmed by regret or unsaid words, of how grateful they are for each other.

May their love for each other and your love for them drive out fear. 

May love bless their sorrow, making it rich and deep and pure and healing. 

May love imprint memory of this time with the best of Kamile: her joy and care and passion and adventurous spirit.

May love let them carry forward the blessing that is Kamile into the rest of their lives.

May love carry Kamile into the good plan you have for all of us, in to the place where there is no fear or pain, only joyful wonder and happy reunion. 

May her love move those of us she leaves behind to love better:

to love out loud

to love more often

to love in art and song and stage and classroom.

Thank you for Kamile, Lord. Thank you for putting her life and ours into contact. 

God, grant her peace. Grant her family peace. Surround them with your love and comfort.

Amen

Mortal Thoughts

I've been a bit off-the-grid this week. For one thing, I'm visiting my partner up in Illinois, and he lacks a steady internet signal. My access is therefore limited to short stints at the local coffeehouse (a great place appropriately called "The Coffeehouse").

For another, this has been a rough week in terms of mortality. It's unfortunate that in the week following the celebration of Christ's resurrection so many people connected--tangentially, for the most part--to my life have passed away. A friend's mother. My sister's mother-in-law.

The world also lost evangelist and writer Michael Spencer, whom I've written about before. Spencer, who blogged under the moniker "The Internet Monk" (see here), was an intriguing and provocative voice for evangelical reform. He's famous for (among other things) publishing an article version of several of his blog posts, collectively entitled "The Coming Evangelical Collapse." His diagnosis/prognosis of the US church's future struck a chord that continues to resound across evangelicalism and beyond. Doubtless his forthcoming book, Mere Churchianity (completed prior to his death), will make similar waves.

Unfortunately, I never did more than read his writing and enjoy some of his podcasts. I regret that speaking with him in person is no longer a possibility on this plane. Though some of the more conservative/fundamentalist sectors of evangelicalism would likely deny it, Spencer consistently represented a sincere, thoughtful, and deep moderate evangelicalism. He was unafraid to pose challenging, devil's advocate questions to his brothers and sisters, and he modeled an ethic of respectful conversation and interaction with non-evangelicals. All this he did without hedging or weakening the integrity of his core beliefs.

I imagine he and I would have disagreed on a number of key issues about our faith, but I think the encounter would have been mutually bracing, productive, and enjoyable.

The other losses concern people and friends whose privacy I will not risk by ruminating on them here. Besides, I didn't know either one--even through some secondary medium like writing. I experience their passing mainly though the pain of those I love and as a reminder of mortality in general. Obligatory realization alert: people die every day from causes natural and unnatural, inevitable and unjust. I recognize it's a kind of hypocrisy to make heavy weather of death only when it touches me personally. But--what can I say?--I'm human.

I have no deep thoughts here. I wish I could say that the Easter reality makes these occasional reminders of death's proximity moot. But that isn't the case.

In lieu of great ruminations, then, I'll direct anyone reading this to an old post by Spencer, whose thoughts on death from an evangelical perspective exemplify his honest spirit of inquiry. See here.

Lord grant that all those who from their labors rest, rest in peace.

More later,

JF