Dirge Without Music

        Tonight while scrolling through my phone clearing out old texts, I stumbled across a few family messages coordinating travel arrangements to my grandfather's funeral in July 2017. There's likely a reason why I haven't deleted them. With time we all move on, but we each have our own ways of keeping their memories alive. I slowed down my scrolling and came to a stop to read a particular one that caught my eye: “Fwd: Graveside Photo." And there we stood, at the conclusion of the simple ceremony that concluded an entire lifetime... Marked by a newly carved granite stone, and an overturned square patch of naked brown dirt surrounded by a sea of green and grey. I was immediately saddened, uncomfortable, and slightly angered as I was struck once again by the irreplaceable loss, loneliness, and abrupt finality of life.

        How can a near-century of one's life walking this Earth be summed up - and reduced - so humbly and plainly by a small patch of dirt? I know the Genesis answer and the Revelation ending. But when we as humans are faced with the reality of our own mortality on this planet, the picture is still unsettling: We were never created to be comfortable with death. I know... But I do not approve. And I am not resigned. 

Tempus Fugit.  Memento Mori.  Carpe Diem. 

 

Published in 1928, it remains one of the most haunting elegies ever written.

 

• "Then the dust [of mortals] goes back to the ground as it was before, and the breath of life goes back to God who gave it." Ecclesiastes 12:7 (GWT).

• "But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Those who live in the dust will wake up and shout for joy! For your dew is like the dew of dawn, and the earth will give birth to the dead." Isaiah 26:19 (ISV).