Shock

It is hard to face the morning this morning. Yesterday morning brought a tremendous and saddening shock--a young adult member of our church, Jon Owen, had had a heart attack and died. At the home of his mom for a few days, because he was feeling poorly and needed her help, he had had a very difficult night, and in the morning collapsed of a heart attack, and could not be revived.

I met his mother Susan at McLaren Hospital, where Jon's body was lying in the Trauma Room of the Emergency Department. I spent a couple of hours with Jon's step-father Martin, himself a person who has been in the last seven months through the death of his father, then his own hospitalization including a three week coma, and then the death of his mother. Susan went to be with her mom, Jon's grandmother, who had helped raise Jon and with whom Jon had been living, to share her grief and give her some support.

Jon was a member of our Worship Committee, and this past Sunday was my Worship Associate. He also was a member of our Campus/Young Adult Ministry "534uum (5:34 Forum)" and was putting his heart and soul into three performances of the Rocky Horror Picture Show that were being presented in our Fellowship Hall for Hallowe'en. He was a special person, one of the most regular attenders of our church, a person af varied interest and deep commitment.

I am filled with sadness about his death, and deep concern about his family, and shock for our young adults.

The "Rocky Horror" cast chose to do the final perfomance last night, indicating that Jon would certainly affirm "the show must go on." Brent Smalley wrote an introductory piece that dedicated the performance to Jon's memory.

But I didn't hear Brent's words. On the way to the midnight show, I found out that the father of our Worship Committee chairperson Judy Tipton had died a few hours earlier. And so I drove out to Burton to contact that family.

Is this really a time when the veil between worlds is the thinnest? Is this the time when I might be touched by some force or presence that will let me be satisfied with the present, to accept endings and be set free for new things? Is this All Saints/All Souls time really a time for the New Year?

A ministerial colleague cited a passage from Paul Tillich's "The Shaking of the Foundations" which I found healing today. I discovered that I really want to be able to accept the things that are happening and I really want to accept myself, my finitude, the limited scope of my life and the invitation that this life makes to find eternal meanings--even as people are dying now, as I will one day.

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.
It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life.
It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual,
because we have violated another life, a life which we loved,
or from which we are estranged.
It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference,
our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure
have become intolerable to us.
It strikes us when, year after year, the longed for perfection of life does not appear,
when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades,
when despair destroys all joy and courage.
Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness,
and it is as though a voice were saying:
“You, are accepted. You are accepted,
accepted by that which is greater than you,
and the name of which you do not know.
Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later.
Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much.
Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything;
simply accept the fact that you are accepted.”

The morning seemed dark, the sky seems sad. I sit and wonder what is next. And I breathe.

Good morning (quite a little late).