When death comes knocking

My dad is not doing well. He is in the last stages of a disease that will take him soon. It is becoming clearer to me, how brief our life on this earth is. Life is like the fog; it envelopes us in the morning, and burns off by noon.

As I look through a 4^th story window in the hospital where my dad is being treated, I can see the town where he spent many healthy years as a young man, cutting his path in life.

And now, just a few miles away, he lies in this hospital bed at the end of that journey; one can say this is the ‘circle of life.’ As King Solomon says ‘Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.’

I am also confronted with the notion that when my dad passes, the barrier between mortality and me is removed. And now I come face to face with my own death. Death has come knocking, not only for my dad, but for me, as I contemplate its purpose.

Existential Psychotherapist, Dr. Irvin Yalom says, “Death rumbles continuously under the surface, it is a dark unsettling presence at the rim of consciousness.”  

Death is a human ‘boundary’ that fences us in a world, that is temporal and transitory; a life where all things fade. We only have a brief time on this earth, and the ‘attachments’ I hold on to will burn-off like the fog.

So death is no longer an ‘academic question’ for me, it is here and real. I catch myself taking inventory of what really matters. I ask myself if the things I hold onto really mean much?

My mind flashes to the past resentments or anger at being wronged; all this comes into play when death comes knocking at the door. How much more should I throw those things off that tether me to this earth.

I am a Christian, and along with my dad we stand ‘in Christ’ and await the hope of eternal life. I completely understand ‘death’ has no power; I get that. But while I am here, on this earth right now, I am confronted with deaths’ finality on this side of heaven.   

We ‘believers’ sometimes miss ‘deaths’ lessons. It was easy to brush it aside-until now. Death is here; in my face, and now I understand who I am and my limitations. It is becoming clearer what really counts in this life, and what I can let go of.

With this lesson in mind, my faith is strengthened; not only in the knowledge that my dad will be in a better place, but while on this earth there are some things not worth being attached to.

When death comes knocking I will hold on to Faith-Hope and Love and from there, I will decide what really matters.  

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What have we become? A reflection on being human

From the time Cain murdered Abel in a jealous rage, history reveals to us that cruel and callous behavior are nothing new to humanity. Probably the only difference is that this cruelty is posted on YouTube.  

One day, in a crime-ridden, south Chicago neighborhood, a 17 year old boy was beaten ruthlessly by thugs wielding a 2 X 4. Another teen, being a Good Samaritan, jumped in to help. But from behind, he was cold cocked by one of the attackers, wielding the 2X4 board.

I watched this brutality on the news. It was captured by a camera phone. The video shows the teen being hit, and as he was he trying to walk away, he stumbled to the ground. While lying there, lifeless, a punk kicked him in the head. He died later that day of massive head injuries.

Afterwards, the news media was interviewing witnesses, and a grieving grandmother, visibly anguished, cried out “What have we become!?”

Watching this violent beat-down on the news, it generated a lot of anger inside me; anger at the ease, by which one human can mercilessly beat another.

But what really disturbed me, was the “kick in the head” of a helpless teen, lying lifeless on the ground. It has been a few years since this incident, but I can’t shake the image.

The absence of ‘humanity’ in this sadistic act exposed the demonic power of evil. An evil ‘act’ happens when ones ‘humanity’ is stripped from them.

And when this happens the person is no longer seen as an individual with dignity and worth. Instead the person becomes an object; an impersonal nameless, faceless ‘abstract.’

Although the above incident was a few years ago, the grandmother’s anguished question has become a starting point for me when I hear of such callous treatment of people, I ask myself: “what have we become?”

We have become a culture severely deficient of ‘humanity’ in our politics; in our discourse and in our actions towards others with a different point of view.

We divide one another up by race, class, sexual orientation, gender and religious beliefs, among other numerous classifications and hyphenated groups; an abstracted humanity.

And when we reduce people to a ‘pigment color’ or a financial status, we remove their humanity. The person becomes an object to be exploited and a ‘means’ to a political or ideological end.

What have we become?

We have become a culture without the knowledge of a holy, loving and just God. Instead we have built a Tower of Babel and declared ourselves god. Thereby we removed our humanity and replaced it with a false divinity.   

It’s time to return to earth and reclaim our humanity and treat others with the dignity and worth as fellow humans.

We can ask ourselves ‘What have we become? But a further question that could be our starting point is “What will we be?”

Will we live the 'Dream?': a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.

"I have a dream, that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."  

~ Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

On August 28^th 1963, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. told us he had a dream; a dream that one day ‘ones race’ would not matter, and that we would live out the true meaning of our nations creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Full speech here: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

As we honor Martin Luther King Jrs’ 83rd birthday, I am contemplating his ‘prophetic dream’ and the creed, by which he called on us to ‘live out.’

If we truly ‘lived out’ this self evident truth, that all men (and women) are created equal, it would mean that ‘ones race’ would no longer be a measurement of a person’s dignity and worth. It would also mean that 'pigment,' does not give us, ‘rights;’ instead, our 'rights,' come from God.

The whole concept of ‘race,’ would be exposed as the fraud it is. 'Race' would be rendered insignificant, and of no use in the daily discourse of a free nation. This was the prophetic essence of Reverend King’s dream; the invalidation of ‘race’ as a measurement of a person’s worth.

Our generation has a responsibility to confront the great moral questions of our day. And the question of ‘race’ and its significance continues to be our cultures obsession; why?

There are two polar beliefs that are coursing its way through our cultures discourse; either ‘race’ matters, and is an essential part in measuring a persons’ worth, or ‘race does not matter, and is irrelevant to a person’s worth.

Martin Luther King Jr. waged his ‘civil rights’ moral fight against the belief that ‘race’ matters. At that time, the ‘white race’ mattered, and because it mattered, it was legitimized.

This legitimization, brought with it ominous manifestations, such as segregation; Jim Crow laws; a ‘racist’ narrative of white privilege and power, insidious ‘norms’ which engendered racism, and gave credence to this evil belief, that one’s ‘race’ deemed them superior or inferior.

When the civil rights laws were inked, in the blood of Martin Luther King Jr., and millions of other non-violent warriors, this fraudulent belief was reckoned illegitimate.

But this belief did not die; the fight continues today.   

If our generation continues down this ‘archaic and in-humane path, that ‘race matters,’ then we will be threatened with its odious manifestations; such as 'racist identity groups ;' accusations of racism; the ‘race card, and a constant drip-drip-drip of racial fixation, in every social and political conversation; which leads to ‘race fatigue.’

But if our starting point is that ‘race’ does not matter, then we will come to see it for what it truly is; that ‘race’ is a social and political construct, used to exploit one group of people over another.

Our choice will determine what kind of people we will be. We will either be a people of the ‘dream’ and carry on Reverend King’s legacy, which is to ‘live out’ the self evident truth, that all people are created equal. 

Or we will be a ‘race obsessed’ people where some people are more equal than others, depending on our pigment.


Will we live the dream and be free or we will die in our race obsessed nightmare.