Weekends are always an emotional mixture of relaxation with the family and wrestling with the ideas that swirl in my mind in regard to Sunday morning's message - no matter how prepared I am, as the teaching pastor, it is difficult to shake the sensation of cramming for the "big final" the next morning...digressing ...anyway, this past Saturday Kathy planned for us to take a day and explore our fair city. So the "Harris 8" set off on a touristy whirlwind to the Birmingham Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, the Vulcan and (my personal favorite) the Sloss Furnace. We took a break for lunch...stopped and got the greatest hamburger ever made (they're running a special right now) and on the T.V. behind me I heard them mention that a singer had been found dead earlier that day. The pretty talking head said the name of the deceased was Amy Winehouse.
I must admit I know nothing of the music, but am somewhat familiar with the tormented life. When I heard the news of her death, I paused to watch the report for about 20 seconds...then went and refilled my small soft drink. It didn't occur to me how effortlessly I handled the report of her passing until we were back in the car and on the way to our next destination. Famous people come...and then depart this mortal coil periodically (she is the 41st celebrity to die this year according to one web site) without negatively affecting my daily routine. Someone may mention her tomorrow at work and I'm liable to say something like, "I know...I heard...do they know how she died?" Likely, it would be (quite literally) morbid curiosity rather than prayerful compassion that drives me...more paparazzi than piety. She seemed to have lived a hard life and though I must claim complete ignorance here, I pondered whether or not her lifestyle and life choices contributed to her premature demise?"
What a hollow and trivial thought. Not to mention that it misses the point entirely. For her family - does it decrease the amount of tears that flow? For her friends - does it alter the depths of the felt pain? For those who followed and even benefitted in some way from her career - does it alleviate the void of unrealized possibilities? Death is brutish like that. It tears two things apart that were not supposed to come apart. Pet from owner...friend from friend...husband from wife...soul from body...and here is where it matters most - Son from Father. So it is to the Son that I turn to in seeking answers as to how I should approach death...any death. His perfect sovereign mind that considers fallen sparrows, certainly considers broken singers? This I know: He hates death...mourned His friend...prayed against His own...died to defeat it.
So I must ask myself - How was I able to dismiss this 27-year-old artist's passing so quickly...so deftly? My prayer tonight is that death would affect my thoughts as it does the One Who overcame it...that when I hear of someone's...anyone's passing, it would serve as a stark reminder that sin...my sin...gives it sway. But here is the wonderfully paradoxical thought...it is His death and resurrection that even in physical death...takes it away.