R. Joseph Owles
Layton’s Funeral Home
June 2004
An aged and bitter Mark Twain wrote shortly before his death:
A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle;……they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow;……those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It (the release) comes at last——the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them——and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence,...a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.””
This may sound a like a harsh commentary on the matters of life and death, but Mark Twain shared the same sort of blunt honesty about the matter as did the author of Book of Ecclesiastes, who stated that life was the “Vanity of vanities!” to put this into contemporary English, it means that life is Absolutely pointless!
“Absolutely pointless!” says the teacher. “Absolutely pointless! Everything is pointless!” ... Neither the wise person nor the fool will be remembered for long, since both will be forgotten in the days to come. Both the wise person and the fool will die. So I came to hate life because everything done under the sun seemed wrong to me. Everything was pointless. It was like trying to catch the wind ... what do people get from all of their hard work and struggles under the sun? Their entire life is filled with pain, and their work is unbearable. Even at night their minds don’t rest. Even this is pointless.”
Like it or not, Death is powerful. It is active, it is hungry, and it never seems to grow tired from its labor. John Updike once wrote that “Death, once invited in, leaves its muddy footprints everywhere.” And so we gather here today, mired and muddied from the recent visit of Death in our lives. And we are now left with the task of cleaning up the mess it has left. I hate it! It hurts and I hate it! I am reminded of the words of, Edna St. Vincent Millay, who wrote about Death: “I know, but i do not approve, and i am not resigned, I will die, but that is all that i shall do for death.”
God, I hate death! I hate it! I have seen too much of it! We have all seen too much of it. I’m weary of it. Too many people that I have known have died! I hate it! There is no word emphatic enough in the English language, there is no word emphatic enough in any human language, to adequately capture the measure of hatred I feel toward death. It hurts that life comes down to either watching the people we know and love succumbing to death, or facing death ourselves. This is our curse: Either those we love watch us die, or we watch those we love die. That’s it. That’s life. It all too often seems absolutely pointless. And it hurts! And I hate it!
I don’t think that it is a betrayal of faith to realize and accept that in this world, for the moment, death holds the best hand, and most of us spend our lives attempting to affix our best poker faces as we bluff, pretending to hold on to something that is more valuable than what we truly possess. And in the end we bet and we raise and we lose. Death holds all the cards. And it hurts. And I hate it!
The Apostle Paul promises us that one day death will be subdued by the victory of Christ. But he also tells us that death is alive and well until that time. Death is the last enemy to be destroyed. And when it is finally destroyed we will join together in a taunting chorus, saying, “Death where is your victory? Death where is your sting?” Because the victory of death will have been swallowed up by the victory of Christ. But today is not that day. And it hurts! And I hate it!
Gus was my father and I was his son. I always put the word “step” in front of the “father” and he put the word “step” in front of the “son,” but I know that he was more of a father to me than the man who helped give me life, and I was as much of a son to him as the one he gave life to. There is an old saying that anyone can be a father but it takes a lot to be a dad. Another man may have helped to give me life, but it was Gus who helped to give me a life. Gus was my dad; I was his son. We never said it to each other very often, but we both knew it. Now, for a second time in my life, I find myself without a father. And it hurts! And I hate it!
This is not to say that Gus and I did not have our differences. Unfortunately for the both of us, we were often far too alike to get along well. But I see now that what we fought in each other was what we both fought in ourselves. And it is sad that we never had the chance to see each other for whom and for what we really were. We were both blinded to each other by our egos and our opinions and our limited world-views. There we too many times when both of our egos were so big that they shoved out everything else from the room. But in spite of these all too frequent moments, I never doubted that he loved me and I never doubted that I loved him.
It is sad that we spend so much of our lives not saying the things we should, while we say all the things we shouldn’t. It is sad that the people we love die before we ever find the courage or the conviction to say what it is we always wanted to say. It is sad that people die before we ever get the chance to make up for past hurts, past insults. It is sad and it seems pointless. It hurts and I hate it!
Gus was a major influence on me for nearly three decades. And for good or for bad, there is a lot of Gus in me. Just as there is a lot of Gus in his biological children. We were all his children and we all bear his stamp As long as we are alive, so is Gus. We each share a portion of his personality. Gus lives in us. Gus lives in what he did for each of us. Gus lives in what he taught each of us. Gus lives! Gus will continue to live! Gus will continue to speak to us in that small still voice that some call conscience, that others call conviction. But we no longer hear Gus’ voice spoken out loud by him. We may hear it from time to time in each other, but we will no longer hear it from him. And it hurts! And I hate it!
The hardest thing that any of us can do in this world is to live in it. Gus’ hard work is over. For the moment, ours continues. It hurts! And because it hurts, I hate it. Gus is dead. Death has stung. But I choose to believe that this is not the end of the matter. Death has won, but only for the moment. And it hurts. And we all hate it. Death appears to be the victor. And I’ll admit for the moment death has won. But the moment is fleeting. This world is merely a brief hiccup in eternity. Death itself will perish. The day is coming (let it come soon, Lord,) when death will be no more. In our pain, in our confusion, in our sorrow we cry out “How long, Lord? How long until our victory? How long, Lord, until we get to be the taunters of the dark force that taunts us? How long? How long until we get to feel like the conquerors that we are promised to be? How long?”
I don’t know when it will be. I only know that it will be. At the same moment, we shall all be raised. And we shall see each other for the first time, though we have seen each other many times before. On that day, Gus and I will see each other once more. And on that day we will see each other for the first time as we truly are. We will each of us be stripped of our egos, of our projections, of our resentments, of our own limited views of reality, of everything that stood in the way of us authentically seeing each other in this life. We will see each other, and at that moment, the love that has always been there will be a paltry shadow compared to the love that we will then have for each other. I will call him dad and he will call me son, and we will have all of eternity to undo all of the hurts we may have caused each other in this all too brief, hiccup of a moment we call life.
This is our hope. This is our expectation. Amen, Lord Jesus, come quickly, so that we may all be united in your kingdom. Comfort us who are living, until such time that we all will gather around your table, and celebrate forever our life in God, which has been purchased by your suffering death and glorious resurrection.
In another life, my father and my friend, in another life.
Amen.
