That Phony Death
My stepbrother has resigned himself to his death in six months.
This is abjectly flooring news, just how brazenly mortality whacks one upside the head. And for him, literally. He's been fighting a brain tumor for about a year. He had chemo, and it was thought that he'd beaten it. But his eyesight was still failing terribly, and at his latest testing they found that his tumor had been as insidious as they had thought all along. It was growing back.
The guy's got a wife and two bright young near-teenage boys. He's got everything to live for and he knows it. He's even blogged quite eloquently about the ordeal, being open and honest in the most visceral terms while displaying that resolved grace you like to see in one with whom you're acquainted. Still...
Death is death.
Not like the more widely marketed media death. Recently O.J. Simpson was going to exploit his notoriety by writing a book "How I Would've Killed My Wife," something like that, and doing a nationally televised interview to sell it. The idea was so repulsive that it was pulled.
But I thought, here's just another way to make death phony. Furthermore, I think of all the people who so stridently protested it, as if they needed to plead with Fox not show it to keep them from being seduced into watching it.
So here's my stepbrother's real death staring him in the face. Thing is, there is that one thing that would turn a very real death into a very real joy. But I don't know that he knows Christ. If he knew Christ, then I'd know he was in the right hands-- that he'd have what it is he genuinely wants, the deep abiding intimacy with the One Who Is Intimacy Always. As it is, he laments not having it with his wife and growing boys. We all would feel that way surely.
But I want him to know Christ.
All I've thought about since I learned about his situation is what I can do to introduce him to Him. I'm not sure, but I think he's pretty dismissive of the whole "Jesus" thing, only because he's been introduced to so many straw-man Jesuses. If I were to say, "Hey! Jesus!" he'd just think
"Oh no, not that church character."
"Oh no, not that fairy tale."
"Thank you, but that religious thing is not for me."
"Um, really, who can know? So if God is there, he'll be a nice guy. I'll be okay."
"Really, I have nothing to do with it anyway. I'm just a part of the Great Cosmic Oneness."
"We're food for worms."
I don't know. Maybe I'm too resigned. I do know how much people, so many people, perhaps even my stepbrother, have been Jesuitically taught to think the most ridiculous things about God. That can be discouraging in light of their expertise at it all.
On the other hand, I do indeed think that if I did say something to him now, he might just be responsive. He is certainly in a state in which, as steeled as he may be, he is facing a real reality that no media concoction or religious jury rig can make any more phony. Maybe that's exactly what's needed for one to see it.
I'm not giving up. It is just my own Catholicist stirrings from the past have me thinking all kinds of fearful things. Aagh. I hate that.
So at that point I do just one thing. What I've been doing all along.
Pray.
That's really what I've got in the face of the World's weapons. Thing is, His weapons are more powerful. Just gotta use 'em. He did say we are to be His flesh and bones.
And then, all I have to do is what I will do, however that is.
Tell him about Hope.
This is abjectly flooring news, just how brazenly mortality whacks one upside the head. And for him, literally. He's been fighting a brain tumor for about a year. He had chemo, and it was thought that he'd beaten it. But his eyesight was still failing terribly, and at his latest testing they found that his tumor had been as insidious as they had thought all along. It was growing back.
The guy's got a wife and two bright young near-teenage boys. He's got everything to live for and he knows it. He's even blogged quite eloquently about the ordeal, being open and honest in the most visceral terms while displaying that resolved grace you like to see in one with whom you're acquainted. Still...
Death is death.
Not like the more widely marketed media death. Recently O.J. Simpson was going to exploit his notoriety by writing a book "How I Would've Killed My Wife," something like that, and doing a nationally televised interview to sell it. The idea was so repulsive that it was pulled.
But I thought, here's just another way to make death phony. Furthermore, I think of all the people who so stridently protested it, as if they needed to plead with Fox not show it to keep them from being seduced into watching it.
So here's my stepbrother's real death staring him in the face. Thing is, there is that one thing that would turn a very real death into a very real joy. But I don't know that he knows Christ. If he knew Christ, then I'd know he was in the right hands-- that he'd have what it is he genuinely wants, the deep abiding intimacy with the One Who Is Intimacy Always. As it is, he laments not having it with his wife and growing boys. We all would feel that way surely.
But I want him to know Christ.
All I've thought about since I learned about his situation is what I can do to introduce him to Him. I'm not sure, but I think he's pretty dismissive of the whole "Jesus" thing, only because he's been introduced to so many straw-man Jesuses. If I were to say, "Hey! Jesus!" he'd just think
"Oh no, not that church character."
"Oh no, not that fairy tale."
"Thank you, but that religious thing is not for me."
"Um, really, who can know? So if God is there, he'll be a nice guy. I'll be okay."
"Really, I have nothing to do with it anyway. I'm just a part of the Great Cosmic Oneness."
"We're food for worms."
I don't know. Maybe I'm too resigned. I do know how much people, so many people, perhaps even my stepbrother, have been Jesuitically taught to think the most ridiculous things about God. That can be discouraging in light of their expertise at it all.
On the other hand, I do indeed think that if I did say something to him now, he might just be responsive. He is certainly in a state in which, as steeled as he may be, he is facing a real reality that no media concoction or religious jury rig can make any more phony. Maybe that's exactly what's needed for one to see it.
I'm not giving up. It is just my own Catholicist stirrings from the past have me thinking all kinds of fearful things. Aagh. I hate that.
So at that point I do just one thing. What I've been doing all along.
Pray.
That's really what I've got in the face of the World's weapons. Thing is, His weapons are more powerful. Just gotta use 'em. He did say we are to be His flesh and bones.
And then, all I have to do is what I will do, however that is.
Tell him about Hope.
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