Permanence of Memory
Yesterday during one of her reflections, our minister spoke of Easter as a time for remembering those who have died in the past year. I like that idea: those who die, like anything in nature, make room - and indeed provide a foundation - for existing and new life.
Another powerful idea is that death is the ultimate expression of the impermanence of life, and thus of all things. I've contemplated that a lot lately.
This started last month when I learned about the death of Tom Fox, a civilian member of a Christian Peacemaker Team who was killed in Iraq after being held captive for four months.
I never met Tom, but I believe he was a person who lived his calling trying to bring something good to a terrible place. It's painfully ironic that he died doing that while I escaped my time in Iraq unscathed, serving in the military that contributed to the environment that led to his capture and murder. Maybe that's why I'm so compelled by his action, his witness, his life.
I've learned more about Tom from my Quaker friend John, who knew Tom both through their Meeting and as a co-worker. I have great respect and affection for John, and seeing and feeling the depth and strength of his regard for this man makes me believe that Tom Fox is someone I really wish to have known personally.
And this brings me back to impermanence - or in this case permanence: Tom is still as alive as he ever was to me, being someone I knew only by reputation and mutual acquaintance. He will always be this alive to me, so in one way at least this transcends the impermanence of death. Can I apply this thinking to people I've known directly who have died? Can I see that the impermanence of their physical lives is meaningless compared to how they live on within me? Can my life speak of the way I am touched by all the people I know? Will my (impermanent) life touch the lives of others and lead to my own permanence in memory?
Maybe there are such things as immortality and resurrection.
posted by Greg @ 12:43 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Greg, thank you for your tender reflections.
As I assess my memories with Tom, our friendship, the writings and books that I inherit from him, it seems pressing to care tenderly for something that emerged in his witness, something that didn't start with him, but that he dedicated so much of his spirit to through loving service:
The Servant Church.
It appeared lucidly during his captivity, as faithful communities around the world united across the most volatile boundaries to support freedom for the peacemakers. When Tom's colleague Jim Loney was freed, he spoke about the "great hand of solidarity" that reached out for them, "a hand that included the hands of Palestinian children holding pictures of us, and the hands of the British soldier who cut our chains with a bolt cutter." The servant church is united by no common creed or ritual practice but by a shared covenant to redeem humans from suffering and death; to establish the Peaceable Kingdom as a way of life based on servanthood, in the midst of the apocalypse that surrounds us.
If we are to live out the Risen Life that we celebrate on Easter, caring for this covenant falls now on us, the more so for those of us who shared meals with Tom and learned from him as a friend and mentor.
The servant church vocation can hardly be taken on by one person, and it is my hope that we can gather around this matter as a people, in order to discover its historical depth and prophetic initiative in our own communities.
I am looking to start an informal group study to illuminate these ideas further through readings and reflective sharing. I don't know if many will be drawn to participate, but it is my sense that the servant church covenant is a heritable legacy that is embedded in our prophetic heritage and carried out in the living testament of Tom's human struggle in our midst. And it is now our task to bequeath that inheritance to another generation in whatever way we can.
Please feel free to share this with anyone who may be interested.
loving regards,
john paul
Post a Comment
<< Home