on death and loving the lonely and dispondant
One of my high school classmates died a couple days ago.
I don't know how. I wasn't at all close to her. In fact, she was always odd and unsocial. She was the kind of person I teased in Jr. High to keep others from teasing me so much. I always felt bad about that. I remember once, in grade seven, every guy that got up to get a drink of water or sharpen a pencil would grab a National Geographic on the way back and slip in on her desk. By the time I worked up the nerve, or stupidity, to do this her desk was as full as her patience. She picked me to hurl the magazine at. It clocked me right in the head. In retrospect this was a lot funnier than actually putting a magazine on someone's desk. It took far more guts to throw a book at someone's head. I, of course, got caught and had to write an essay on why what I had done was wrong. I was so ashamed I made sure to finish the assignment before the end of the day so I wouldn't have to explain the essay to my parents who would have inflicted farm more pain than a book to the head.
She was just odd and never was able to socialize herself. I suppose this is difficult when your parents laminate an 8x10 school photo of you every year on the side of their car! My fiend's first memory of her is of her ridding her unicycle to school in grade 5. I can not count the number of times I told the story of how she would pummel the shit out of her Jr. Mints in the palm of her hand, rendering it a micro-thin pancake which she would peel up and eat. She had a pet OH-possum Hunnybunch which lived in her yard. She would stack her Oreo cookies into a leaning tower of frosting. Mind you, this is still going on in GRADE 12!
We had our 20th, and first, high school reunion this last summer. She managed to show up, awkward as always. She was there though, and i felt glad that she would go. A lot of people made an effort to talk with her, even though she was still quiet and socially awkward.
Today, I found out she died. She was only 38. I've been watching a lot of Six Feet Under (only ONE episode to go), and I am writing an essay for the Easter edition of my parish newsletter on Christian Death in the Anglican Tradition. Death has been on my mind a fair amount lately. She lived alone. She never dated, and had a very small circle of friends if any. This passing stuck me as so very lonely, a wasted life. How difficult to have existed in such a lonely vacuum. I don't think any amount of encouragement would have lead her out of her shell. I will try to attend the funeral tomorrow. If nothing else to affirm that every life is sacred, no matter how little it seemed to register in the blip of history, or how little other valued it.
Working in a restaurant part time I easily become disgusted with humanity. The rudeness, the greed and arrogance, and the vapid and shallow mindless copulating hordes make me weary of contemporary culture. This is a reminder of how often how little I value each and every life. I find it hard to love as God loves, each and every person. This death makes me acutely aware of all of this. So often, the simple drudgery of daily life and the horrors in the world keep us from loving as we ought to love.
For all Poor, Homeless, and Neglected Folk.
O GOD, Almighty and merciful, who healest those that are broken in heart, and turnest the sadness of the sorrowful to joy; Let thy fatherly goodness be upon all that thou hast made. Remember in pity such as are this day destitute, homeless, or forgotten of their fellow-men. Bless the congregation of thy poor. Uplift those who are cast down. Mightily befriend innocent sufferers, and sanctify to them the endurance of their wrongs. Cheer with hope all discouraged and unhappy people, and by thy heavenly grace preserve from falling those whose penury tempteth them to sin; though they be troubled on every side, suffer them not to be distressed; though they be perplexed, save them from despair. Grant this, O Lord, for the love of him, who for our sakes became poor, thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
-Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 1928
I don't know how. I wasn't at all close to her. In fact, she was always odd and unsocial. She was the kind of person I teased in Jr. High to keep others from teasing me so much. I always felt bad about that. I remember once, in grade seven, every guy that got up to get a drink of water or sharpen a pencil would grab a National Geographic on the way back and slip in on her desk. By the time I worked up the nerve, or stupidity, to do this her desk was as full as her patience. She picked me to hurl the magazine at. It clocked me right in the head. In retrospect this was a lot funnier than actually putting a magazine on someone's desk. It took far more guts to throw a book at someone's head. I, of course, got caught and had to write an essay on why what I had done was wrong. I was so ashamed I made sure to finish the assignment before the end of the day so I wouldn't have to explain the essay to my parents who would have inflicted farm more pain than a book to the head.
She was just odd and never was able to socialize herself. I suppose this is difficult when your parents laminate an 8x10 school photo of you every year on the side of their car! My fiend's first memory of her is of her ridding her unicycle to school in grade 5. I can not count the number of times I told the story of how she would pummel the shit out of her Jr. Mints in the palm of her hand, rendering it a micro-thin pancake which she would peel up and eat. She had a pet OH-possum Hunnybunch which lived in her yard. She would stack her Oreo cookies into a leaning tower of frosting. Mind you, this is still going on in GRADE 12!
We had our 20th, and first, high school reunion this last summer. She managed to show up, awkward as always. She was there though, and i felt glad that she would go. A lot of people made an effort to talk with her, even though she was still quiet and socially awkward.
Today, I found out she died. She was only 38. I've been watching a lot of Six Feet Under (only ONE episode to go), and I am writing an essay for the Easter edition of my parish newsletter on Christian Death in the Anglican Tradition. Death has been on my mind a fair amount lately. She lived alone. She never dated, and had a very small circle of friends if any. This passing stuck me as so very lonely, a wasted life. How difficult to have existed in such a lonely vacuum. I don't think any amount of encouragement would have lead her out of her shell. I will try to attend the funeral tomorrow. If nothing else to affirm that every life is sacred, no matter how little it seemed to register in the blip of history, or how little other valued it.
Working in a restaurant part time I easily become disgusted with humanity. The rudeness, the greed and arrogance, and the vapid and shallow mindless copulating hordes make me weary of contemporary culture. This is a reminder of how often how little I value each and every life. I find it hard to love as God loves, each and every person. This death makes me acutely aware of all of this. So often, the simple drudgery of daily life and the horrors in the world keep us from loving as we ought to love.
For all Poor, Homeless, and Neglected Folk.
O GOD, Almighty and merciful, who healest those that are broken in heart, and turnest the sadness of the sorrowful to joy; Let thy fatherly goodness be upon all that thou hast made. Remember in pity such as are this day destitute, homeless, or forgotten of their fellow-men. Bless the congregation of thy poor. Uplift those who are cast down. Mightily befriend innocent sufferers, and sanctify to them the endurance of their wrongs. Cheer with hope all discouraged and unhappy people, and by thy heavenly grace preserve from falling those whose penury tempteth them to sin; though they be troubled on every side, suffer them not to be distressed; though they be perplexed, save them from despair. Grant this, O Lord, for the love of him, who for our sakes became poor, thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
-Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 1928