intjonathan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
intjonathan) wrote2003-03-03 04:37 pm
intjonathan) wrote2003-03-03 04:37 pm
Is this life God?!
But where do I start? One year, any year, you can't sum it up in a paragraph or a page. A year measured from death to anniversary, you can't just say "well, there it goes." It changes you, profoundly and violently.
It is strange that now, a year later, the date is 03-03-03 - a trinity of trinities. Thrice lucky. By all accounts I should be buying lottery tickets and joining football pools. Instead I must ponder what could be considered the unluckiest event of a lifetime. That's what they call life I guess.
I have such a narrow perspective, such a small inkling of what these two deaths have meant and do mean to the hundreds of people who hear of them. I can hardly grasp the changes in myself, much less others. So I will start with myself.
The first is mortality. I've always had a very weak stomach for televised violence, but "death" in the abstract (Titanic, etc.), it happens. This year, things like funerals in movies just cut me to the quick. Nothing but bad memories, now. It's a superficial thing, really - suddenly I understand a feeling being expressed - but it is evidence of a much deeper hurt that just sits, like a rock in your shoe that hurts to walk on. Tread carefully.
I have records that I haven't listened to in almost a year. I still can't, though I suppose it would be appropriate to drag them back out today in some grim commemorative listen. f#a#oo and Speakeasy I don't even carry around. I still listen to The Nothing Venture though it hurts every time, and the Microphones' "Map" basically makes me regress 12 months. Again, somewhat of a superficial choice, but it's almost a denial symptom or something.
A lot of real-world things come directly from that event. The cars I and my sister drive, for instance. The friends I still talk to and how I talk to them - I've watched josh change completely, which I can understand but it's sad to see. My LAN parties are short one gamer and a good friend. No more homeschool get-togethers - face it, those funerals were the last hurrah for us as a homeschool group. You just can't bring those same people together without the echoes of death sounding resonant.
Every single day something from March 3rd, 2002 affects my life and my routine. There are roads I fear to drive, I pray when I see car accidents, I count my regrets driving home late at night. Nobody talks about the Carneys or the Christiansens anymore in any kind of normal context, those families are marked.
I'm not calling any of this bad. Depressing, sure, but death has consequences. If there was anything that I actually want to remember from that week it's that I always had the sense that this was part of a plan God had. Not that he willed it, but that he would deal with it. Am I so prideful to think that God cannot make tremendous good flow from tragic death? He knows how to deal with death, He did it and solved it. How much more will he solve it for those who have not died? And how completely he has solved it for Jason and Alina! I recieved a card from the Carneys today with one of Jason's poems, a beautiful one about the end of the world. And I realized I still envy their leaving this world. I felt it strongly a year ago - how dare you leave us here - and it passes now but visits occasionally. What brings it on is the finality of it all, I mean whether you've moved on or not, they ain't comin back. You can get pretty down about it, and I have. But the important thing is that there is a plan for this. God didn't take me home March 4th in my accident, though He could've. The car could've swung left into oncoming traffic and you all would've had to attend a third funeral. I have to see clearly that no matter how negative the world looks, even in my moment of wishing I could leave this world behind, given an opportunity, I didn't. I'm supposed to be here and live my life.
And so live I do, only differently now, having faced death and come out changed. Scarred, but stronger. Though if you asked me today how I was doing, I would be lying if I said I was OK. I don't know where the lines and branches of this event end, but I have a promise:
"For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD , 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. " Jeremiah 29:11
I have leaned so hard on that verse this year, and it has stayed solid. You've probably all seen it before, but there is truth and power in those words. It's so stupidly simplistic, but truth has a way of being direct.
I don't know how to end this, I'm not writing it to impress people or make you feel better, worse or different. I guess what I want you to remember is that we are God's hands here on earth. For reasons known only to God, he decided to take the bearers of four very powerful, loving hands home. I believe it is our responsibility as their friends to pick up the tasks they left behind. The capacity for exceptional love and service is built into all of us by God. If we will follow Him we can expect to affect others as profoundly as Jason and Alina affected us.
It is strange that now, a year later, the date is 03-03-03 - a trinity of trinities. Thrice lucky. By all accounts I should be buying lottery tickets and joining football pools. Instead I must ponder what could be considered the unluckiest event of a lifetime. That's what they call life I guess.
I have such a narrow perspective, such a small inkling of what these two deaths have meant and do mean to the hundreds of people who hear of them. I can hardly grasp the changes in myself, much less others. So I will start with myself.
The first is mortality. I've always had a very weak stomach for televised violence, but "death" in the abstract (Titanic, etc.), it happens. This year, things like funerals in movies just cut me to the quick. Nothing but bad memories, now. It's a superficial thing, really - suddenly I understand a feeling being expressed - but it is evidence of a much deeper hurt that just sits, like a rock in your shoe that hurts to walk on. Tread carefully.
I have records that I haven't listened to in almost a year. I still can't, though I suppose it would be appropriate to drag them back out today in some grim commemorative listen. f#a#oo and Speakeasy I don't even carry around. I still listen to The Nothing Venture though it hurts every time, and the Microphones' "Map" basically makes me regress 12 months. Again, somewhat of a superficial choice, but it's almost a denial symptom or something.
A lot of real-world things come directly from that event. The cars I and my sister drive, for instance. The friends I still talk to and how I talk to them - I've watched josh change completely, which I can understand but it's sad to see. My LAN parties are short one gamer and a good friend. No more homeschool get-togethers - face it, those funerals were the last hurrah for us as a homeschool group. You just can't bring those same people together without the echoes of death sounding resonant.
Every single day something from March 3rd, 2002 affects my life and my routine. There are roads I fear to drive, I pray when I see car accidents, I count my regrets driving home late at night. Nobody talks about the Carneys or the Christiansens anymore in any kind of normal context, those families are marked.
I'm not calling any of this bad. Depressing, sure, but death has consequences. If there was anything that I actually want to remember from that week it's that I always had the sense that this was part of a plan God had. Not that he willed it, but that he would deal with it. Am I so prideful to think that God cannot make tremendous good flow from tragic death? He knows how to deal with death, He did it and solved it. How much more will he solve it for those who have not died? And how completely he has solved it for Jason and Alina! I recieved a card from the Carneys today with one of Jason's poems, a beautiful one about the end of the world. And I realized I still envy their leaving this world. I felt it strongly a year ago - how dare you leave us here - and it passes now but visits occasionally. What brings it on is the finality of it all, I mean whether you've moved on or not, they ain't comin back. You can get pretty down about it, and I have. But the important thing is that there is a plan for this. God didn't take me home March 4th in my accident, though He could've. The car could've swung left into oncoming traffic and you all would've had to attend a third funeral. I have to see clearly that no matter how negative the world looks, even in my moment of wishing I could leave this world behind, given an opportunity, I didn't. I'm supposed to be here and live my life.
And so live I do, only differently now, having faced death and come out changed. Scarred, but stronger. Though if you asked me today how I was doing, I would be lying if I said I was OK. I don't know where the lines and branches of this event end, but I have a promise:
"For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD , 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. " Jeremiah 29:11
I have leaned so hard on that verse this year, and it has stayed solid. You've probably all seen it before, but there is truth and power in those words. It's so stupidly simplistic, but truth has a way of being direct.
I don't know how to end this, I'm not writing it to impress people or make you feel better, worse or different. I guess what I want you to remember is that we are God's hands here on earth. For reasons known only to God, he decided to take the bearers of four very powerful, loving hands home. I believe it is our responsibility as their friends to pick up the tasks they left behind. The capacity for exceptional love and service is built into all of us by God. If we will follow Him we can expect to affect others as profoundly as Jason and Alina affected us.
I've watched myself fade
like a photograph
like a photograph