I Don't Know Why...

I don't know how or why, but when I was finishing up with kindergarten I somehow had the idea that I was done with school forever.  I'd been great at spelling, pretty good at math and who really cared if I couldn't color inside the lines?  (No seriously, I really couldn't.)  It might been have the emphasis on getting out of school by classmates and teachers, my own wishful thinking, the lack of older brothers and sisters but regardless the reason, when the final bell sounded I thought I was done forever.

We wore caps and gowns to our graduation.  As a parent and grandparent I can say that I'm sure it was nauseatingly cute.  However, it was sometime later that day when the celebration was still going on when I got the awful news.  "You mean I have to do this again?? ...You're kidding, right?" 

It turned out nobody was kidding.  I pinned my mom down for a complete and accurate explanation.  I was good enough at math that when she explained the details to me (I really wanted to make sure we got it right this time), I knew the correct answer.  I think she said, "You will have to be in school infinity plus forever," at least that's what it sounded like.  That made the summer suddenly seem very very important. 

I suppose I didn't get it from the beginning because I started with an assumption that seemed to make sense and never bothered to question it.

It's easy when we look back on a trial, accomplishment or passage to see the context in came from and what it led to.  Often though, in the time before resolution or accomplishment, we imagine a finish line we're going to lean through, break the ribbon and be done.  Maybe there will be awards or something but certainly no one is going to tell us we have to do that again. 

There's one finish line of course that is similar to the others but has an important distinctive or two that separate it from the rest.  And that would be the finish line at the end of our lives.  Now admittedly, that one's a little different.  Clearly it was designed to be opaque; run through the ribbon and you're gone. 

Still though, despite or maybe because of the opacity we have thoughts, dreams and even faith and hope as to what's on the other side of that finish line.  I think this is true even for those that claim unbelief in an afterlife of any kind.  They need to assert that nothing really exists.  To those people, nothingness is good.  It is a relief.  It could be a bit of a surprise though.  Even if you're a rabid materialist, I don't see anywhere in the universe where something ever becomes truly nothing.

My wife and I have known another younger couple at a distance for a number of years.  They are just a little older than our own children.  They have two small children of their own.  Last week, the mom in this family found out she has an advanced and aggressive form of cancer. 

I have been given more than my fair share of grace as regards understanding the finishing line we all must cross.  I'll write about that some time but not tonight.  Tonight I will only mention the line itself and the inevitability of crossing it.  And though I think I see the reasons of our "school year" here, I can't tell you why there's a mom who's afraid for her life right now and likely more afraid for the hearts of her family. 

It's not really coming across in this writing but I'm more broken by this single event than anything I can remember.  I can't really say why.  I don't know.  But I do know this, knowing the reasons things are as they are is important but never, ever sufficient.  Knowing the rules, the doctrine and forms are fine until the wave washes over you; in that moment you will lose your footing and have to swim for your life.  As our former military son has said, "All plans are perfect until the first contact with the enemy."

This must be lived out, by all of us, certainly by Amy and Josh and their boys and by those who know them and even at some level, those who do not.  I do not know the path this will take.  However, I do know this, while some sort of finish line of either one type or another must be crossed, both life and love go on to infinity plus forever. 

We must negotiate the intervening space to the finish as best we can.  We must accept help from those who offer it and give help when and where we can.  We must also look to the one who made the race and the contestants.  He is our best teacher and our only hope and none of us are as yet across the line.