Death is exhausting. “Let the dead bury the dead,” recommends Jesus to the man, the man who’s lost his father. I lost my father three years ago. I felt his hand twitch one last time in the earliest hours of August 6. His slow, solitary death, alone with his family in a Fort Worth hospice, is shared with the flashpoint and collective horror of Hiroshima. What does one do with that juxtaposition?
Death is exhausting. I can barely fathom my father’s, let alone the thousands lives that… “Let the dead bury the dead.” How? What does that even mean?
He who has an ear, let him hear…
Grief is like a slow salve rubbed from one’s wet cheeks and eyes into the wrists and arms and heart.
Grief is like a gripped sponge with an unseen core of void and night.
Grief is like your best friend’s loss of hearing.
What is the Kingdom of God like? The Kingdom of God is like… it is like…
“As for you,” then says Jesus, “go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.” My father has died. It feels like yesterday. He has just died. It feels like… it is like…
But the Kingdom of God is a simile.
The Kingdom of God is like the blind spot in every gaze.
The Kingdom of God is like an impossible place and event, like a graveyard where the dead bury the dead.
The Kingdom of God is like…
grief relieved.
” And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ ” (Revelation 21:3-5a)