One of the pitfalls of scheduling blog posts in advance is that, in the event I choose to post about something from my life (a diversion from my usual posting of devotionals and church sermon notes), I often find myself posting about something well after the fact. If I want to write something to be posted "on time," I kinda have to do that in advance. Most of the time, it doesn't matter, and perhaps it won't matter this time, either. But in this case, I won't know until the day this post runs on this page.
A month ago today, a friend of mine died suddenly. I found out five days later, via a text from a mutual friend of the deceased and I, and when we both connected over dinner after the wake and funeral, I found out that text almost didn't go out.
The guy was saved, i.e. born again. I'm confident he's with Jesus now, in a new resurrection body, and enjoying life in heaven. I tried sharing this with a different mutual friend, with a hopeful tone and attitude. The response I got immediately afterward was: "it's nice to see you again." and the mutual friend walked away.
I will not be ashamed of the Gospel. I was tempted to be, but I have to stand up for my faith again.
The wake and funeral were held at a Catholic funeral home. Of course it was open casket. As expected, it was weird and kind of a shock seeing Mark's remains, embalmed, elegantly dressed, with a boatload of roses on his right shoulder, and a pair of drumming sticks in his hands.
Oh, and a rosary. I'm sorry, that just didn't look right. It's not the Mark I knew.
He may have been born and raised Catholic, but the conversations we had revealed to me that he wasn't; he was saved. He had an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ that went beyond anything the traditional church denominations (Catholic or otherwise) could ever have taught him.
Still, death is hard. Mark is gone but he didn't take his body with him. So in the ground it goes.
OK, I was a bit sarcastic with the above comment. I miss the guy. I'm still shocked he's gone. His dying now doesn't make sense to me. In my mind, people are only supposed to die when they're old, or if they've had a condition or illness that weakened them over time, to the point of death. Mark didn't fall into either category. But, as Christians we are supposed to give everything we don't understand over to God. So that's what I gotta do. God can take care of it, and He already has.
As for the rest of us from the (former) band we all were once a part of, our gathering together under these circumstances spawned a series of conversations about life, about all sorts of things. Among other things, I found out a different band member has Stage 4 cancer. Somehow, by the grace of God, he's doing better than where he was for about 6-7 months dating back to last summer. We'd not kept in touch since 2020, and as such this was a shock. We chatted for quite a while out in the parking lot after dinner catching up (somewhat) and discussing potential music ideas. What stood out to me was how this bandmember's condition appeared to drastically reshape not only his perspective on life but also his attitude. He was never a particularly ungrateful person, but between his condition and Mark's unexpected passing, on this day he came across as a far more grateful person than anytime I ever had known him previously.
One note about photos: I used to take lots of photos in my younger-adult years, beginning sometime in college and tapering off gradually during my 30s. As I've been growing in my faith, I've begun questioning the Biblicality of taking photographs, due to the 2nd commandment:
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. Exodus 20:4-6, NKJV
(As a sidebar, the Catholic Church totally ignores this commandment in their version of scripture.)
I found a helpful resource -- a guideline, mind you, and not a hard-and-fast rule -- regarding what to consider when taking photos of people. (You can find the link here.) One thing I believe God imparted to me one-on-one was the realization that I needed to not take and disseminate photos of people without their knowledge and permission. I never ran particularly afoul of this rule with anyone that I know of, but I let myself get caught up in the "Facebook" culture of taking photos of everything in our lives (including what we had for lunch) and posting and tagging them. It didn't occur to me for the longest time that this could be considered an invasion of someone else's privacy if I posted and tagged a photo of them if, say, they were with me at a restaurant without their consent. I eventually got the hint and stopped. I'm not even on social media anymore (Facebook or otherwise) so it's moot. Now, whenever I gather with friends and I take any photos, I simply either keep them to myself or text/email the individual directly to share it with them. No further.
The other part about pictures (and videos) is that they preserve memories. I scoured my photos from over the years to find a picture of Mark to include with this post (after reading through the resource to be sure it was OK to post a photo of him or not) and I naturally found myself revisiting a host of memories dating back over a decade. The conversations over dinner with the other band members after the wake was full of reminiscing about gigs past and other memories. "Ring Shout & Friends" is sadly no more, not because of Mark's passing but because the life interruptions related to COVID resulted in that band ending and a spinoff band or two being born. (Although with my one living band member with the Stage 4 diagnosis, that one is on hold as well.) But it's tempting to glamorize the past. I cannot let myself do that. As great as certain memories from the past might feel, I also have to remember that there are things in my life (including a certain special someone 😊) that I have now that I yearned to have but didn't have then. All what photos represent are moments in time. But heaven is for eternity.
RIP Mark. I'm sad you left this soon, but I know I'll see you again soon, for all eternity.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4, NKJV
