For truth-seeker, faith not enough
I went to a funeral several months ago, that of my late husband’s 67-year-old nephew, dead of a tractor accident in his farmyard.
The service took place in the largest Protestant church in Deer Park, a building that filled to the bursting point leaving dozens of latecomers unable to get through the doors.
“We will do two services,” the pastors said, and they did. Never before had I heard of a funeral being repeated by the same officiants, on the same afternoon, for the same individual.
Art was a good man, a loving husband, father, grandfather and neighbor, hard-working to a fault, friend to all. He’d lived his entire life within a few miles of where he died and had been married to the same woman for 46 years.
He wasn’t an important person in the world’s eyes, however. He’d earned no fame, important earthly honors or great wealth. For one reason only, a huge number of relatives, friends and neighbors attended his funeral – because they loved him and grieved his death.
As the church filled, a video illustrating Art’s life cycled and recycled. In chronological order he was shown as an infant, a child, a young man, new husband, father, rancher, hunter.
As I watched, I was conscious of the changes the process of living brings to the human body. The impression was reinforced as I gazed around the pews picking out individuals I hadn’t seen in years.
Some I didn’t recognize at all. Others I knew, but they weren’t as I remembered. The lucky few grow old gracefully and never seem to change much; others aren’t so fortunate.
During the service, we sang one of Art’s favorite hymns, “He Owns the Cattle on a Thousand Hills.” To a point, the process of raising livestock mirrors the way human life progresses. Critters, the majority of them at any rate, start out strong and healthy. So do most human infants.
But the years pass, bringing adverse physical changes. In addition, the older we become, the more losses of other kinds we suffer.
Loss piled on top of loss – in that way we differ from the beasts of the field. Few of them live long lives or die natural deaths. They haven’t our consciousness of mortality.
Human existence can come to seem like a bad joke, at least to those of us who are introspective by nature. Why must human beings suffer so much in the process of living their alotted life spans, struggling to mature and accumulate knowledge and wisdom?
Poof! Just like that, it’s gone, no trace left. It seems like such a waste.
Art was blessed. He loved Jesus and believed he would be going “home” to a better place where his loved ones would join him one day. I don’t suppose he agonized over his losses.
I envy him, because I’m a realist. Life ever after, especially one that promises no more sorrow or pain, sounds like a grand myth. Too, the Bible paints heaven in terms that don’t really appeal to me. Nature and books are my loves, not golden streets and fine houses.
In my lifetime, I’ve read much that has been written by proponents of both sides of the issue, and I remain firmly astraddle the metaphorical fence. Don’t promise me a rose garden if there isn’t going to be one; it’s certainty I desire.
As the Bible puts it, believing comes by faith and faith by the word of God. Where does that leave a truth-seeker in the face of a mountain of modern biblical scholarship that indicates God’s holy book is neither inerrant nor infallible?
I haven’t yet found the answer. I keep on looking.