Seasons of Grace
I’ve been thinking about Death.
It’s not that I’m morose or depressed or anxious to get on with the business of sliding into the next life. There have, though, been a couple of articles in the news recently that have brought awareness of Death front and center:
- First, there’s the trending story about the broadcaster who announced, during his regular newscast, that his brain cancer has taken a turn for the worse–and that he has only four to six months to live.
- And then, here in Michigan, there’s a funeral home which has just unveiled their spiffy new, $300,000 drive-up window, which enables mourners to pay their respects without ever getting out of their cars.
There is a sense in which the two stories share a perspective on Death: Both seem to downplay its importance, pausing only briefly to ponder its irreversibility, then forgetting amid the day-to-day busyness of life.
In another way, though, the two reports are polar opposites: one, a story of calm acceptance and faith in the face of one’s mortality; the other, avoidance and flight.
* * * * *
In the first story Dave Benton, a news anchor at WCIA-TV in Champlaign, Illinois, grabbed headlines this week with a brutally honest announcement. He calmly told his viewing audience that his cancer had returned, and doctors predicted he had only a few months to live.
Benton said:
“As you know, I told you a few days ago that my brain cancer was back. But I have learned in the last few days, as I have seen doctors several times, I’m learning more about what my future holds. Basically, my cancer is back and it’s too big for surgery and radiation. Doctors have told me that I may have four to six months to live.”
Benton, a born-again Christian and a married father of two, was calm as he explained to his co-anchor and his viewers that his future with the station would be short. He does intend to pursue an experimental treatment, in the hope that it will give him a few more days. He plans to live his last days to the fullest.
What is apparent, though, is that Benton is at peace with the prognosis, and faces his last days with courage. “I believe that I am in God’s hands,” he said, “and I know that he’s going to take care of the days ahead.”
It’s not that Death is unimportant. Denton knows that it is the moment for which he was born–the moment he departs this temporary home, along the road toward residency with the God Who made him. But for Denton and other faithful Christians, Death is not to be feared.
* * * * *
But in the second story, the Paradise Funeral Chapel in Saginaw, Michigan, has trivialized Death by installing a consumerist, drive-through viewing window, where busy commuters can pay their respects in anonymity. No whispered condolences to the widow, no hand-shaking with the brother you’ve never met…. instead, a kind of whiz-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of peek-a-boo drop-in.
According to the funeral director, some people are “afraid of funeral homes.” Funeral chapel president Ivan Phillips explains that “…his drive-through allows people who might not otherwise visit the funeral home to honor the deceased.”
It’s hard for me to understand the value of merely flashing a funeral home, rather than stepping inside to offer a prayer and to speak words of comfort to the bereaved family and friends. I see no guestbook at the drive-up window. What value could a quick pass-by hold for the deceased? It’s the living who need your embrace when a loved one dies. And the dead need, not to be seen, but to be prayed for.
No: Death is not for spectators (unless, of course, you’re an ambulance chaser or a Hollywood groupie who is somehow energized by tragedy). The death of a friend, a co-worker, a relative is not unimportant.
Together we grieve, together we pray, together we celebrate the life of the person we knew and loved. Come on inside.
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