"Love always ends in tragedy"

Have you noticed this? One fact is certain about all meaningful relationships - They will end one day and the ending will be hurt. This thought crossed my mind a few months after we got our dog, Duke. He was just a little puppy (Now He is 2 years old) and as I watched my sons playing with him, I thought, "One day we'll all be crying over this dog because he will die." He's just an animal but all of us think of him more like family than animal. My role at Hospice has brought this thought to a greater level of reality. I've listened to wives cry about their deceased husband, a dad weep over his teenage son, and people endure the dark night of their soul all because they loved someone deeply and that relationship ended in tragedy - Death.


So if you want to escape the tragedy of death, then here's the option: Don't get involved in any kind of meaningful relationship. Stay to yourself. Keep your heart from others. Don't get a pet. Don't have kids. Distance yourself from your parents and siblings. Keep associates at arm's length. Stay away from any meaningful interaction. In short, follow the happy example of Mr. Scrooge.


Yeah, right! You can guard your heart from the certain pain of tragedy or you can take the risk and give your heart away. You can take the risk of loving someone unconditionally. It was Tennyson who wrote, "Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." Most of us agree to that, but I don't think we realize that when we choose to enter into a love relationship with someone, it's going to cost us - not only at the tragic end, but all along the way. In the DNA of love is sacrifice. You can't escape this. And yet how many young men and women pledge their hearts to one another only to decide the cost of loving someone is too high?

I came across this quote from C.S. Lewis:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable . . . The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is . . . Hell.

So whether you are enduring the pains of loss today or wondering if the price of loving someone is too high, remember it's part of this deal we call life. Take the risk - Love.

An Iraqi Hero? Perhaps you think me un-American? But wait until you read the story from CNN:

It's the story of a guy named Sheik Jamal al-Sudani. The shiek leads a group of volunteers with one of the most solemn tasks in Iraq: Collecting and burying the hundreds of unclaimed dead every month and giving them a proper burial.

"I only think about one thing: That one day, I will face the same fate as these people have faced, and will there be someone to take care of me and bury me, too?" the sheik told CNN.
The discovery of slain bodies in bustling, war-torn Baghdad is a daily fact of life, as ever-present as the lively markets, the solemn mosques, the blinding sunrise and the soft sunset. Many of the bodies of the slain men, women, and children -- found on the streets, in the sewers and in the ruins of bombings -- have never been claimed because some are so mangled and charred, they're unidentifiable.

"When I enter the morgue, I don't see these human beings as Christian, Shiite or Sunni because I see them in death, embracing each other," said al-Sudani, a cleric from a small charity in Baghdad's Sadr City. "

He says that they buried about 2,000 corpses one month. Nowadays, the count is closer to 250 per month. What a thankless task! How unappreciated it must feel to do the thing that no one else will do. And at the risk of losing his own life. And forgive me for saying so (if you are offended by this remark), but what a reflection of Jesus! I know, I know. This guy is Muslim. I know that he is not a believer. But still I can't get away from the fact that Mr. al-Sudani is doing what so many Christians would never consider. Could it be that a Muslim better reflects the character of Christ than Christians? Would Jesus see to it that dead persons were given a burial? I think so. Such was the heart of Christ in respecting human dignity.

And for me personally, it is a tremendous motivation to spend my days looking for the least noticed & unimportant task that needs to be done, and then doing it.

This information came from: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/09/10/iraq.deadbodies/index.html

Yep, I know it's been a long time since I last blogged. Sorry about that. In the preceding weeks I landed a job at the Albany Community Hospice as a Bereavement Coordinator. Also, I am serving as interim pastor at Pine Cliff Baptist Church near Camilla, GA. Both of these opportunities keep my schedule full. The Bereavement Coordinator job has really brought death close to home for me. After all, I deal with it on a daily basis. The experience has brought me to a new level of understanding death as well as appreciating the grief that comes along with it. More on that later.

For now, I came across a recent article by Tony Snow, former White House Press Secretary. Many of you know he has cancer. He shares some of his story and battle with cancer and how his faith in Christ plays a key role in this moment. I hope you will give it a read. You can find it at:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/july/25.30.html

Here's a paragraph:

God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even

trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us

with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy

our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace,

we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs

churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy

we would not experience otherwise.