Shrill Screams

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Last night at about 3:30 am, I was woken up by ear-splitting screeching coming from the woods behind our cottage. In my stupor I couldn’t decide if it was human or not, but as it continued for nearly a minute, I could tell it was an animal. I found myself thinking, “Hurry up! Finish it off!” Whatever it was, it was in agony.

Today I’ve tried not to envision what might have been going on out there in the dark. Was it an owl having dinner at the expense of a rabbit?

Before sin existed, every person and animal got along. One day that’ll be true again. In the mean time, much of what happens in our fallen world is unpleasant. Some of it is downright gruesome, like last night’s attack. God could have protected that poor animal and provided food for its foe another way, but he didn’t.

Even though humans aren’t attacked as food, we sometimes, like the animal being attacked, come to a place of shrill screaming. Our lives ebb and flow, dipping in and out of negatives and positives. Some of it has to do with the laws of nature just as the attack in the woods did: hurricane Katrina, diseases like Alzheimer’s or meningitis, the BP oil spill, the ash cloud in Ireland, drug addictions. And Nate’s cancer. The labels are different for each of us, but none of us is exempt from the events that make us want to scream.

Although we often do rail against circumstances, what’s rumbling beneath our shrieking is probably anger against God. Wise counselors say, “Go ahead and yell at him. He can take it.”

But should he have to? If we’re trying to lead godly lives, our response to the negatives ought to be, “Yes, I hate this, but because of God, I know good stuff will come from it.”

Our family has seen the truth of that repeated again and again as a result of Nate’s death from pancreatic cancer. For one thing, all of us are less likely to take the others for granted or to assume, “It’ll always be this way.” We’ve seen our father and husband get snatched from us, and we’re aware, in a poignant way, that everyone’s hold on life is fragile. Another positive is that we’re appreciating Nate in a thousand ways, thankful daily for his part in our lives in former years. As a result of living in a world that includes cancer, these two good things are now ours. And they’re only the tip of the blessings-iceberg.

None of us would appreciate happy times if there were no bad ones. So we learn to endure, experiencing agony and uttering a shrill scream now and then but bearing up under the misery because at the end of it, encouragement that can’t be gained in any other way will be waiting for us.

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.” (Romans 5:3)

Frightened of Eternity

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My calendar has an orange-lettered name on today’s date: “Aunt Agnes.” Her name is in parentheses, though, indicating she’s passed away. Aunt Agnes died 30 years ago and would have been 97 today, had she lived. I decided to keep her birthday on the calendar, as a reminder of someone we all loved.

Since Aunt Agnes died, there’s been a great deal of orange ink added to my calendar, the births of many babies and the addition of many friends’ birthdays. Some squares have two or even three names written on them, and in recent years I’ve been adding orange names to the calendar on the death days of people precious to us, too. If I live to be an old lady, will there be any empty squares left?

Most of us keep track of life by our calendars, and it’s hard to imagine a future time when we’ll no longer need them. But Nate and Aunt Agnes are living in a calendar-free environment along with millions of others, and one day we’ll be there, too.

At the moment of death, times comes to a screeching halt, a truth we have trouble internalizing. None of us has ever known life outside of time. Everything we do depends on the day-night cycle of 24 hours: sleeping, eating, working and taking out the garbage.

When we no longer have access to a clock or a calendar, how will we know what to do when? And won’t we forget some very important dates?

I’ve been frightened thinking about eternity, not about the afterlife in general but about not having a way to mark time. God made all of us time-sensitive. Its possible Adam and Eve were the only two people who didn’t give time a thought, although they did experience day and night, morning and evening. Once we die, even those general guidelines will disappear.

Back in the sixties, during the Viet Nam War, POWs found ways to mark off their days in captivity, even if it was just a dot on the wall. We all want to know where we stand. Yet from ages past, Scripture has taught that we’re eternal beings, meant to live forever. In our heart-of-hearts we know that, but have we embraced it?

More often than not we ascribe calendar characteristics to heaven. We say, “Grandma has celebrated five birthdays with Jesus now,” or “Dad has enjoyed 19 Christmases in paradise.” This we understand. But from their perspective, heaven’s citizens know we’re talking nonsense.

On several occasions I’ve sat quietly and meditated on the word “eternal”, trying hard to take in its meaning and begin thinking biblically. But each time it’s been very unsettling. There’s always more… and more… and more.

One of the verses to “Amazing Grace” makes me nervous:

  • When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
  • Bright shining as the sun,
  • We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
  • Than when we’d first begun.

This scenario doesn’t compute for me. It does compute for some people, though, Aunt Agnes and Nate among them.

I guess the only way to cope with this mystery is to entrust it to God’s keeping, knowing he’ll explain it to us when the time… is right.

“He has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11b)

Back to School

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Birgitta and I spent today with hundreds of students and their parents getting “oriented” to college life at the University of Iowa. Although I was old enough to be the parent of some of the other parents, I tried not to dwell on my Medicare membership. My outfit also bothered me. Although I worked hard on deciding what to wear, in the end I looked like I’d just finished a shift at Target.

Birgitta opted to stay in the dorm these two nights while I slept at a Super 8. But we spent much of the day together getting acquainted with the university, the place she’ll call home in August. Before breakfast she’d already perused her thick packet of materials and was far more knowledgeable about the school than I. But that’s how this whole chapter of her life has been. She did all the phoning, emailing, contacting, questioning and filling out of endless forms. I did nothing, which was evident when she handed me my Hawkeye dinner ticket this afternoon. “You’re all set, Mom,” she said, probably wondering if I’d remember where I put the ticket by dinner time.

I miss Birgitta already. She’s throwing herself into orientation activities and is pumped to get started, wanting to take advantage of more university opportunities than 24 hour days will allow. Her eyes lit up when one speaker mentioned that the school offers 500 student-run organizations, 200 extra-curricular clubs, 22 languages, 100 majors and 24 varsity teams (Big Ten football among them). She also loves the idea of attending a school with over 30,000 kids and a freshman class of nearly 5000. But she’s my baby, and when the time comes to leave her, I’ll probably cry.

Walking between meetings today, we talked about her father and how much we missed his presence at this event, the only college orientation in our family he’s been unable to attend. But we smiled thinking of the gusto with which he would have thrown himself into these two days.

Nate graduated from a Big Ten school, actually two of them: Northwestern University and also the University of Illinois Law School. Although he wasn’t into sports, he was into the countless advantages of a giant university and made it a priority to identify all that was offered as soon as he arrived on campus… just like this daughter.

Nate loved school and the concept of ongoing education. He’d have been a lifelong university student if he could have. When I hear Birgitta talk about shaping her four undergraduate years toward a grad degree, I know this apple hasn’t fallen too far from its paternal tree. If Nate had been with us at the university today, he’d have told his seventh-born to think about the verse of Scripture that had influenced him more than any other. He’d have reminded her she was at the beginning of a brand new race set before her by God himself and should run it with endurance.

I’ll be praying for her endurance… and maybe Nate will, too. And despite what scholars think, I’ll be wondering if Nate is cheering in that multitude of witnesses, watching the race from his spot in a heavenly grand stand.

“Since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1)