I signed up to be a volunteer for an event last weekend.
Eben Alexander came to town to speak about his near death experience as a neuroscientist. A thousand people found seats in the auditorium and listened to his presentation which included two slides and one
photograph. For a Harvard professor there was a paucity of statistics.
But his message had nothing to do with data. It had everything to do with reassurance.
As a ticket taker I witnessed who took the time and twenty bucks to show up on a Sunday night. There were athletes, ministers, moms, grandparents, teenagers, fully engaged church goers and folks on the fringe of religion. All of them adore someone who is out of reach, and brought their
private aches and curiosity. And there is one universal factor for each of us.
We all gunna die.
Last Saturday the life of a friend I sang with in high school was honored in Michigan. Five hundred people squeezed into the church and as many listened online. Clearly their connection to him was strong enough to truncate any plans they had previously made for the first warm Saturday in spring. Music and family were his signature devotions, and both
were celebrated generously.
Dr. Alexander bemoaned the inadequacy of words to capture what he had seen, felt, heard while in a meningitis induced coma for seven days. I get it. Words only go so far. I scrape the barrel for syllables to describe seeing my twins napping with three day old sleeping chicks cupped in their hands. Can I expect someone to be able to verbally escort me through the odyssey of peeking into the front door of
eternity?
Like a four year old trying to convey her love for her mother in a crooked construction paper heart on Mother's day, one would be foolish to assume that the container did that affection justice. All of us have been left wordless... by a concert, or a sunset, a kind gesture, or the fluttering eyelashes of a baby.
I spoke with a friend just before the speech, who said that her marriage is in shambles. Yet she keeps hanging in
there, perhaps for the same reason that Eben keeps getting on planes and my high school buddy kept strumming.
There is another life that looks like the first flower after four months of blistering winds and heaps of gray snow.
