I see through my daily go-to sites that another good man appears to have passed. The anxious posts over the last few days sorta set the stage for today’s news. I was going to say ‘grim news’ or even ‘bad news’, but the years are piling up on me and there is (I suppose) a pandemic pacing the land, so I’ve chosen to look at death as an event that carries little less tragedy and a little more opportunity than in years past.
While the passing of Ol’ Remus is tragic for those that knew him and counted as a loss for those who read his many poignant posts, for me not so much. I absolutely do not intend to diminish the value of the feeling of loss or sadness others have and I know that those feelings and emotions are both healthy and healing. But for me his passing, or the passing of anyone for that matter, leaves me more pensive than melancholy. It causes me to reflect on life and explore my own faith. This then is some great goodness that comes from the passing of a man I barely knew. How could such a benefit befall me if not by the guiding grace of God?
When we string together our explorations, blend in the memory of seemingly random events (occurring across many decades) and sprinkle in the absolutely exact amount of God’s love and grace, we have what will one day be called a life lived. Ol’ Remus and billions of others have lived, died, and moved on. They’ve left the rest of us to pace through this life doing the best we can.
I guess the simplest way to look at life (absent evocation of any deity) is to equate it to the game of golf. That is to say that the game can never be beaten, only played. It follows then that because no one can win and no one gets outa here alive, the only thing that matters is how you play the game.
God Speed ‘Remus’