Tag Archives: emily dickinson

Headless Chickens

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I’m getting older. You know what that means? It means I’m losing more and more of my generation and its characters to death.

I received word this week that Carl Weathers died. Weathers was known for his breakout role as Apollo Creed in the Rocky films. He was great in those movies, but as a lover of sci-fi horror, I appreciated him as Dillon in one of my all-time favorites: Predator. When I learned he would be at the Motor City Comic Con last spring, I ensured my kids got to meet and get a photo with him. What a nice guy—genuinely friendly.

Strangely, I heard the news about Weathers after reading an article about how scientists believe they’ve unlocked one particular secret to aging. Every generation and culture has been chasing these secrets since the dawn of Man. And why? Because no one wants to die. Everyone knows it’s permanent. I suppose that’s the humor in cemetery fences. Why have one when those outside don’t want in, and those inside can’t get out?

Essentially, the article reported that cells age when their mitochondria start leaking. As they do, they release proteins that cause inflammation, leading to aging’s effects. Researchers theorize that by stopping the mitochondria from doing this, they’ll be one step closer to reversing the aging process altogether.

Will scientists ever figure out how to do this? To some extent, maybe. But will they ever defeat death? The Bible would say no.

First, death is far more than a natural phenomenon involving leaky mitochondria. Stopping this process won’t fix death. Physical death is merely the last decomposing fruit produced by a much deeper condition. Second, Jesus assured us that the earth has an expiration date. When it arrives, so will Jesus. He’ll return in glory to do precisely what the creeds declare: to judge the living and the dead. Hypothetically, even if scientists figure out how to keep people from aging, when that day arrives, those without faith in Christ and His salvific work will still be found locked in bondage to sin and eternal death, ultimately meeting the Lord as spiritual corpses. Such a person might look alive in this life but, in truth, is already dead. That’s what Saint Paul meant by describing living human beings as dead in their trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). In a sense, the image of a chicken that’s had its head lopped off comes to mind. Running around this life’s yard, the chicken might look alive. But it isn’t. It’s dead. And it’s only a matter of time before its actual condition is settled.

I suppose it’s foolish to ponder death without including Saint Paul’s reference to it as the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). We’ll have our share of enemies in life. I know I have plenty. Sometimes, I feel like a line has formed somewhere, and it’s comprised of folks who want to see me come undone entirely. If that line does exist, I know death is the last one standing in it. And when it’s his turn, there will be no outsmarting or outmaneuvering him. Plenty have tried. Plenty still do. And yet, there is that poetic but strangely inspired line that speaks an unflinching truth: “Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me” (Emily Dickinson).

It would be nice if science could help ease the aging process. I’d certainly buy a pill promising to reverse the disc degeneration in my back. A day without back pain would be nice. Nevertheless, such relief is not humanity’s greatest need. Look around. The world is a farmyard of headless chickens, so many chasing what cannot meet that terribly final necessity.

That’s not necessarily the case for Christians. We’re different than all the other chickens. We have the Word of the Gospel. The Gospel is restorative. It makes complete that which was incomplete. We have our heads. Saint Paul writes that Christ “is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” (Colossians 1:18). This is to say, we’re not running around the yard aimlessly toward an unfortunate end. Instead, by faith, we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), and we’re living out the rest of our days in devotion to Him. That devotion has multiple aims, one of which is concern for what’s happening around us (Galatians 5:6; 1 Timothy 1:5).

Neil Armstrong once said that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. He also said he didn’t intend to waste any of them, which means he intended to devote himself to things that really mattered. Indeed, devoted people do incredible things.

On the way to school last Wednesday, Evelyn and I were listening to the news and learned about a man who died. His name was Larry Taylor. Taylor was an Army attack helicopter pilot in Vietnam and the last to receive the Medal of Honor in 2023 for doing something in June of 1968 that too many others wouldn’t. In short, four American soldiers were surrounded by aggressively approaching enemy forces. Taking inescapable fire, they were out of ammunition, having only a dozen hand grenades and their knives. If no one came to save them, they would die. Knowing this, Taylor flew straight into the chaos, lighting up the enemy ranks with as much firepower as possible before setting down in the middle of the mess. Thousands of bullets whizzing and rocket-propelled grenades flying, the trapped men grabbed hold of the helicopter’s skids, and Taylor flew them to safety.

At the medal presentation, a seemingly aloof crowd member asked Taylor, “What on earth would possess you to do what you did?”

“Well,” the 81-year-old hero and faithful member of his Christian church in Tennessee replied, “it needed doin’.”

Taylor was devoted to those men. Even as he faced certain death, his devotion was not self-concerned. Instead, he insisted on using what was likely to be the last of his heartbeats for something that mattered.

You have a limited number of heartbeats. Battles are happening around you that matter. Enemy forces in abortion clinics surround unborn children. More than 61 million of them have been killed. Countless students leave their homes and are besieged by teachers and administrators relentlessly firing radical sexual ideologies that overwhelm them. More and more are overcome each day. Christians are being bombarded in the trenches of America’s public square, having a mile-long line of battalion after battalion intent on eradicating them.

But you know something of death. You know it’s the last enemy. You also know that because of Jesus, it’s a toothless one. Therefore, if not even death can be our worst concern, what would keep us from a devotion to Christ capable of flying in to rescue as many as we can, even if it means risking ourselves?

Of course, that’s a rhetorical question.

My ever-vigilant prayer is that you’ll know the Lord’s remarkable rescue from sin and death. With such knowledge, I pray you’ll sense a Spirit-driven devotion to faithfulness far more robust than anything this world could ever use to terrorize you.

The Fullness of Time

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I don’t want to poison your morning, but you must know that summer is fast fleeting. July of 2022 is about to see itself out. It may even give incoming August a scornful glare as the two pass one another through tonight’s midnight doorway. It’s likely July will do this because it knows it’s leaving for good.

July of 2022 will never be with us again.

That’s the funny thing about time. People talk about how they’ll do this or that to save time, but in the end, time isn’t saved. I know what they’re referring to is efficiency. Still, I’m left to the plainness of thought that no one can store away extra time, putting it into an account for use at a later date. An eighty-year-old can’t take and use the time he saved when he was twenty. Time is finitely linear. C.S. Lewis described time as something that moves along at sixty minutes an hour, no matter who or what’s traveling in it. The pace is not optional. It happens with or without its passengers’ knowledge or agreement. As it carries along, no allowance is made for banking time, only spending it. In fact, if you don’t use it accordingly, it spends itself. That’s what some would call wasting time.

One of my favorite poets, Emily Dickinson, suggested in a letter to Thomas Higginson, “To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations….” Her point was that we make the most of the time we’ve been given when we’re truly living life. I don’t know for sure what she meant by living life. Knowing her poetry, I think it meant to appreciate as much of life’s vibrancy as possible before one’s last hour and the arrival of Death’s carriage. Whatever she meant, she went on to assume that living isn’t to be a solo act. In other words, for Dickinson, time was always best spent in the company of others—within physical reach, face to face, immersed in togetherness.

I think she was right. But I also think humanity is becoming less inclined to see things that way. Recalling the phrase “save time,” consider modern technology as an example. Humans have developed technologies designed to maximize productivity. These same things have breached the borders of social life and, in many ways, are all but guaranteeing lives lived in seclusion. They’ve become rearrangements of relationships for the sake of efficiency. Texting and email, Instagram and Zoom meetings; we’re communicating with others—and saying an awful lot through some wide-reaching tools. And yet, it’s all happening without ever having to experience others personally.

My friend, Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer, posted something recently that resonated in this regard. He wrote, “I know folks who are still attending church online. They prefer it. Well then, instead of the kids coming home for Christmas, they should just meet you on Zoom. Lot less hassle.”

His words sting, but they’re also sincere.

I went to see one of my shut-ins this past Monday. Her name is Frances. She’ll be turning 100 this December. That means she was born in 1922. For perspective, that’s the year the first issue of Reader’s Digest was published, the Lincoln Memorial was completed and dedicated, and the Bolsheviks murdered Czar Nicholas II and his family, securing total control of Russia. I asked this dear Christian woman what she remembered about her youth. Even though her memory is getting somewhat strained, she managed in her gentle way to explain how life today is absolutely nothing like it was back then. She wasn’t complaining but instead observing as best she could. She reminisced briefly about regular family gatherings as well as surprise visits from friends. Certainly, the telephone was an available means of communication in her day. Although, I read that only about 35% of American households had one in the 1920s. Of course, letter-writing remained the assumed means for communicating over long distances. Still, Frances seemed to suggest that in-person togetherness is what people preferred. To put it another way, a person would be more inclined to buy a bus ticket for a trip to someone’s home the next county over before walking to the corner drug store to use the community phone. People actually invested in being together. Convenience and efficiency weren’t as crucial to the human equation. The time it took to accomplish time together was considered time well spent.

The Christian community is geared similarly. A quick visit with the instruction given in Hebrews 10:23-25 shows this. It’s there we’re reminded to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

“…as you see the Day drawing near.”

Those are choice words. They’re another way of saying that this world’s time is running out. They also affirm Dickinson’s sentiment that time is best spent with others. In the case of the Christian community, it’s best spent together in worship. Of course, this is true not only for the Godly fellowship inherent to the gathering itself but for the sake of being together with and receiving from the One who established the community in the first place: Jesus Christ. We stir up one another to take time for worship because it’s time with Jesus, and there’s no better way to spend one’s time before the arrival of our final day. We need what this friend gives.

Thinking back to my time with Frances, she ended the conversation about her youth almost as quickly as I’d prompted it, saying, “It seems like it all went by so fast.” Again, she wasn’t complaining but observing. She certainly didn’t seem to be expressing regret. The time she’s been given has been put to good use. Like the rest of us, she’s not a perfect person. But she did manage to spend much of her time on all the right things. For one, she’s 99 years old and still sitting with her pastor, rejoicing in the mercies of God that are new each and every day. This tells me that by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in her for faith, she has taken into her very soul what it means to “make the best use of the time” (Colossians 4:5). She trusts her Savior, Jesus, having numbered her days accordingly (Psalm 90:12) to make sure each one includes Him. This trust is nothing less than a relaxation in the Gospel truth that all time has its fulfillment in Christ. It knows “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). Connected to Christ, Frances knows each of the clock’s ticks in her life was aimed at this adoption, and now as her mortal timepiece winds down, there’s an even greater ease of knowing her grandest moments are still before her.

The Day is drawing near, and it will be a time with family and friends in a place unbound by time. More precisely, it will be a wonderfully unimaginable togetherness with Jesus—an unending face-to-face existence with the One who spent His time on earth the wisest, giving Himself over to the cross to save us for the endlessness of heaven.