Listening

On the long drive back from North Carolina this Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I sat in a morbid silence as we listened to the audio recording of the book "Tuesdays with Morrie". If you have never read (or listened) to it, I highly recommend you do so. But this was our first time and we were spellbound by the last thesis of a dieing man. Morrie was a sociology professor dieing of Lou Gehrig's and as he slowly wasted away, he decided to chronicle his thoughts of life and death in order to make the most of it and send its message out into the world. Morrie said many profound and wonderful expansions on life and culture, but one in particular echoed through me: "People do not know how to live, because we do not know how to die. If we knew how to die, we would then know how to live."
Now, Morrie is not talking about our methods of dieing; he is talking about our attitude and approach to the reality of our own death. I had never soaked in the correlation with the two but its miracle went deep into me. Morrie was meditating on death because he was staring into it's face and he wanted others to benefit. I, myself, have always had a haunting problem with death. I am not afraid of it, in fact, through much of my life it has been an obsession. I used to meditate on it endlessly; not just for myself but projected onto others and their deaths. I have always been painfully aware of the finality that is in store for us all. I have never cried at funerals, and I have spent an unhealthy amount of free time in graveyards alone. To top the cake, (and I can't believe I am sending this into cyberspace) but I have attempted several forms of death known to us. Fortunately, I was (obviously) unsuccessful. But I was a very different person back then. I was very dark and I embraced my darkness with sick fascination. It was only recently when I began experiencing a renewed obsession with death. It shook me up to be experiencing my old thoughts. The good news is that none of them are suicidal, just sickly dark and twisted. I have always abhorred my secret obsession and I am mortified to find it resurrecting after such a long absence. It was things like this that led me to realize that God is taking me back. He is taking me back to places I have not been for oh so long.
So here I am listening to Morrie and on the edge of my seat. Our project for this week was listening. We were asked to listen to the groaning's of creation, God, others and ourselves. So all week I have been exceptionally attuned to wonder what I would hear. I have heard many things this week, but the most profound message came from Morrie. Morrie meditated on death and showed me that a courageous dialogue with death is actually a large piece of experiencing life. Especially as a Christian, my attitude toward death and my own finality are a key into my eternal, spiritual reality. And my understanding of this, puts life and living into perspective. Its an eternal, Godly perspective that hovers above time and space.
Are you starting to see?
Do you realize what it is that I got when I discovered this?
I hate my past and have ran from everything that was. I see nothing but sickness, insanity and death. I have striven to be a normal, functioning human being. Now God leads me back into the darkness because He calls it light. I say 'bullshit'. But here I am. I listen to the words of Morrie, realize that God has higher purpose for my obsession than just a dangerous, sick hobby. He cracked an old door and showed me a glow behind it, not the void that I had remembered. My sickness can be turned around for good. My darkness can lead me to revelations that will enhance my ability to live! And as I stared into the vast dessert of my past, behold . . . one small white flower trembles out of the sand.