“Against All Things Ending”

It was sometime later on Friday evening when I saw the shocking news; Chadwick Boseman, dead at age 43, after a four year long battle with colon cancer. At first I couldn’t believe it, and quickly began checking other sources for confirmation. In an age of “fake news” he wouldn’t have been the first celebrity to have an erroneous obituary make the rounds. 

But, tragically...it was true. Yet another talented artist lost to a world in a time where art and light and hope are needed most. “Rest in power” became a phrase repeated millions of times over the weekend as the tributes rolled in. King T’Challa is gone, his brief reign ending. 

Ending. Change. While it is the nature of things to enjoy the cycle of creation and ending, I tend to not-so-secretly rage against the Omega in the “Alpha and” equation. 

Just the day before, I made the decision to make a social media makeover. Of my 1500+ “friends” on Facebook, just how many were actual friends? How much interaction was really taking place? Yep, it doesn’t require higher math to solve for X. So, I decreased this huge number to well below half. 

Some have commented on the sense of liberation they felt when they did much the same thing to their lists. A few expressed relief that they “made the cut,” as if they were now part of an exclusive club. Of course, we traded jokes and used all the right emojis. Most likely the luckiest ones are the folks outside the circle, blissfully unaware of my digital absence. 

Yet, my own feelings are mixed, not sensing relief or closure. As someone who wrestles with abandonment, I cannot help but feel something akin to loss. What else I‘m feeling is finality, I suppose. A turning of the wheel, the inevitable cycle being realized. Birth/life/death “ad infinitum” ad nauseum. Prophesy fulfilled, yada yada yada. 

There is much to process. Pandemic distancing, racial justice struggling for realization, uncertainty in uncertain days...all the landmarks of a year we all long to move past. So easy to despair, and as easy to place hope in men who claim to have all the answers. 

Like you, I grapple and struggle and eventually choose to keep moving. Maybe that’s what faith is.

What faith I do possess whispers to me of a Grace having the final word, giving me the tiniest of hopes for the rebirth of dreams against all things ending.

1 comment