We Three Kings

Tuesday, December 3, 2013
"We Three Kings"

The fourth verse of this songs seems sadly appropriate for today.

Myrrh is mine; it's bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in a stone cold tomb.

The father of a girl at my school died yesterday.  We talked to the students about it today.  We're all attending his funeral on Thursday (although I had to assert my right to do so to the administration who forgot that I spend most of my day teaching 8th grade rather than 6th and see the grieving student roughly twice as often as any other teacher).

It was poor timing with the short story we are currently studying: "The Lady or the Tiger?" by Frank L. Stockton.  It's not the worst thing we could be reading, but it is a deeply and deliciously ironic piece that makes rather light of death and murder.  The class after a brief discussion and announcement became all about discussing grief and death, followed by awkward attempts to bridge the gap between that conversation and the story -- in the end, not too shabby, actually.  I talked about why we try to make light of death, try to make it little and even funny.

The other two classes sailed through the planned lesson with a class to buffer between the announcement/5 minute chat and "Do you think the princess totally killed her lover?" discussion.  Kids are resilient.

But I wonder if it's something we all do.  We all breathe a life of gathering gloom.  We all know death is what waits for us at the end.  Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, and finally dying, sealed in a stone cold tomb.

But not our souls.  Not thanks to Jesus.  And not even our bodies, on the last day.

I'll never forget seeing my sick father surrounded by his ACTS brothers as they sang that chorus to him, "And we will raise you up, and we will raise you up, and we will raise you up on the last day."

It's a corruption of the "I will raise you up" chorus where the song is speaking for God, obviously, but I love that message.  Some variants to "to the Lord" rather than on the "last day" which most of the time I like even more.  On the last day, Jesus will raise us all up.  In the meantime, just like we create hell on earth, we are responsible for raising each other up.  We are responsible for creating little patches of the sublime, slices of heaven to give each other as gifts.

You can't make a heaven for yourself, but you can give a moment of it to others.  It's why a faith community is so important -- a lesson I forgot once.

I said several times today, talking about the situation to the kids, that this is when it's good to go to a Catholic school.  We know each other, we can take care of each other, and we have God to help us.  A faith community -- people to catch you, people who know things that will help, people who can remind you that death isn't the end.

People to raise you up, as we breathe a life of gathering gloom.  We can still raise incense and myrrh up to the Lord, even sorrowing and sighing.  Even when we're bleeding and dying.  And when we are sealed in a stone cold tomb, others will do it for us.