Otherworldly

This is the view of the collapsed bridge from my office, the 15th floor of the Thrivent Building in downtown Minneapolis. Facing east, the morning sun makes for a bad picture.


NPR reported that the rescue workers had conversations with the victims as they were dying. I suppose they were stuck in debris or something. It's like an avalanche; if you move one thing, then tons of concrete and steel fall onto everything including the rescuee/er. During these conversations, the people trapped in the debris asked the rescue workers to convey messages to their families. I'm sure the contents of those messages were all about fierce love.


"Fierce love" is what my VP at LWR calls her relationship with her husband. Lisa and Aaron. They are mucking through the debris of Aaron's 45 cancer procedures; chemo, surgeries, etc. She says that they are like sugar sweet to each other.


Bob called it "otherworldly." When you have one foot in this world and one foot in the next. He and I got all sugary sweet too when we believed he was dying.


I think that is why I have enjoyed so much living among international families during our time at Luther Seminary. I could very well be wrong. But I am guessing that when you are shaped by a place where basic stuff like food, security, and health care are not so easy to come by, you understand very well that you must live in fierce love with your neighbors. That you are in a perpetual "otherworldly" state. Maybe the theologians have a word for that.


In this country we can easily go for years, even decades, and believe that we can beat death. That we are invincible. That we can buy or change anything that gets in our way. Most people around the world have long ago understood the myth of that. And if you don't believe me, then listen to this: 25,000 children die everyday of preventable causes. Almost one per second. Snap your fingers. One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three. One plane crash full of kids per half hour. A gazillion fallen bridges crammed with school busses.


I think that my international neighbors get that much more than they will ever admit up front to me. Just a hunch. And that's why they knew what to do when Bob's liver collapsed.


And that's my explanation for Lisa and Aaron's "fierce love." When you are in that position of in between life and death something happens to you. You want to love your family. You want everyone to be OK. You want everyone else around you to be OK. When Bob's liver was out, I remember having such warm feelings towards, say, the grocery check out clerk. I just really hoped that her life was treating her well.


The fact of the matter is this -- we are all in a state of being otherworldly. We all know we are not going to live forever. The question is, what do we do with that? I say that is where faith comes in to play. Faith in both other worlds. Fiercely loving the here and now. Fiercely trusting that all is well for all eternity. And by the Grace of God, grabbing hold of our time and position to right as many wrongs as we can, including preventing all those kids from dying from things we thought were irradicated long ago. If that is not fierce love, then I don't know what is.


If you were stuck in debris between life and death, otherworldly, what would be your fierce love? It's really not an if.


I'm getting way to philosophical and really have to get to work. Wish I could edit on this essay all day. But. . .

With love, T

P.S. It feels pretty sad around here today as one of the people who died was a Thrivent employee, Sherry Engebretson. Even though I didn't know her. You just feel sad.