THOUGHTS FROM THE INTERSECTION

Okay so something is up. Tough news at work today: one of my colleagues died.

He wasn’t someone I knew particularly well; I sat with him on a train last year, and I knew him to smile at. But still. Difficult.

It follows on from the shock and grief of Big Church Festival. There are enough people writing about that, and I don’t want to wallow in. The overwhelming emotion around (in church circles anyway) seems to be a kind of dull shock - as though it could have been any of us. Which of course it could. But wiser heads than mine have unpacked all that.

My question for God is a bit more self-centred. I’m wondering why this year has been so filled with grief. I suppose, statistically, people die all the time, so yes, it’s only likely that every now and then the stats bunch up - like buses, if that’s not too flippant to say.

Nevertheless, it does feel like something’s up. Is God softening my heart? Is this a season with a reason? Is it okay to imply (which I may just have done) that he’s somehow behind all this?

You can see why it needs wiser heads. My theology isn’t quite able to wrap itself around grief yet. I don’t feel mature enough, even though I sit at the intersection of faith, life, and death far more than I realise.

My colleague was young. Late 30s perhaps? He had a wife. Somewhere in Paris. Terrible thing really.

It is possible that God uses situations like this to work good. Maybe that’s the softness of heart I’m feeling - a lesson learned from pain and loss that heaven knows, can’t be learned any other way.

I miss Paul. I miss all that he was, and all that he could have been. I miss Heather. I still see her laughing at me sometimes and I wonder how I live in a world that neither she or he is in. It doesn’t really compute.

I’ll hold Sammy a little closer tonight, I think.