When I was a teenager I loved reading biographies.  (I still do in fact, but I have much less time to devote to it.)

One of the things that fascinated me was the way in which people died.  It was probably a precocious neurosis, but in looking back on it, I think my preoccupation with the way people’s lives ended was also rooted in something for which we all long: for our lives to make sense, to mean something, to end logically, to finish in a way shaped by the same life-long dreams and convictions motivated us.  So, when I got to the end of those biographies, I hoped to find some defining final words or noble action.

The truth, of course, is that most of our lives have a ragged ending.  I’ve been reminded of that a great deal this month:

• A dear friend and colleague stood up for what he believed to be the shape of the Kingdom and, having resigned his parish on principle, discovered that he had colon cancer and died only a few months later.

• A former advisee and student graduated three or four years ago, served a single stint as a hospital chaplain, and died of breast cancer.

• One of the students enrolled in our direction program had barely finished half of the process when she died of a massive heart attack.

• And, then, this week two colleagues from my days at the Cathedral died —- one from yet another protracted battle with cancer — the other, alone in his home on the way to serve as a lifeguard at St. Alban’s Boys School.

The stories are only illustrative — the stuff of my own meditation.  But the larger truth remains.  Life ends this way more often than not.  We slip away in the fog of medication.  We lose ground to a grinding battle of attrition with disease.  The illness itself robs us of our faculties.  Or an accident claims our lives suddenly and without warning.

In reflecting on it, however, I’ve concluded that it is not how life ends that matters, but how we live it.  The Christian life is not a morality play, with bookend beginnings and endings.  It is a life shaped by resurrection hope that is ours in Christ and it is only in giving ourselves to that life-shaping hope that our stories deepen in their meaning.

So, on this day I give thanks for the lives of those friends whose stories ended unevenly and far too soon, but who witnessed to the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection:

• For John

• For Marissa

• For Steve

• For Erica

May light perpetual shine upon them and may God watch over and between us.  Amen.

I was invited to contribute to a feature at Patheos.com called  “What do I really believe…”  The subject in this first feature is the question, “What do I really believe happens when we die?”

It isn’t a trivial question, nor is it purely academic.  The way any story ends decisively shapes what we make of everything that led up to the end; and the same is true of life.  And, while we don’t know in one sense what will happen, nor does anyone know in detail (how could you?), like any other set of choices, what we believe happens when we die, makes a huge difference in the way we live.

Put another way: The end may not justify the means, but it certainly shapes our choice of means.

So, you will find my contribution at:

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Frederick-W-Schmidt-Afterlife.html

And the front page of the feature at:

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Frederick-W-Schmidt-Afterlife.html

Join the conversation.  It is important to know what you believe about the way your own story ends.