A Reflection on Life (In Memory of Chris Doty)

I had forgot I had even written this until today when I went through all my poetry from over the years.  It was written pretty close to the funeral of a friend of ours from our old St. Joe's youth group in 2001.  How little did I know that years later it would still be relevant to me in different ways.

Oh God, we seem to think we know how this complicated game of life works.  We seem to trust that our short earthly life will stretch on for miles and will never reach the end of the road.  We take it all for granted.  We are so dumbfounded and struck when we discover that a companion on this road was taken so suddenly from us.  It wounds us, scars us, and hurts our spirit in a real and tangible way.  And yet, it also alerts us to the fact that it is you who start and finish our journey, not us, and that we should love stronger, hope firmer, and become what you want us to be.  Ultimately, what we are doing now at this very moment determines our place in your everlasting kingdom.

Why then do we waste our lives here so much and throw it away on trivial little things that will never last and that makes us all the more empty?  I guess we are all searching and longing in our own ways to be desperately loved and needed.  We learn from those who've passed us already and are holding the prize in their hands.  We look at some lives and think that they were so successful in the world's eyes, but what and who are they to you, God?  Does all the fame and money in the world matter to God?  But others, dearest to our hearts, cause us to ponder our own lives and to wish that we are like them; loving, giving, unselfish, and compassionate.

Not that we hold them up as gods or idols, but rather we understand that for their right and simple lives, they are now walking with you.  They now, at long last, have what we all spend our entire lives searching for.  They didn't know it on earth, but they have found it now.  Maybe it is a call to action, a knowledge of how frail and little we really are.  Maybe it points us to always keep the end in sight; to always think of you and of each other and that it is the heart that counts.  And in the end, you will come to greet us with open arms and a smile and hold us close.  For all along, you knew that one day we would find out way back home to you.