Not An Obituary

You can stop checking the papers for my obituary... I am still alive and kicking, but work unfortunately has taken up the past seven days. It was quite fun and fulfilling at work, but I am just about ready for a nice break, thank you very much.

On that subject, I've just been reading a book by Andrey Kurkov called Death and a Penguin, a black comedy revolving around a writer of obituaries, the Russian Mafia and, you guessed it, a penguin. Quite an interesting premise, and not a bad read.

Which brings me to the subject of obituaries... Which of you haven't thought about your own death in your lifetime? Which of you haven't thought about your funeral and the (hopefully) nice things that people will say about you when you're gone? Or the many broken hearts realising how different this life is now without you? Don't you want to know that your being here mattered?

I think that anyone who hasn't watched Amelie needs to watch it - the movie itself is flawlessly and beautifully crafted, but there is this really poignant scene where Amelie is watching the television and dabbing tears off as she sees an imaginary eulogy on TV for her.

There is a stream of people thronging to attend her imagined state funeral and the voiceover is singing her praises, saying what a loss it was for the nation - the death of this beautiful kindhearted young girl, adored by millions.

I sat watching that scene in awe. It's like someone went to the deepest recesses of my mind and then brought these things out onto the movie screen.

How you are remembered in death will be how you have loved and lived in your life.


The Flipside of Death

It has taken a real miracle to be where we are - we were a 1 in 300 million chance, we were born into relative prosperity and into privileged lives, we were selected into our families, we were schooled in such and such a school, we found God (or He found us), we have met and made many friends in our lives.

Coincidence after coincidence, event after event leading us to where we are now. It might not be where you want to be, but it is where you are now. In a world of 6 billion people with stastically varying amounts of predestination and chance, where people are dying both from disease and poverty to those dying from freak accidents or old age, you are exactly where you're meant to be. Here. Now. Alive.

Working in the medical profession, you come to a realisation how fragile that is. Seventeen year olds die beyond any help we can give. Others live to be a hundred and seven.

Live life to the full.

Jesus said in John 10:10 that He came to give us life but not just any life - but life to the full. I have no idea what a full life looks like, although some other people have tried to define it for me. I remain faithfully searching and discovering what that means for me. And I guess that's what this blog is about.