A Jerry McGuire moment (Farewell for now...)

I took a day off from work today.

It is the first day I have taken off in a while.

I did not realize just how tired I am.

Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

The search for meaning in life is exhausting and I think I am just now beginning to believe something I have probably professed to my family and friends for years.

Ready?

Here goes:

We do not FIND meaning in this life.

We CREATE meaning.

Pithy, cute and straight to the point.

You've probably said it yourself. Heard it a million times yourself.

I do not know how frequently I have said this in the past but today it hit home more than it ever has before.

Does God need a new bass player?

3-2-2008

I went to a party last night in honor of a friend of mine from high school.
There were 100+ people there.
There was BBQ, and beer, and dogs and babies and guitars and a big sprawling lawn.
Sundresses and lots of laughter. And a wheelchair.
The wheelchair belonged to my friend Zac. The evening’s special guest.
Zac and his wife of 9 years moved home from California this week.
After 8 years of battling various types of cancer, there does not seem to be anything that medicine can do to put his illness at bay any longer.
He road worn and tired. Zac has decided to rest.

I don’t want to overstate my involvement with this get together.
Zac is a friend, but not a best friend. We went to Junior High and High School together.
A person in whom I share a reciprocal esteem. We don’t Myspace or email one another, but I felt it was important to show up last night and give him a hug. We don’t see each other frequently, but he is still loved.

I have often thought that we (as a culture) do not handle death very well.
We are afraid of it. We use weird ways of dismissing its finality by saying things like “well maybe God needed a good softball player up in heaven” to make us feel like there is purpose in dying.

There isn’t purpose in dying. There is purpose in living.

The beautiful thing about last nights party was the rare opportunity to participate in life with Zac, if only for a few more moments, rather than to remember life later while participating in a funeral or a wake.

Zac is a brilliant musician.
As I made my exit from the party last night, his musician friends (probably 8 or 10 of them) had made a circle on the porch with acoustic guitars and congas and a steel guitar.
It was beautiful.
Someone gave Zac an acoustic bass to play from his wheel chair (they removed the arms of the chair to accommodate). And for the next several hours they played music from the 90s; music from our Jr High and High School Days. (Sublime,Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Meat puppets, Toadies, STP, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc.)

It was wonderful. It was sweet. It was sad. It was life being lived in the present.

Maybe God needs a new bass player? No. That would be a reduction. Right now, Zac’s friends need a friend. And for now, they have one. And he plays bass pretty well.