Someone set up a Facebook page after Dave’s death so people could share memories, photos, videos. There was a discussion board, and it only took a little more than a week for people to start fighting—over who he had been really, his faith or lack of faith, what he thought of the church, what he would want for people to think and do after his death. This is what you become, apparently, when you choose to die young, a topic for discussion, everyone’s story. Some people were offended at the memorial service when the pastor began to talk about God, about Heaven and Hell and how to live and what Dave did right and what he’d done wrong. I read the transcript, and I can understand. It was heavy-handed, and while I didn’t technically disagree with what he said, I was a little put off by how it had been said. I know the pastor meant well, though, know his heart was in the right place. How do you preach at a funeral like that one? I mean, really, is there anything to say, is there any right word, is there any appropriate sentence?
What bothered me, and what bothered me about the discussion board, was that in those words Dave became an object lesson. An example, a warning. Dave wasn’t a lesson. He was a boy, he loved music, he had a girlfriend, he was going through something heavier than we can imagine. He was just a boy.
I think if someone is going to see Dave as a warning, they’ll see the warning without being told. If they’re going to see something in his life that screams at them turn around, they’ll know it, they’ll hear it, they don’t need anyone to point it out.
And all this focus on the actions, the drugs, it just seems misplaced. Turn your life around, get off drugs, stop the manic lifestyle, the painkillers and second-hand smoke. I don’t think Jesus came to give us advice so we could live our neat little lives a little more well adjusted. He didn’t come to make us better Americans, to keep us off drugs, to get us to wear cute little acronym bracelets. He came to have a relationship with us. Isn’t that it? Isn’t that enough? To show a deeper reality, to open up possibilities and activate senses long dulled, to say things silence never would. The possibility of a clear conscience and a broken heart, the duality of joy and sorrow, life more abundant. I just want to scream, it’s not about cocaine or the absence of cocaine, and staying off drugs will never be enough, and doing the right things at the right times will never be enough, and living the “Christian life” will never be enough, and keeping the grass mowed and going on a mission trip and not being racist and saying hi to your neighbor, it’s never going to be enough by itself. It’s not the point.
I didn’t chime in on the message boards because I didn’t feel it’s my place. He wasn’t my friend, though I am mourning his death. I have no claim on him, do not know his family, have only second-hand memories, have only what he was to Jesse. But I do wish I could say, enough, let Dave be Dave, let him be complicated, let him be the unanswered question. Can we stop pretending this is simple? Can we stop pretending life is black and white, that God doesn’t color outside the lines sometimes? Can we stop acting like doubt has no part in faith?
6 Comments
Since leaving Baptist school, I tend to avoid weighing in on discussions involving Christianity. Somewhere between the hardcore fundamentalism I was taught and much of what I simply don’t believe in anymore, I just never really feel particularly inclined or justified in entering those conversations. I know what faith is, and I don’t want to offend anyone who has some. I’ve got more doubt than anything else, but I respect people who have something else to counterbalance that. But what I really wanted to say is how much I like what you said; the bit about keeping the grass mowed drives your point home. I love how you said none of it would ever be enough because it’s not the point. I’d like to think that anyone, of any faith or lack thereof, could agree to the truth in that.
Profound post
The faith v. doubt thing has always intrigued me. Can you have faith without any doubt? Can you have doubt without any faith? (Regardless of the object of the faith.) Maybe they are two points on a continuum and at various times in our lives we find ourselves with varying proportions of both. I don’t think doubt is the opposite of faith, but I’m not sure what that makes it, and in general I am finding myself more and more resistant to the whole binary way of thinking about it.
Well, I think faith and doubt sort of have that yin yang relationship, really. However, I’ve heard the argument before that doubt has to be the opposite of faith because disbelief is really just faith in nothing, which I can see as stronger than general uncertainty. Where atheism offers its own brand of certainty, agnosticism seems far more at odds, if not a perfect opposite to other faiths. I could change my mind about all of that though; who knows?
Wow. That was very disrespectful on the pastor’s part. I don’t understand why people can’t let some thing’s go. Sometimes I question the views of Christians and I am Christian myself. I just try to live life as best as I can and not dwell on the nitty gritty.
S: I do think atheism and faith in a deity or religion are two brands of the same basic assumption–certainty in something bigger than yourself, or certainty that there is nothing bigger than yourself (or however one might phrase it). Maybe there are also different breeds of doubt, though? It seems to me that the people of greatest faith are not the ones that are the loudest and “surest” of the bunch. I think doubt can play a role in faith (and anyway, if someone is completely certain, then doesn’t that eliminate the need for faith altogether? it seems that faith must assume at least some level of doubt). I’m not entirely sure what I’m saying with all of this. Just that sometimes we see doubt as a sign of insincere or faulty faith, and I think perhaps it might be the other way around.
And Tellie: I don’t personally know the pastor, but I know people who do, and I do believe he was doing the best he could in a very difficult situation. Also, he was abiding by the family’s wishes for the service. What bothered me more was the fighting that followed it. I didn’t really make that fully clear in the post. Most of the things that were more offensive were said on the discussion board and were between his friends and his family members.
Thankfully, eventually some of his friends did stand up and say, hey, can we go back to remembering Dave here and stop arguing? And so, things have calmed down a bit, which is what should happen. I think everyone is just going through such a terrible time right now, and they say and do things they might otherwise not do.