Silent, Inevitable
Natasha Richardson recently died of an acute epidural hematoma.
I do not have the medical background to describe her affliction, but from what I gather she suffered a blunt impact to her head -causing blood to fill a gap between the brain and the skull. This gap grew until it pushed her brain into a series of sharp-edged bones -eventually causing her death.
Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of her condition was her obliviousness to it. At first she was totally aware of her injury. For some time she thought she would be fine. A certain pain began to grow, which seemed to be nothing more than a slight headache at first. The severity of her condition was not obvious until some time later.
It would not be correct to say that this woman was totally oblivious to her condition. She knew that "something" had happened, but there was some question as to just how bad it was. From what I understand there was a sense that things would soon go back to normal.
Her case is dramatic, and a source of study for professionals in the medical field. On the other hand, it really is not so different from a very real, a very overlooked part of life. And this part of life is inevitable.
As children we learn that everyone comes to a point where they die. The dramatic part is when we learn that we ourselves shall die. As Woody Allen once noted, "I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens." And so people prepare for death by checking out of life.
Perhaps it could best be said that when death comes across most people, like Natasha Richardson, it finds they had really died long ago.
Natasha Richardson concealed her death within her, and human beings also conceal their death within themselves. No one knew what was happening in her brain until it was too late, and even a CAT scan would probably have not revealed the true condition. In the same way people keep their worst things in a place where no one can see them.
When a person wishes desperately that they were somewhere else, that they were talking with someone else, that they were themselves someone else, such a person essentially wishes to be removed from their own life.
Perhaps there is no stronger kind of desperate wishing than the kind afforded by guilt. When a person commits a crime, when they come to regard the person they see in the mirror as a criminal, they often wish (sometimes passively, other times violently) to be someone else.
And the desperate desire to be someone else is the true death.
As in the case of epidural hematoma, immediate action is necessary. The means of deliverance is not an obvious, passive remedy, but a dramatic and all-risking intervention. Just as the appearance of health and good looks were not enough to save Natasha Richardson, the appearance of good behavior is not enough to save us.
When a human being genuinely and completely gives their life over to Christ, they are doing something that is far, far different from rearranging the appearance of their life. Something very deep within changes ... and dies. The effect is not that they wear different clothes or speak with different words. They become a different person.
And just as a full and complete healing would have been a full and complete miracle in the case of Natasha Richardson, nothing short of a full and complete miracle will deliver us from the death within us.
The solution for the death that has awaited us all, in fact any reversal of our condition, is radical, and seems to hard to explain. Just as it would have been hard to explain how Natasha Richardson could have recovered, it is difficult -almost impossible!- to explain how our condition can be reversed.
The solution, the prescription not written with fallible human fingers but by the hands of the divine doctor, is to give one's entire life over to God. To love him with the entirity of one's heart, one's soul, all one's mind and all one's strength. This is the severity of the prescription.
The promise of recovery, however, is sure. God offers His healing, His gifts, yes, even Himself! over to those who throw themselves into the recovery plan He has written, which is the life of His Son Jesus Christ.
May God continue to work His will in the lives of those He has chosen as Jesus draws all men unto himself. May the light of Christ shine in those who fear him and love him completely.
I do not have the medical background to describe her affliction, but from what I gather she suffered a blunt impact to her head -causing blood to fill a gap between the brain and the skull. This gap grew until it pushed her brain into a series of sharp-edged bones -eventually causing her death.
Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of her condition was her obliviousness to it. At first she was totally aware of her injury. For some time she thought she would be fine. A certain pain began to grow, which seemed to be nothing more than a slight headache at first. The severity of her condition was not obvious until some time later.
It would not be correct to say that this woman was totally oblivious to her condition. She knew that "something" had happened, but there was some question as to just how bad it was. From what I understand there was a sense that things would soon go back to normal.
Her case is dramatic, and a source of study for professionals in the medical field. On the other hand, it really is not so different from a very real, a very overlooked part of life. And this part of life is inevitable.
As children we learn that everyone comes to a point where they die. The dramatic part is when we learn that we ourselves shall die. As Woody Allen once noted, "I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens." And so people prepare for death by checking out of life.
Perhaps it could best be said that when death comes across most people, like Natasha Richardson, it finds they had really died long ago.
Natasha Richardson concealed her death within her, and human beings also conceal their death within themselves. No one knew what was happening in her brain until it was too late, and even a CAT scan would probably have not revealed the true condition. In the same way people keep their worst things in a place where no one can see them.
When a person wishes desperately that they were somewhere else, that they were talking with someone else, that they were themselves someone else, such a person essentially wishes to be removed from their own life.
Perhaps there is no stronger kind of desperate wishing than the kind afforded by guilt. When a person commits a crime, when they come to regard the person they see in the mirror as a criminal, they often wish (sometimes passively, other times violently) to be someone else.
And the desperate desire to be someone else is the true death.
As in the case of epidural hematoma, immediate action is necessary. The means of deliverance is not an obvious, passive remedy, but a dramatic and all-risking intervention. Just as the appearance of health and good looks were not enough to save Natasha Richardson, the appearance of good behavior is not enough to save us.
When a human being genuinely and completely gives their life over to Christ, they are doing something that is far, far different from rearranging the appearance of their life. Something very deep within changes ... and dies. The effect is not that they wear different clothes or speak with different words. They become a different person.
And just as a full and complete healing would have been a full and complete miracle in the case of Natasha Richardson, nothing short of a full and complete miracle will deliver us from the death within us.
The solution for the death that has awaited us all, in fact any reversal of our condition, is radical, and seems to hard to explain. Just as it would have been hard to explain how Natasha Richardson could have recovered, it is difficult -almost impossible!- to explain how our condition can be reversed.
The solution, the prescription not written with fallible human fingers but by the hands of the divine doctor, is to give one's entire life over to God. To love him with the entirity of one's heart, one's soul, all one's mind and all one's strength. This is the severity of the prescription.
The promise of recovery, however, is sure. God offers His healing, His gifts, yes, even Himself! over to those who throw themselves into the recovery plan He has written, which is the life of His Son Jesus Christ.
May God continue to work His will in the lives of those He has chosen as Jesus draws all men unto himself. May the light of Christ shine in those who fear him and love him completely.
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