Tag: Death

Religion & Society

Gerry Dullea: May 24, 1943 – July 29, 2018

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My uncle Gerry Dullea died last Sunday night. He was 75. As is too often the case, it didn’t end well for Gerry. Details aside, he was breaking down all over the place. His body just disintegrated – in the literal sense of no longer functioning in an integral and integrated fashion. He’d been living alone since his wife died ten years ago, and had spent much of that time either ill or seriously ill. Gerry was pretty much a mess. I’ve lost ten uncles during my lifetime; Gerry was the last one. I feel differently about losing Gerry than I have about losing...

Music

The Fish, Out of Matter: R.I.P.

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Yes bassist Chris Squire passed away last night at age 67. I don’t usually pay too much attention to what transpires in the world of celebrity, but there are some exceptions to my general lack of interest. Chris Squire would be pretty close to the top of that exception list. Squire had noted on Facepalm® last month that he had fallen victim to a brutal disease, so today’s news was not entirely surprising, but it was disturbing nonetheless, and I’m feeling as if I lost a friend. Now, that’s a silly sentiment, really, considering I never met the man, and m...

Ruminations

Chuck Colson: 1931-2012

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We lost a good man today. Read a few parting words from his co-workers on his recent project, The Manhattan Declaration, here – and sign the declaration if you haven’t yet, and if you care about marriage and human civilization (pardon the redundancy). Dostoyevsky said “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” I would add that you can judge the degree of civilization in a man’s soul by observing how he treats prisoners. With all that Colson did for his God and for his neighbors over the ...

Ruminations

Who has time to listen?

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Rummaging through some old journals this week while taking a measure of introspection, I came across the following in an entry from March 29th, 1990. I’ve cleaned it up a bit for publication, but it remains essentially the thought of my 29 year-old self. Reading old journals is a fascinating exercise in self-awareness, but I’m throwing them out, anyway… Who has time to listen? Running around in hectic disarray, death edges closer to each of us by the minute, yet who has time to stop to listen? What would we hear if we did? Common wisdom has it that we le...

Family Life

Mary, My Sister

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My sister Mary passed away about 48 hours ago, succumbing to the ravages of bodily dissolution after 18 months of battling illness. She had steadfastly insisted that her tribulations remain private and discreet during her sickness, but since there will be obituaries published within the next couple days, I hardly see the point now in maintaining a public silence. Still, the details are nobody’s business, as strange as that sentiment may sound in the age of Facebook and Twitter. It seems that everything is supposed to be everyone else’s business these day...

Life in Christ

O Oriens

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“O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.” (O Antiphon for Dec 21st) Ironic, isn’t it?, that the antiphon for the Winter Solstice calls upon Christ as the Light of Dawn, or Rising Sun, or Dayspring from On High! Like all the antiphons of this octave, it recalls an Isaiahan Messianic prophecy: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shown.” (9:1 in NAB – 9:2 in most versions). All the bells and whi...

Religion & Society

“If the Dead are Garbage, then the Living are Walking Garbage.”

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Every now and again, I find myself disputing with advocates of human cremation over the propriety of the process. Cremation has very rapidly become the preferred option, in certain sectors of society, for dealing with the corpses of the deceased. Whereas at one time its appeal may have been pretty much strictly economic to those not strongly influenced by oriental, non-Christian culture (or anti-Christian sentiment), it is these days often pitched as a morally compelling solution to a looming Malthusian crisis of usable land – the argument being that bur...

Misc

A Quiet Note of Thanks

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One of those days when the realization slaps me that we just don’t get do-overs in life… I heard during the prayers of the faithful this morning that Tony Melchiorri had died, and was buried last week. Tony was a Natick cop for many years, and a man I came to know, after a certain fashion, during my teenage years in town. He was always a good guy. I think it’s fair to say that Tony spent a good deal of his life trying to protect the local kids from their own stupidity – with admittedly mixed results. But thanks for trying, Tony. R...

Church

RJN: R.I.P.

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The Catholic Church in America lost another of her intellectual giants today. The Rev. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus died this morning, at age 72. Of course, I never met the man, and I’m not sure I would have known what to say to him had I met him, but I feel as if I have lost a friend. An old acquaintance from my adolescence was buried this morning, and perhaps that makes me think a bit about mortality, yet this priest and writer whom I never met dies, and I feel a piece of me torn away. Surely, it is vain of me to cultivate these feelings – who ...

Blogging

Why MaybeToday?

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I was listening to a lecture by Peter Kreeft a while back, and he observed that time is the stuff of which life is made – time is life. People often say that time is money, but that’s an understatement. Kreeft is right: time is life. This isn’t meant to suggest that time is a metaphysical necessity, or that there can be no such thing as eternal life. Rather, it means that the life we each possess – our life – is ultimately a very precise allotment of time, and that each sunrise brings us one day closer to death. Time is really all we have, and the ...