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One of the first people I look for when I arrive at the fair each year is the old man who reminds me of my grandfather. He guides a golf cart through the sprawling tents, buildings, carnival rides and food trailers. He stops beside each trash can and aches his way out of his seat. He loads up the garbage. He takes a sip of Coke. Lights a cigarette.

Sometimes he stops to talk, and I try to figure out what it is about him that reminds me of my grandfather. The tan, leathery skin? The slick, gray hair?

He mumbles and smiles and pretends not to recognize me, then laughs and laughs when I pretend to be offended. He rubs his stubble with a calloused hand and complains that this will probably be his last year. I think about how he told me about his family, and his stint in the war, and why preachers are all a bunch of fools. I learned more about him in that ten minute conversation last year than I had in the previous twenty years of seeing him at the fair.

He drives past the tent again, and peers inside, but doesn’t see me through the clear plastic window. But I see him, my grandfather, and I realize that it’s the fact that he rarely smiles with his mouth, but his eyes are almost always smiling. That’s it. That’s my grandfather.

And I think we probably all remind each other of someone else, and perhaps that’s reason alone to be kind and to live a good life, because you never know which long-gone person you are resurrecting. There’s honor in being a living reminder of the best of someone, and not the worst.

Clay Morgan’s new book, Undead, explores the relationship between Christianity, life and death. Here’s a story from his book about how an encounter with death changed the way he viewed life:

I never thought I would see anybody die at work. I’m a college teacher, so it’s not like I’m a doctor or a cop or anything. But on student survey day, I found myself in a life-and-death situation.

We administer surveys of student opinions one day out of every semester. On these days, I have to stop lecturing fifteen minutes early and leave the room so students won’t be embarrassed when they write all about how I’m the greatest professor they’ve ever had or something. It was because of this uncommon event on this particular day that I walked out of my classroom early and into an almost empty hallway.

With my bag slung over my shoulder, I closed the door behind me. That’s when I heard a coworker calling for help and pointing at a fellow teacher standing frozen at the door to his office. I didn’t understand what was happening at first, but I dropped my bag and ran to where he was. I thought his hand was stuck in the door but as I reached him I realized the situation was much worse.

He couldn’t move. I half-carried him into his office and got him into a chair, and because of the way I was positioned I ended up kneeling with this stricken man in a sort of half hug. There was commotion and some panic around us as we waited for emergency medical responders.

The man was unable to verbalize anything, so I asked the colleague who called for help what his name was. I tried to communicate with him, but nothing worked. His eyes were open with awareness, but his body was betraying him. He squeezed at my shoulder as his only form of communication. Then his eyes went wide and distant. His face paled and his skin chilled. I grabbed his face in both my palms and called for him, tried to bring him back to focus. I steadied his head from rolling and heard gasps behind me. I didn’t know what to do. He wore a bracelet with a saint on it, Simon or Jude I think, and I whispered prayers for him that I hoped he could hear.

He never recovered. The medics arrived and rushed him to the hospital, but he succumbed that evening. What at first had seemed to be stroke-like symptoms were actually a powerful heart attack.

I did a lot of thinking about life and death after that. I thought about the man who lived so many decades, had so many experiences, yet he spent some of his final moments in the arms of a person he had never met.

When you watch someone die you suddenly realize how very much alive you are.

* * * * *

It shouldn’t always be such a challenge for me to appreciate life

I guess in a nutshell, the point is that the more we recognize death, the more we appreciate life. We all have to decide which of those two things will occupy our focus.

Clay Morgan is a writer, teacher, and speaker from Pittsburgh, PA who blogs about pop culture, history, and the meaning of life at ClayWrites.com. He is the author of Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, and Reborn about zombies, God, and what it means to be truly alive, from which this post is adapted.

“All the pie-in-the-sky political talk seems to limit what the faithful do in their own town.  The faithful post their token Facebook messages, they stick their candidate’s signs in their front yard and may even work with their party’s local chapter, but they’re so idealistically minded that they’re no local good.  Where are the faithful when someone next door goes hungry?  I’ll tell you where: they’re so busy siting on their easy chair watching CNN, MSN or FOX that they haven’t even noticed the poverty on their own street.”

* * * * *

“So as I ride Vulcan over the branches I cannot see, as I plunge him in third gear right into a tree stump and see him begin again, as I look out of my land cut fresh and new, I remember my grandfather, a man who cannot even remember this dream he is helping make happen.”

* * * * *

“Did you catch that?”

We asked over 3000 doctors to review 5-hr energy and what they said is amazing. Over 73% who reviewed 5-hr energy said they would recommend a low-calorie energy supplement to their healthy patients who use energy supplements.

“Here’s how I see that survey result coming about:”

* * * * *

“What I don’t love, however, is when folks start speaking for God. When we move from “I believe” or “my faith teaches” or even “the Bible says” to the more broad “God says,” we begin speaking not only for God (which I always find a little bit dicey), but for others who may share our title, but who do not share our beliefs. Not to mention what it says to those who practice a completely different faith or who are without faith.”

* * * * *

“My connection to the house is clear—it’s the house my first husband and I bought when we moved to this town 11 years ago—but the life we lived there feels disjointed and confused. For years after our divorce and the selling of the house, I avoided looking at it, not sure what I would feel. I think I was just as afraid of feeling nothing as I was of feeling pain.”

* * * * *

“My Facebook page is not a democracy.  It does not need to be fair and balanced.  Some people in my feed might post things that you wouldn’t like.  But they’re not offensive to me.”

* * * * *

“Twenty-one years ago, I packed up all my earthly possessions, which consisted of a fairly meager little pile. A sparse assortment of clothes, a few dress pants, jeans, a few dress shirts, and a couple of suits. And a couple of boxes holding a decent collection of books. And many boxes of odds and ends, the dust of living. More than enough to fill a car. And I loaded all my stuff into my ugly tan-gold T Bird. I felt it in my head and heart, the loss of leaving the familiar. But I had accomplished all I could here. It was time to leave the land that had been my home for the past three years. Daviess.”

* * * * *

“You know things are going to change you, but you don’t know how much, or to what length. You don’t know, for instance, while you watch planes crash into familiar buildings, that in ten years two of your baby brothers will be soldiers and men, stationed in countries torn by war. You don’t know that in ten years every day you will pray for peace, mostly because peace means that they will come home in one piece.”

* * * * *

What’s caught your attention on the internet recently?

 

In an unexpected move earlier today, the two main political parties in the United States changed their mascots.

The Republicans have dropped the elephant and replaced it with their new symbol of power and prestige: a whale.

“Our first choice has always been the elephant,” one high ranking Republican commented on condition of anonymity. “But that’s because we thought it was the biggest mammal in the world. This year someone mentioned that it wasn’t – apparently it’s the Blue Whale. We want that. We want to be the biggest. We want to be the animal that inhales all the tiny little organisms in the ocean.”

The Democrats, meanwhile, haven’t strayed too far from tradition – they’ve transitioned from a donkey to an ass.

“This allows us to reuse all of our current marketing materials,” one spokesperson said. “Which really speaks to our core principles of not spending money on frivolous things, as well as saving the environment – one piece of paper at a time.”

The main criticism of the new Republican mascot is that it so closely resembles Twitter’s “Fail Whale,” including the small red birds lifting it out of the water. When asked about the resemblance, one Republican spokesperson denied any “Twittersperation.”

“The eight small red birds represent the eight swing states that will carry us to victory in this election: Nevada, Colorado, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Florida. We especially believe that the change in mascot will endear our party to the coastal swing states – after all, they understand the importance of blubber.”

The Democrats also hope the change will translate to votes on election day.

“We understand that some folks will see this as no change at all, but that’s simply not the case,” claimed a Democratic janitor. “A donkey is a domesticated animal – an ass is wild and unpredictable. This change in mascot is representative of the kind of government we will be running during the next election cycle.”

Twitter has been approached about the similarity between the new Republican mascot and their “Fail Whale.”

Their Tweeted response was, We do not comment on pending litigation #mascotfail.

Imagine this.

There’s a relay race. Runners try to pass a baton from one to another. The goal? Cross the finish line. But this isn’t a normal baton – on it are words like “justice” and “poverty alleviation” and “equality.” The race is a long one.

Imagine this.

Some of the runners stand on the sideline. Instead of running the race, they stand there cheering for the runner who will run the final leg of the race – even though that runner hasn’t even received the baton yet. Then those runners on the sideline – who should be contributing to the race – start screaming at each other about who should run that final leg. The baton falters and is dropped, yet those idle runners continue to argue.

It’s kind of ridiculous.

* * * * *

Politicians play an important role in our society. They stand at the finish line and wait for the baton. Most of the race is run at a relational level, bringing change and justice and giving a voice to the oppressed. The race is run by individuals who work hard.

The race was the Underground Railroad.

The race was the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The race was the Freedom or Death speech.

These people run the race. They do the work. They change people’s hearts. Then they arrive at the finish line, where politicians take the baton and ratify the laws and sign the amendments and walk across the finish line.

Do not let the current power-grabbing in our country disillusion you to this fact. When you elect a politician, when you select a party, you are choosing the person best equipped to walk that cause over the finish line – you are rarely choosing the person who will run the race. This is a representative government – politicians who bring about change not asked for by the majority do not get reelected, thus powerful and radical change is not one of their well-worn paths.

I am not saying that politics is meaningless. I’m saying that if you want change, run the race. I’m not saying you should lose all concern with those who will run the baton over the finish line. I’m saying don’t let that be your only concern.

I’m looking at you, Christians who are acting like one political party is going to bring the kingdom of the heavens to earth.

Run the race.

* * * * *

Is my metaphor totally screwy? Do you have a better one to offer?

* * * * *

This post is part of the Faith and Politics Synchroblog over at Andi Cumbo’s place. To see the other participants, click HERE.