Sometimes, Life is Short

If you like happy blog posts, please skip this one, okay? …

…Today at 5:30 PM I’m posting an article at Christianity 201 from John Richardson, who blogged for years as The Ugley Vicar. That’s not a typo for Ugly, it’s a place in the UK. The article was quite long, so I’m running about 40% of it.

The way it works is that, like Thinking Out Loud, with C201 I give myself permission to go back a year and instead of repeats (like we do here) I simply go back to writers we used before to see what they’ve written anything lately that fits the C201 style. So right now, any repeat pictures or articles or sources there or here have to relate to October. (At C201, some writers who fit really well fall under a six month rule instead, and I now have a regular writer who has been featured every Wednesday for the past year.)

So I was back in October 2013, and I found the post in question, and then linked for an update and thought the one I was seeing was from March of this year, though it was actually from 2014. Anyway, I liked the content and did the necessary formatting. But something about the post haunted me. I couldn’t get past the three rather serious spelling errors in the title:

Christrian Csomology; Incarnarion and ‘Evil’

instead of:

Christian Cosmology; Incarnation and ‘Evil’

Hmmm. In the comments section, someone named Father Ron asked “What, on earth, does this title mean?” The reply was:

Father Ron,
In answer to your question, I point you here:
Pray for the Ugley Vicar
Let all of us pray for John at this time.

The link went to a sad update from Richardson which contained so many spelling errors as to make the headline above look skillfully edited.

A very short online search led me to the information I had already assumed, a mass on the brain from which John did not recover.

…I think the thing that bothered me the most about this — and death isn’t exactly something new that was invented yesterday — was when I looked at the last things John had posted on his Twitter feed:

• OK, so I can’t remember the bit in “Journey Into Life” where it says, “and your life will work out OK.”
• Either there’s more than one “Valley of the Shadow of death”. Or, “We’re LOST!”
• Am I going mad? Or did the cat not just say, “You’re in my spot.” Certainly she thought it – nothing new there.
• Off fora brain scan
• Wqiting to hqvew my canula tk
• And my spolling’s gonw to pitt.

And finally,

• Off to speqk qbout evangeliSm. Being driven. Pray I zpeak clearly.

I wonder how that speaking engagement went.

I can’t imagine having enough clarity to want to write, ‘And now my spelling’s gone to pot;’ and yet not be able to type the words clearly.

I have no idea what the second post in the above list means. Any suggestions?

Life is short sometimes.

As Christians, we do not sorrow as those who have no hope. Still, the death process can be long, or agonizing, or painful, or debilitating. For most of us who have faith in the promise of resurrection, it’s not death that is the issue, but the process by which we get there.

(I really hope there are no typos in this piece…)

John was right. There is no promise that “your life will work out okay.” But there are far greater promises to those who put their trust in Christ alone.

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End-notes:

1. The scripture reference allusion is to I Thess. 4: 13-14
2. My wife suggests there is another issue at play here which has to do with the difficulty of taking down social media after someone has died. Today, I am very thankful that the article we’re using at C201 was available, but you could make a different argument for the Twitter feed.
3. The C201 post is now available; click here to read.