When People Go Away . . .

"Why does everyone want to go away? I love being home," was Beth March's query to her sister, Jo, in the movie "Little Women." The phrase has been on my mind with the departures from our community in recent months. We have shared sad news of a deportation, a drowning, and other deaths. These are not people who wanted to go away; circumstances simply took them.

We move ahead but the emotional burden adds up. One begins to feel the weight of mortality; the shoulders sag a bit.

First chair in the saxaphone section was vacant (see video clip). Kay had played earlier, but now was off bidding good-bye to classmates. Her visa difficulties had prompted this parting. Rob's send-off message encouraged listeners to Carpe Aeternitatem or Seize Eternity (this clip is even shorter.)

In the wider community, we lost three members of a family to a car crash over the Carnival weekend. And so, just weeks after Kay's special graduation, the chapel filled again for a memorial service for Emilio and Ana and their young son, Asaf.

These were people who seized eternity; they lived with a view to eternity. Amid the routine, there was a reasoned response to Jesus' claim that "he who loses his life for My sake, will find it." They lost themselves in something bigger (SomeONE bigger) than their own existence and so the tragedy of that weekend served as mere transition. Their eternity looks different to them now . . . but we don't know just how different it looks. They apparently saw it clearly before, even if "through a glass darkly."

Not long from now, a few dozen more will leave us for far flung places of the planet. No matter how the commencement speaker challenges these young people, I hope there has been, is and will continue to be an underlying theme of their years with us: Carpe Aeternitatem. Seize Eternity.