Next, let me say that this song in particular has always touched me deeply. It speaks to my heart. It's mood and lyrics are quite moving, oddly comforting and yet somehow a little unsettling as well.
To anyone who has every known the loss of someone close, take a listen. I sincerely hope it is of some comfort to you as well and helps to ease the pain of the difficult questions we naturally tend to ask ourselves as those sobering times.
However, none of that is what I started out to say here. To spare you the boredom, I've put the point of this all at the end. You don't have to check it out, but I hope you manage to get that far.
Enjoy or don't, whatevs...db
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You can hear / watch it by clicking below:
Lyrics:
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Me and my friend were walking
In the cold light of mourning.
Tears may blind the eyes but the soul is not deceived
In this world even winter ain't what it seems.
Here come the blue skies here comes springtime.
When the rivers run high and the tears run dry.
When everything that dies...shall rise.
Love, love, love is stronger than death.
Love, love, love is stronger than death.
In our lives we hunger for those we cannot touch.
All the thoughts unuttered and all the feelings unexpressed
Play upon our hearts like the mist upon our breath.
But, awoken by grief, our spirits speak
How could you believe that the life within the seed
That grew arms that reached
And a heart that beat.
And lips that smiled
And eyes that cried.
Could ever die?
Here come the blue skies here comes springtime.
When the rivers run high and the tears run dry.
When everything that dies shall rise.
Love, love, love is stronger than death.
Love, love, love is stronger than death.
Shall rise. shall rise.
Shall rise. shall rise.
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Now here's what I really wanted to say...Recently a good friend and I were discussing a question of great importance. A difficult question that many people, over many years have struggled unsuccessfully to answer. The answers I've heard seem to be ones without firm resolve, or at least not presented so convincingly as to cause me to feel with any certainty that they are right.
The question? "When does life actually begin?"
It is a question that I too, as with my friend, have struggled with for years.
As I've found is often the case, many of life's most crucial answers aren't simply handed to us. Which is good considering the nature of people, as doing so often serves to undermine the value and importance of it. We tend to take to heart those answers we find through effort over time more deeply than those we are given. We understand them because we've reasoned through them.
Tonight, as I listened to this song, the answer struck me. All my pondering paid off and I had a revelation of sorts. It was one of those moments when an answer that feels in retrospect like it should have been obvious all along suddenly reveals itself.
Most often we search for the answer to this question from a biological perspective, as though biology alone were the only factor, or the only important factor at least to consider. I don't believe that it is, and it seems many people seem to agree.
In my experience though, a lot of those well meaning people who believe there is more to life than the beginning and end of it here in this world (the biology of it) try to approach the question the same way and tend to site somewhat vague biblical verses to support their stance.
Anyone who's read the Bible seriously knows the Bible isn't at all meant to be a science text, though it may offer that sort of insight, it is incidental and not the point of it.
As I sang these lyrics tonight, loudly and quite badly, it occurred to me if there is in deed more to life than what we see, then we've been approaching this question all wrong. I no longer believe that the biological approach is the one to take since the question isn't a biological question.
So the answer I found? Life begins when it is loved.
Yep, I said it, life begins when it is loved, and God loves all of His creation. If it is life at all, it is loved, and as is true with all of creation that alone is enough to to give it value.
Consider this text from what is unanimously agreed as being a non-Christian document:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
What is it that equalizes all men? That gives them value and thus unalienable rights? That's right, their Creator...with a capital "C". I think this non-Christian document says it quite clearly.
That our Creator loves it gives it value, shouldn't we too then? To take it one step further then, if all life has said Creator shouldn't the taking of that life then be reserved for its Creator as well?
Feel free to disagree, as I'm sure many will.
I'd love to hear your thoughts, but at least think about it, like something very big depended on it, because it does.
peace,
db
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