When new life comes into the world and when life leaves the world at whatever age, there are witnesses. People gather to welcome the newly born or the newly met into their families and their hearts; people gather to say God-be-with-you and release friends and relatives from this life, handing them back to God. We all come into life as individuals, and we leave it in much the same way – but others bear witness to our initial coming and our final leaving. Life and death may be solo activities, but they are not unseen.
What does it mean to bear witness to the life of another, the death of another? It’s with this question that I leave my ponderings on life and death over the last few weeks. For me, bearing witness is a joyful and sometimes terrible blessing. Life in any form is precious, if I have eyes to see it clearly. Being given life is a holy and finite gift, one given back in the return to the one who bestowed it in the first place.
For the life I have been given, I am grateful beyond words. For the death I will receive some time in the future, I pray for the wisdom to be equally as grateful. The same holds for the lives and the deaths I have born witness to.
I’d never thought of that—that the important and needful thing is bearing witness to life, at its beginning and end. And that reminds me of someone who described marriage as basically having someone to witness your life. Every day.
Which then reminds me of my grandkids—when they’re playing, ALL they want is to have someone watch. “Look, look” is all they cry.
So true. One of my favorite scenes from Shall We Dance is when the wife of the main character says that marriage is taking notice of another person’s life – and honoring that life as one honors one’s own..Thanks, David!