Remember to Ask
“YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.
The moment you are born you begin dying. You may die in fifty years, ten years, perhaps tomorrow - or even today. But whenever it happens, death awaits every person, whether rich or poor, young or old, believer or nonbeliever.”
―Theresa Aletheia Noble, “Remember Your Death: Memento Mori Lenten Devotional”
**********
Dear Alex,
You’ve been asking non-stop: What is our vision of human flourishing and togetherness when heads have been rolling off shoulders and buried in mass graves?
For a busy month like June, when masses of graduates will be swinging their gowns and necks in flair, I wonder if they may find personal and communal relevance in the paradox of your questioning. She is one head craned to get a head start in the rat race. He is headstrong about making a man of himself in the throng of ambitions. Why should I be concerned about any vision too exquisite for me to grasp, let alone consider it given the immediacy of my aims and aspirations? What’s in it for me if my head is not the one to be lopped off?
To probe into the root of my questions, my doctor asked me this morning, “Have you been feeling deep anxieties lately?”
I had sought him for help with skin, not head, issues. Leaning to the camera in our virtual exchange, he advised I find an outlet to diffuse stress, find a friend to talk to, find acceptance to taking a short burst of low-dose anti-depressants. Find the remedy, grope for a cure and let my head rest in tranquility as the headquarters of law and culture snap up questions, smash down barriers and shoot out solutions.
Finding ourselves with our heads safely grounded poses the risk of becoming mindless if we do not heed questions beyond self-preservation. Whatever outlet I may find to efface my skin and head problems cannot rid me of my deep-seated idols manifested in deep anxieties. The horizon looks narrow from a pit.
I wonder if we dare envision a horizon more elastic as reimagined in the 5-second video of this young man, one made in your likeness and the image of God and a graduate pending next week, erasing gravity. One of the most complex moves, the “heelflip” requires a 360-degree rotation along the axis of the board’s length where the last part of the foot launching off the platform is the heel.
In the ER I’ve seen heels fissured and rigid flipped on boards. A gamut of solutions would be dumped in concerted chaos to sustain the flourishing of head and flesh until the leader of the resuscitation team hollers the last question to signal the inevitable: Does anyone have any suggestion not yet tried?
Before we arrive at the gurney, I asked myself while rambling barefoot on the beach last Saturday morning, kelp on breath, skin and sand as one then and soon in common grave: Can we find a shared path to thrive on, an axis to flip, heel and head jarring against indifference and sloth to stay slick and sticky with curiosity and wonder over heads strained above our horizons?
If I could revert to the day of my high school graduation decades of June ago, I wish I could have heard memento mori - remember your death - in the commencement speech revived from the book on Lent by Sister Theresa:
“We remember our death in order that our lives may be filled with the Life of Christ, both now and when we enter into the joy of eternal life. Remembering one’s death is an absolute essential aspect of the Christian life not only because it helps us to live well, but also because it helps us remember what Christ has done for us.”
For our skateboarders and new graduates in flight, remember the trampling of heads begins with ours first when we forget about the vision of human flourishing.
Yours, Kate
For a busy month like June, when masses of graduates will be swinging their gowns and necks in flair, I wonder if they may find personal and communal relevance in the paradox of your questioning. She is one head craned to get a head start in the rat race. He is headstrong about making a man of himself in the throng of ambitions. Why should I be concerned about any vision too exquisite for me to grasp, let alone consider it given the immediacy of my aims and aspirations? What’s in it for me if my head is not the one to be lopped off?
To probe into the root of my questions, my doctor asked me this morning, “Have you been feeling deep anxieties lately?”
I had sought him for help with skin, not head, issues. Leaning to the camera in our virtual exchange, he advised I find an outlet to diffuse stress, find a friend to talk to, find acceptance to taking a short burst of low-dose anti-depressants. Find the remedy, grope for a cure and let my head rest in tranquility as the headquarters of law and culture snap up questions, smash down barriers and shoot out solutions.
Finding ourselves with our heads safely grounded poses the risk of becoming mindless if we do not heed questions beyond self-preservation. Whatever outlet I may find to efface my skin and head problems cannot rid me of my deep-seated idols manifested in deep anxieties. The horizon looks narrow from a pit.
I wonder if we dare envision a horizon more elastic as reimagined in the 5-second video of this young man, one made in your likeness and the image of God and a graduate pending next week, erasing gravity. One of the most complex moves, the “heelflip” requires a 360-degree rotation along the axis of the board’s length where the last part of the foot launching off the platform is the heel.
In the ER I’ve seen heels fissured and rigid flipped on boards. A gamut of solutions would be dumped in concerted chaos to sustain the flourishing of head and flesh until the leader of the resuscitation team hollers the last question to signal the inevitable: Does anyone have any suggestion not yet tried?
Before we arrive at the gurney, I asked myself while rambling barefoot on the beach last Saturday morning, kelp on breath, skin and sand as one then and soon in common grave: Can we find a shared path to thrive on, an axis to flip, heel and head jarring against indifference and sloth to stay slick and sticky with curiosity and wonder over heads strained above our horizons?
If I could revert to the day of my high school graduation decades of June ago, I wish I could have heard memento mori - remember your death - in the commencement speech revived from the book on Lent by Sister Theresa:
“We remember our death in order that our lives may be filled with the Life of Christ, both now and when we enter into the joy of eternal life. Remembering one’s death is an absolute essential aspect of the Christian life not only because it helps us to live well, but also because it helps us remember what Christ has done for us.”
For our skateboarders and new graduates in flight, remember the trampling of heads begins with ours first when we forget about the vision of human flourishing.
Yours, Kate
Comments
Post a Comment