God, Suffering and Salvation

I have complete sympathy for atheists and agnostics. I’ve wrestled with questions my entire life and whether or not there is a God is always one of them. But the one thing that I can’t understand is being angry about human suffering, from a rational basis, if God does not exist. If there is no ultimate good, no greater purpose or meaning to life, on what basis do we make a moral judgment about suffering?

Okay, let’s back up a second. I’m here at my local establishment drinking another Long Island, one of many since the death of Uriah, and it hasn’t given me an answer as to why he would die of cancer at twenty-four. The medical diagnosis is simple enough. He had cancer. The aggressive kind. It started with the lump on his ankle during boot camp. I still have the picture on my phone taken out of morbid curiosity and never dreaming it was a death sentence.

Uriah and I, despite our difference in age, got along in a way that only cousins do. He was like me. We didn’t simply accept those easy cliché answers. He was someone who was both determined and also full of doubts. He was also the six-foot tall and better version of everything I ever was. The best part was that I could claim some of his success for myself given that I had encouraged him to continue his college education, telling him that it was better to keep going than to live a life of regrets.

Watching Uriah sacrifice a leg only to have the cancer be found in his lungs a year later. It was a gut punch. I think I stopped praying, at some point, because I just knew what the prognosis was.

The hardest part, however, is that Uriah was not the first of his family that I had to carry out of the church on a cold winter day. His parents had already lost one of their children to a seizure disorder. His two other siblings are severely disabled and will need constant care. Judy, his mom, is an incredible woman and has extraordinary faith. Ed too has great strength of character. And neither of them wastes any time feeling sorry for themselves despite losing the one healthy child they had to this terrible disease.

Where was God?

When my little Saniyah died, unexpectedly, it was a really big struggle for me. It took me years to get my feet back under me again, spiritually and emotionally speaking, and I had both doubted my own faith along with the existence of a loving God. The death of Uriah, along with my disappointments with those whom I put my trust in, and my long wait for Charlotte, have really tested me the past few years. But, I have those who need me to be strong this time around and, for this reason, have had to push back against falling into despair again.

Nevertheless, I totally get why someone who has encountered suffering in a personal way is angry and denies the existence of God on this basis. I mean why would this kind of pain and loss be allowed if there is an all-powerful good in the universe, right? Why would God not intervene and stop this all rather than let us go through such terrible experiences? It doesn’t make much sense, does it, that we should be left so lonely and struggling if God is good.

However, if we eliminate totally God from the equation, then we dismiss religious morality and must acknowledge that there is nothing written in the fabric of the universe that says our existence entitles us to good feelings. I mean, as far as evolution goes, pain is more or less a survival tool, a feedback system to tell us what to avoid. Feeling sad about the death of a friend or family member is, by this logic, a malfunction.

In this harsh environment, where everything is out to kill us, why would we ever expect anything more than suffering?

The moral reasoning that makes this bad, if you are truly an atheist, is nothing other than a construct. In terms of pure biology, it is good that fire hurts or we might burn our arms off. That is pain for a very practical and utilitarian purpose. Undeniably good if there is such a thing. But what reasonable good is there in mourning those already dead? No point in crying over spilled milk, right? A totally rational being would simply move on to the next social resource and not be so attached or sentimental.

Being upset over suffering and death, if there is no God, is irrational. And, if there is a God, like that of Christianity, then suffering and death are exactly what we’re promised in this life. Sheesh. Did you read the story of Jesus and how he was betrayed, beaten, and then unjustly killed in the most brutal fashion all as part of a redemptive plan? If you actually believe in eternity then why be angry about a few years living out this rich narrative we call life?

At the very least, how can we judge anything, especially a fictional character, on the basis of a moral standard that doesn’t exist?

If there is no God, then there is no basis for morality either. That too, including the idea that suffering is bad or pleasure is good, is entirely a construct. Pain is good in some circumstances, it protects us from injury and causes us to change behavior in ways that are beneficial. In other words, without the discomfort of hunger or thirst, we would not correctly prioritize our life. Pleasure can be bad when it makes us eat too many donuts and become diabetic. So how does one truly know that their own interpretation of these signals is the correct one?

From what I’ve observed in myself and in others, unbelief stems from disappointment when things do not go as expected. It is about who is in control. We can cling, in our own arrogance, to this notion that the universe should bend to our will. Or realize that our own perceptions, based on senses which are not very reliable and a brain prone to making mistakes in judgment, are not infallible or ever actual truth.

The thing is we only ever know if suffering is good or bad if it is properly contextualized if we understand the end. For example, feeling the burn of exercise is good pain because it is what accompanies muscle development and so we embrace this. So what is the real context of our life? To what end, or for what reason, did we become conscious? What is behind this ‘accident’ if it is one?

How do we contextualize our existence enough to judge what is good or bad?

If there is such a thing as an eternal reward, that would change the calculus, right? It would mean that all pain can be gain, and all suffering can draw us closer as much as it drives us away because defining the moral character of any experience depends on the end. I am willing to subject myself to many hardships if the reward is big enough. No, this doesn’t take away the question of why we must go through here to get there. But seeing past our immediate feelings is pretty much the only way to make progress.

Angry is a feeling, not a guide for life…

I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.
C.S. Lewis

People don’t walk away from Christianity for rational or scientific reasons. Sure, they may guard their emotion-based unbelief behind a wall of post hoc justification. But the reality is that they’re upset about something. They had expectations and are now disappointed and acting as wounded people do. It’s just strange that anyone at all Biblically literate would suddenly lose faith over our suffering when that’s literally the only we’re promised in this life.

What really doesn’t make any sense is why anyone would rather suffer with no hope at all of eternity. If God is dead, then nihilism is the logical next stop and that life has no real meaning or purpose. But the suffering does not go away simply because we’re angry at the giver of life. No, it will only intensify and become a spiral of despair. Our salvation is in our understanding that, smart as we may think we are, we’re truly quite ignorant and even our most ‘concrete’ reality is not real:

The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.
Werner Heisenberg

For those who don’t know who that is, Mr. Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1932, for the creation of quantum mechanics. Materialism, despite the zombie corpse of this thing staggering on, died with the discovery of things in defiance of this entirely too simplistic conception. Sure, this kind of physics is well-beyond most, but it does support a notion of reality that requires a Universal Perceiver (as described in this article) and we could call that God.

So, if you’re actually serious about science, then the hard science of physics is the place to start and, with its mathematical origin and proofs, is much less likely to be clouded by emotion one way or another. We can’t run from God. But we may need to leave behind the baggage of our own misconceptions and learn the value of true repentance. Maybe Uriah died, and went to his reward, so some of us would have our flawed thinking broken and seek our salvation in Him?

Maybe some of us are just too stubborn, or too needing of control being in our own hands, to admit we can’t save ourselves?

I’ll tell you this. The universe, without God, is an infinitely dark and lonely place. It is that starring abyss of which Friedrich Nietzsche warned, the existential horror H.P. Lovecraft describes. Highly intelligent men, both of them, and understood the implications that come with true unbelief in God. You will not escape your suffering simply by denying that the Divine all-powerful good exists. No, rather you will just remain in that hell of your own creation.

Postscript: Questions Remain

I still grieve Uriah, as I do Saniyah, uncle Roland, and others that seem to have been taken before their time. I’ve long struggled against sources of trauma much more basic, the lack of unconditional love in the church that could make up for my shortcomings, and much of that is unresolved. At the time of my writing, the impossibility is something yet to be fulfilled. I do not have answers for any of this nor do I expect to. I’m not the arrogant kid who argued with his high school biology teacher, not a Bible-thumping fundamentalist at all, and yet must believe.

The Man I Never Met — Remembering Wayne_in_Maine

There are some characters you meet online and never forget.

Such was the case with Wayne_in_Maine, who could come off as a sort of cranky or cantankerous old man and yet seemed (even then) to have a golden heart under the bluster. There is a way or an intuition I have, that can cut through the harshness on the surface. I can just know when someone is full of themselves and cruel despite their nice-sounding words or truly compassionate despite their surface-level unpleasantness.

Wayne was the latter kind.

The first thing notable about Wayne was that he was intelligent, he had been a nuclear engineer, could articulate his arguments well, and clearly was not going to be backed into a corner. The second thing was that he had a very unique journey and a different perspective from the other ethnic cultural inhabitants of the MennoDiscuss forum. He had gone from a hippy leftist to a conservative-minded neo-Anabaptist and could speak with authority on matters of science unlike the religiously indoctrinated parroting their fundamentalist teachers.

Initially, I saw him as a sort of threat to my worldview, another person compromised by secular influence trying to get Mennonites to shift to his views, and yet later his perspective would actually strengthen my faith when it faltered against the scientific evidence clearly pointing to the appearance of age in the universe.

Because of Wayne, I learned that young-Earth Creationism (or YEC) is not necessary to have a sincere and grounded faith in Jesus Christ.

In fact, it might actually be a liability and cause many to fall into a serious crisis of faith when they go to university, study biology or almost any science and find out the case for YEC is not as clear as it was presented. That Wayne, a rational mind and well-educated, could both reconcile modern scientific theory and his faith was more useful to me (a critical thinker) than some Hammy tourist attraction put there to feed the confirmation bias of fundamentalist midwits. I came around to his position and haven’t looked back.

I have long respected Wayne despite our sometimes clashing and my occasionally coming away feeling unappreciated by him.

He was a man a conviction. He gave up lucrative career paths, actually tried communal living, literally sold all from what I recall, and had come much further in developing his own perspective than most do.

However, despite my respect, Wayne’s version of Christianity didn’t appeal to me. He had, inadvertently, pushed a friend of mine away from Anabaptism with one of his responses. I still believe his take on the rich young ruler account misses the mark, where he read the response of Jesus as a sort of legalistic prescription rather the same as we understand Luke 14:26 where Jesus says if someone “does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”

I know, for a fact, that he did not take that literally. He came across, from my limited ability to see, as a very loving father and committed husband. I can’t imagine him hating his family to prove his commitment to Christ. Nevertheless, he was adamant about being completely Anabaptist in his perspective about wealth or warfare, an inconsistency of thought that bothers me about him and others of that fold. It did annoy me too when he characterized the Orthodox tradition as “smells and bells” as if worship was supposed to be something other than a beautiful or full sensory experience.

The Cancer and Change

After I heard about Wayne’s cancer diagnosis, none of our previous sparrings mattered much to me. Wayne, despite our differences, was a true friend and someone that mattered to me. It was especially important to me, given my mourning of Uriah, to talk to someone coming to terms with their poor prognosis and yet not giving up hope.

When I reached out on Facebook Messenger, mentioning Uriah and my desire to meet with him, he replied quickly and with more warmth than I had expected. There was no standoffishness, as had kind of been a feature of his personality, he reciprocated the desire to meet and we talked about various matters of faith.

I took a look at some of the MennoNet discussions he was involved in and got a laugh together about the various bad arguments being used. That’s one thing about him, his humor was dry and always fun, or at least fun when you were on the same side.

It was a sort of therapy, talking to this different side of the pragmatic engineer. Truly, it was special, the man that I saw emerge in this final trial was different. My own thought was that this was the Wayne that was always there under the snide comment and cynicism. Men can put up their walls, to not appear vulnerable, and that was no longer there. We were just two old keyboard warriors with nothing left to prove to the other.

And that’s not to take away from anything he said as far as the grace he was given to endure to the end. It was definitely something spiritual. His testimony of faith was clear. As a friend described him, in this transformed version, “It was like he became a totally different person. Happy, cheerful, optimistic.” He would not be defeated in death and I wanted to hear more about how a rational man, such as himself, given my own struggles, could continue in hope of the eternal.

I had to think of this Scriptural passage:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
(1 Peter 1:3-9)

More important than all of his intellectual endeavors and Christian apologetics, theory or theology, is Wayne’s undying faith through trial is of the greatest comfort to those still in the fight. I never did get to have that face-to-face meeting that we had committed to upon his planned move to Pennsylvania to be closer to his daughter and grandchild. We had planned to meet in order to give us both something to look forward to when he did.

Now that meeting will have to change locations. Wayne took his final breaths yesterday evening, on August 12th, a couple of days after his 65 birthday. By God’s grace, in triumph, we’ll see each other on that other side.

I’m sad that Wayne remains a man that I’ve never met, in the flesh, despite our interactions over the years. However, in his terminal illness, there was also a man that I never met, that softer side, and feel blessed have finally met this man. I loved him and believe that he loved me too. I’ll remember our last interactions for much more fondly than our first. It was beautiful to see his golden heart revealed.

Let the Seed Fall!

Some might wonder why I have such a visceral reaction to wokeism. I have written a few no holds barred blogs trying to warn people of what this is and where it invariably leads. But each time I write it feels as if my concern is not well-explained. I mean, I know some probably read and ask, “why is Joel attacking these well-intentioned people?”

However, I’m having a moment of clarity and therefore will try to expound on why it is absolutely necessary to shock people out of their stupor. The reality is that wokeism (or grievance culture) and religious purity culture are two branches off of the same tree. Both patriarchal conservative men and those angry pink-haired feminists are trying to create a world without suffering. Both, tragically, create more problems than they solve.

First, what is purity culture?

As I experienced it, in the conservative Mennonite context, it was a branch of Biblical fundamentalism (Protestantism) that had been grafted in to the Anabaptist tree. It was a legalistic perspective. The pure life was to avoid vice (no drinking, dancing, going to movies, etc) and remain completely a virgin until marriage. It is not that the aim is entirely bad, but there was also a lack of grace accompanying this perspective.

In other words, there was no room for failure. It a hellscape of unchecked perfectionist tendencies. People who should be diagnosed as having obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), along with other mental illness, viewed as being virtuous. And the rest of us struggling to meet an unreasonable standard without the actual spiritual help we needed.

For example, girls who thought they were ‘defiled’ for simply talking to a guy that they didn’t intend to marry. And heaven forbid you did date and break-up. Then you were damaged goods. Cursed to walk the earth, like Cain, a stigma tattooed to your chest, a scarlet letter.

To those steeped in this religious purity culture it was about saving the next generation. It was a reaction to a world of promiscuity and failed commitments have produced far-reaching consequences. And yet, while it does work for some, those who check all the right boxes, it permanently marginalize others and gives them no real road to redemption. Divorced and remarried? Tough luck, you’ll need to break up that successful loving family to become a Mennonite.

That’s the purity culture I know all too well and, for reasons I’ll get to later, have fully rejected as being unChrist-like and spiritually void.

Wokeism, despite the vast difference in appearance to what I’ve described above, is another subset of purity culture. It is a reaction to the ‘privilege’ of those who better represent the cultural ideal. It is another form of utopian idealism.

Whereas the latter religious variety of purity culture believes that if their children only kiss one person, never experience the pain or disappointment of a break-up, then heaven will come to earth—the ‘woke, by contrast, believe that if everyone was forced to tolerate their ugliness and embrace their toxic grievance; if they could live free of further offense, then they would be fulfilled.

Both forms of purity culture are offshoots of Western values. They both see suffering as a flaw in the system and try to eradicate it through their own means. And they do have their valid points. No, the girl, the victim of sexual abuse, who (because of her loss of self-worth) goes from one guy to the next, should not be called a slut. But, that said, nor should her unhealthy coping behavior be normalized. Instead, we should stop seeing people as damaged goods because they failed to reach some sort of phony cultural ideal.

The truth is, the woke, as much as they attack whiteness. Or the feminist who acts aggressively and looks to a career as being freedom. The patriarchal father, as much as he claims to be protecting. Are all the thing that they despise most. Religious purity culture, sadly, is hypersexual in focus and produces conflicted men like Bill Gothard, Doug Philips and Josh Duggar. Feminism amounts to a form of female self-loathing that unwittingly idealizes the male role. And so-called social justice is simply a means to manipulate and enslave another group of people.

All of them assume that if a person could simply avoid pain and bad experience they would find their completeness. All seek a kind of perfection outside of Christ and very quickly, despite their wonderful intentions, turn into a dystopian hell.

What is wrong is this idea that pain us is less for our good than pleasure. The religious, ignoring the lesson of Job, neglecting what Jesus said about the tower tower of Siloam or the man blind from birth, see suffering as a sign of God’s displeasure and a punishment. Likewise, the woke want to be embraced without repentance, if they would simply be called clean then they could finally escape their terrible anguish, right?

The truth is, bad experience is part of life and as beneficial as the good. Growing up in a single parent home can be an excuse or a motivation to do better.

This is what makes the story of Jesus so compelling. Unlike us, he was completely innocent, his intentions were pure and should have been loved by all. But, instead of embrace him, his own people saw him as a threat, he would undermine their system and perspective, show them for what they were, thus had to be eliminated. That he was executed with criminals would seem like a humiliating defeat. He suffered and died for what?

However, it was in this suffering that salvation came. Sure, the burden of the cross comes with anguish. We would rather seek pleasure and avoid pain. However, in Jesus, the cross is transformed from being a brutal instrument of death into a well of eternal life. How? It is in the same way that a seed falls to the ground, is buried and leads to new life.

Why would we cling to the seed or refuse to let it be buried and prevent the tree?

The overprotectiveness of religious purity culture, the refusal to acknowledge our brokenness and need of transformation of wokeism, both try to find salvation by human means. One seeks to impress God, like the rich young ruler or proud Pharisee, whereas the other (like Cain) demands that God accept their unworthy sacrifice and then murders their righteous brothers. Both need Jesus.

In conclusion. We’re all damaged goods and can be made more beautiful than ever through repentance. Jesus can make our pain as much a joy as our pleasure.

Broken Records: The Choice To Be Healed

Adam is a friend of mine. We have gone out to eat on multiple occasions since being introduced. He’s a bit eccentric, he carries a notebook everywhere, has humor that doesn’t quite hit the mark, spiritual rather than religious, dresses a little like an old-school hippie and is sort of alt-right conspiracy-minded.

Adam is also depressed and a broken record. Time and time again he goes back to his relationship with his father and wants some sort of validation that he never does receive. His father, his opposite politically, left when he was a child, seems to have some mental issues of his own and can be very degrading when things don’t go his way. It is quite evident that the sins of the father have visited upon the son.

I have urged Adam to move on, told him that his biological father will never give him what he so desperately wants, and have suggested that he do as I have done when let down. Namely, I have told him to come to Holy Cross. The Orthodox have fatherly figures who represent the Heavenly Father for the fatherless.

Unfortunately, Adam, despite his desperation, is stuck on doing things his own way. From the first time we met until now there is a wall of resistance that goes up against Christian religion and even what seems like an inability to understand simple explanations. For example, I used the illustration of Naaman having to dip in the river Jordan to be healed, thought I had explained well, and got nothing but a blank look of his being genuinely perplexed.

There’s truly not much hope for Adam until he is able to let go of his disappointments and hope of some sort of resolution on his own terms. And, quite frankly, even if his dad would miraculously transform into the father he envisions as ideal, that would not fix what broken in Adam. He will try drugs, he asks for my “fellowship” with him, but absolutely refuses to dip in those healing waters of the Church.

It’s sad because his repeatedly going back to this makes me feel as if I’m wasting time on a lost cause. I mean, it’s hard not to do that inner “here we go again” eye roll when there seems to be no progress. And it does certainly work on my patience too. But there’s one big reason why I do not write him off entirely. What is that reason? Well, maybe because I’m not all that different from him.

My Own Skipping Record

In the days of vinyl records there was nothing more annoying than the skip. It was what happened when the record had been mishandled and the surface grooves scratched. The needle would travel down the groove, reach the scratched area, and jump back into the prior groove. The result is that the music abruptly stops and makes an unpleasant transition over and over again.

Being stuck in a rut is not fun. Ending up in the same place no matter how hard you try will exhaust the strongest person. Worse, when others try to help pull a mired soul out, and the stuck person goes sideways rather than forward, many will leave concluding that they do not want to be helped. And sometimes that is indeed the case. Some do enjoy the pity party attention and are simply a drain of resources that could be used for those who truly want out.

Those who have read my blogs over the past few years have probably started (long ago) to wonder if any progress has been truly made. And, believe me, some days I do wonder myself as I give a slightly different angle on the same themes over and over again. I mean, you get it. I had some really big expectations and ended up really disappointed at the end. So move on already, right?

And the truth is, I have in many regards. I’m not the same person as I was a year ago. I have gained confidence, continue to attend to my responsibilities, and the feelings of loss grow less intense with each repeat cycle. That said, the recent setbacks, the physical pain, along with the unresolved situation with Charlotte, can very quickly lead to that spiral back into those past hurts. There was no real resolution or closure there, to survive I simply pivoted to new hopes.

Completing the transition, out of the wilderness of broken glass to my new promised land, means seeing a fulfilment of the impossibly. That means Charlotte being here. Until that moment when we meet in the airport terminal, her safely on US soil, there will be that cloud of uncertainty hanging over me. It does cause me to skip at times, to go back to those feelings of helplessness and worries that my hopes are still entirely delusion.

I choose to believe. But not because it is easy to believe.

As the man with the sick son who came to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

Do You Want To Be Healed?

A year or two ago, this was the text for the Homily one Sunday morning:

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
(John 5:5‭-‬8 NIV)

It really struck me, more than ever before while hearing this passage, that Jesus asks the man if he wants to be healed. Imagine that, a man, waiting for nearly forty years, nobody helping this unfortunate man into this healing pool. He, like Adam, like myself before the pursuit of the impossibly, had been waiting on rescue by the means that he could understand. His days must’ve passed an increasing nightmare of his own paralysis and being surrounded by other hurting people more concerned with their own needs.

Jesus asks, almost as if knowing the man’s will to be healed is permission. And the incredible part? After hearing the man’s complaint about no help, simply commands him “get up” and the man does. His faith set him free.

That in contrast with this:

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.
(Mark 6:1‭-‬5 NIV)

The disbelief of those who knew Jesus as merely a man, the carpenters son, limited what he was able to do. Spiritual healing is, and has always been, a matter of our own choice. So many of us insist on doing things our own way, we refuse to dip in our muddy Jordan rivers because of pride, we wait on rescue believing that our salvation comes from other people, yet all we need is to look up in faith and then healing is possible.

No, this does not mean we will be spared physical ailment or live forever in our current form. Even Lazarus, raised from the dead, passed from this life. But we can be made spiritually whole. That is why I keep writing, maybe I sound like a broken record, maybe this is too much for many people who stopped reading this blog long ago, still I write so that my most faithful friends may someday also share in my joy having known of my sorrows.

What Wears Me Out

I’ve always been a sort of magical thinker, my hopes always far outpacing my realities, and to the point that sometimes when my dreams would finally come true the pleasure had already been exhausted.

I had so wanted a go cart growing up. On the school bus ride home my mind would start to wander into the fantasy realm. I would picture a shiny new go cart, like the ones in the catalog, waiting for me at the end of the driveway and would actually be disappointed when it did not end up being true when we would finally pull up to to my stop.

That’s not to say that I didn’t love the old go cart that my dad would finally weld up, using a rusted frame as a starting point, and an old lawnmower engine. Anything with four wheels, that ran on gasoline, that could be slid around corners, definitely scratched that itch. Still, my vivid world of make-believe did not always end with any fulfillment.

In my adulthood this tendency to be way out ahead of myself did not get any better. I’ve cried, on more than one occasion, thinking of my beautiful bride walking towards me up the aisle. And not in sadness either, it was in bliss having momentarily put myself in that wonderful place. Of course, given that I never even so much as went on one date with this young woman, I pretty much ruined that music.

The world between my ears can be a paradise. A place where there’s such thing as innocent love and anything is actually possible. I used this as an escape. My school years spent doodling and hoping for some kind of rescue from the mundanity of the classroom.

These visions were often grandiose. A child scaled B-17 would land in the school yard. I would run out to meet my faithful crew as the teacher and 5th grade class would watch in disbelief, stunned, as we revved the engines and were on our way to the nation (later a planet with two suns) that I benevolently ruled along with my brother Kyle and cousin Mel.

Truly, I had always thought that Kyle and I would always be together, build a house with a chimney in the center, like the ruins that I saw on a Civil War battlefield. I’m not sure why, but it didn’t seem possible then (despite our fights) that we ever be separated, let alone hours apart, and I really can’t claim to have gotten over that disappointment yet. He moved on, it seems that I could not.

And I have lived a sort of Peter Pan existence. Holding on, hoping that some day the love that had eluded me, child-like and innocent, would finally magically arrive to rescue me from my torment for having failed to achieve. I long overstayed the youth group. Until I had my happily ever after, what choice did I have? Get old by myself and alone?

Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy and I lacked the necessary social tools to approach an attractive young woman—let alone convince her to date me.

Years would go by, where I would convince myself, “this time will be different,” and end up leaving the church retreat no closer to my goals and disappointed. These beautiful wonderful thought going in would slowly morph into a nightmarish reality as opportunity would pass me by and I would be left with only my profound loneliness again.

It was only in my mid thirties that this optimism would crack and the pattern of hope followed by disappointment would finally overwhelm me. Brimming with outsized expectations, I would arrive at the weekend, and suddenly shut down. The wheels came off, I would collapse into the nearest couch, curl up, unable to push myself to try again—eventually ending up a sobbing mess.

The pressure had become too much. The difference between my hopes and reality too insurmountable.

Sure, I could entertain my delusions, the right one was going to finally arrive, we would look at our feet, shy at first, we would talk, she would smile at my earnest thoughts, I would finally be at ease and soon enough we would be walking hand in hand out the back of a church. But the chances of that were as good as Gatsby somehow being able to turn back the hands of time and Daisy would be his.

My collapse from exhaustion came at the tail end of decades of forced optimism and sweeping aside my rational fears. I did not want a world where my being 5′-8″ tall and rather unathletic disqualified me. Love, to me, especially pertaining to my female religious counterparts, was supposed to be something transcendent. Unfortunately, what I got instead was a brick wall of rejection.

Life is especially cruel to those with a high ideal. If I were less able to see the marvelous maybe I could have more easily moved on to more practical aims. But I could never get my head out of the clouds nor was I willing to acknowledge the harsh truth about romance. The young women were also chasing their version of perfection and that perfect man wasn’t me.

Somehow, despite a mind that could span universes, I ended up being thirty years old living in Milton and thus ineligible for that kind of love. How does a dreamer, still holding to those childish notions of escape, ever recover from that terrible pronouncement?

They don’t.

It wears me out thinking about it.

It makes me think of another novel and protagonist, Ethan Frome, an injured ruin of a man. His house reduced in size as he limped, painfully, through what remained of his life. Not even granted the merciful end to his suffering of that suicide pack those many years before. Perhaps my life would have been better had my secret world been a little more stark, desolate and devoid of life?

When To Give Up?

The past few weeks have been painful. I had a bad toothache on top of my chronic neck issues. Sleeping and eating became extremely difficult. Like a city that still hasn’t been able to repair the flood walls after the last devastating storm, it did not take much time before waves of despair washed over me.

Yes, I knew that eventually this round of suffering would likely end. Antibiotics did finally do their thing for the infected root after a few days of excruciating pain. But I’m also more keenly aware than ever of my own deteriorating condition. I have gone to the gym faithfully for years, live a generally healthy life, and yet it is all simply a matter of time before I’ll succumb to old age.

It’s been a rough year, maybe even a rough decade, as the strong have fallen and yet another romance seems to be up against impossible odds. The death of Uriah, despite my best efforts to prepare for the outcome of the terrible prognosis he received, is still difficult. And now the unexpected circumstances of the pandemic are a real threat to my most successful relationship.

It has been over two and half years, early January of 2019, since Charlotte and I have been physically together. I had visited her over the holidays two years in a row and might have done the same had a contractor, remodeling my house, not overstayed their welcome. So, thinking the immigration process would soon be underway, I had promised Charlotte that I would visit the next year if she was not here.

Unfortunately, as December of 2020 approached, it soon became very clear that I would not be able to keep my word. Travel into the Philippines, for a foreigner like me, had been banned. It was, to say the least, a huge disappointment. And, obviously, having not come through, my own credibility also took a huge hit. Sure, I could not have known, but then how do you assure of anything in times like these?

I’m still not allowed to visit my love and there’s no end in sight to our wait. The Philippines is unusually strict as far as allowing noncitizens into the country and the immigration process, already arduous, has slowed to a crawl in the current pandemic era. In any year prior to 2020 there’s a good chance that we would be buying plane tickets right now for her and her son. Now everything is uncertain.

It is torture. What has remained of my hopes is being severely tested. Sure, the first step of the K-1 Visa process may soon be underway (we submitted our paperwork at the start of the year) yet the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) hasn’t even started to review it. The estimated start of processing is 6 to 8 months, we’re on month 8, and they could deny our application. And that’s just the start, then it moves on to the US Department of State.

Very recently I’ve heard that the Embassy in Manila isn’t even doing the interviews right now and, if true, this would mean a tremendous backlog of cases. They’ll likely force Charlotte and Y-dran (her son) to get the experimental vaccine or at least make it exceedingly hard otherwise. I’m not completely comfortable with that and yet what choice does one have? They basically have us over the barrel. Even with full compliance we’re looking at possible years of additional waiting.

It is so completely unnecessary that Y-dran has to wait even longer to have a father in his life, so absolutely unfair that Charlotte’s patience continues to be punished with one more year of waiting, and that’s not to mention my own distress trying to decide what is best considering the circumstances. It seems every path I try to ease our suffering is met with a new obstacle.

Just today, as I further explored our options to visit or meet somewhere, I found the ticket prices for my go-to airline have about tripled from last time that I looked and are pretty much prohibitively expensive. I do not even mention that sort of thing to her right now because it is too depressing too talk about. Maybe I’ll do a GoFundMe to raise funds if there is actually an option for us to see each other.

At this point nothing else in my life matters besides my obligation to Charlotte and Y-dran. If it weren’t letting them down, it would be easy to jump off of a bridge given the current outlook. I’ve been stuck in this nightmare of having my most sincere romantic hopes be dashed by things unforeseeable for decades. I’ve already endured complications that extended our seperation for years and now this.

Prior to the pandemic we would likely have everything processed by now and would be purchasing tickets. Now it is perhaps foolish to believe that we’ll ever be together or at least not for many years. Which, given our current ages, and the ticking biological clock, could mean that we never have children. At the very least, I’ll be even older and in less favorable condition than I am now, which is a very hard pill to swallow for both of us.

I’ll admit that my resolve is being strained to the max. Given my physical battles and my history of seeing everything possible go wrong in pursuit of happily ever after, there is this nagging fear that the past couple of years have been wasted on a lost cause and that I’ve dragged down to other people with my own delusional faith. I know Charlotte could find another man. Am I selfish to hold on? How long do you keep dreaming before giving up?

The problem is, if I give up, I’ve given up on life and love—I have let cynicism win.

Then again, it does feel that the odds are stacked up against us. Why would this all happen right now, when we already had such a tough journey? We’re up against the world, a cold-hearted system that doesn’t care about our story nor our love. Those making these decisions, processing our paperwork, can hold out indefinitely without feeling an ounce of our pain. We’re not giving up although maybe we have picked a battle that can’t be won.

Redefining Our Scarlet Letters

Many of us are defined by the hurts we have experienced. Truly, how we interact today, the anxieties we have, are often a product of something in our past, injustice or injury, that has warped our perceptions.

For many years of my life, I felt unloveable.

I had gotten off to a bad start in the romantic realm. After some failed efforts, stinging rejections, my confidence fell off a cliff, I would self-sabotage even when I had chances and spiraled even further into fear and doubt. With every “not interested” answer came increased feelings of shame and the stigma of being someone not good enough for even a first date.

I still apologize, sometimes, or actually more all the time, when asking to have dinner with a woman.

Why?

Well, not because I’m a terrible person. I’ve always been a good friend and respectful of boundaries. I have much to offer even in terms of platonic relationships and have proven myself in this regard over and over again. But still, because of the value others have assigned to me, I look at myself as possibly being a burden to the person I’m asking and that hesitancy can become a self-fulfilling prophecy because it makes the person being asked uncomfortable.

If you see yourself as being worthless it shouldn’t be a big surprise when other people agree.

Breaking free of these cycles can feel impossible when stuck in them. The most frustrating advice I’ve ever received was “be confident” as if I was simply choosing to see myself as garbage for no reason whatsoever. I mean, I had been confident enough to express interest, even overcome the oppression of my social anxieties, only to be swatted down one more time by young women who had their eyes set on 5′-10″ or over.

Of course my plight, as a shy person on the shorter end of male stature, was not at all helped by the conservative Mennonite culture that had been overcome by purity culture teachings. Young people had it drilled into them that dating that didn’t lead to marriage equated to defilement. So, if you didn’t have the superficial tools, there was really no means of building a relationship or mutual respect that could lead to a deeper commitment.

The Letters We Are Forced To Wear

The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850, is set in the 1600s, in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, and follows a woman, named Hester Prynne, who—through an out of wedlock pregnancy—was found guilty of adultery and is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” for her sin. It contrasts her plight to that of the child’s father, the town’s minister, whom she protects with her silence and lives in constant fear of being exposed for his concealed sin.

Like Hester, some of us wear our shortcomings more visibly than others. Those who obviously lack something according to the prevailing social standard, whether exposed to public scorn and ridicule or simply excluded from institutions and driven to the margins, are forced to deal with feelings of humiliation. Of course, that’s not to say that those who appear to be outwardly pure and undefiled are free of pain, those with less visible faults often live with a tremendous fear of being discovered and guilt.

We all want to be accepted and yet have those letters to wear. It could be that we’re typecasted, “oh, that’s George, always big talker!” We have heard the labels, the declarations, “she’s a flirt” or “he’s desperate,” and sometimes it is hard to know if it is that person or the group making that reality what it is. It is not all completely negative, it could be “they’re meant to be” or any statement that builds an expectation, but it certainly can keep a person confined and limits potential.

Once you fill a particular role, in the minds of the group, it is often difficult to break beyond it.

For example, my biggest fear, when I took a job driving truck, was that I would be branded a “truck driver” and thus not eligible for other work. My concerns were fulfilled, years later, when I talked to a business owner friend about my desire to get off the road and they offered that maybe I could drive a truck for them.

These kinds of things aren’t necessarily even spoken. But we know there are those individuals or that don’t quite live up to the ideal of the group, who have a blemish visible or invisible, and are tolerated more than embraced. In some ways, it would be better if our chests could be emblazoned with these symbols of shame, that we could be told exactly you get told by an eligible young woman “you’ll make a great husband someday” and yet nobody (including her) seems to want that greatness.

However, not all of this is imposed. Some of this punishment, if not most of it, is self-inflicted.

Shamed No More

The most brilliant theme of The Scarlet Letter is that that this symbol of shame is transformed over the course of the novel. This letter intended to stigmatize eventually becomes a badge of honor for the protagonist and something she wears willingly rather than because she must. The letter “A” because of Hester’s diligent work, her charity, and listening to those lower social status, comes to mean “able” or “angel” as the story progresses. She, for her proven virtue, becomes well-respected as humble and wise.

My own life journey, with the investment of love and care of a few, has begun to take that turn as well.

I have begun to realize that my romantic failures were a reflection of a broken courtship culture and not my own lacking. Because of the drip drip drip of Charlotte’s confidence in me, I have become stronger. Not only that, but as a result of my struggle, I also have deep compassion for those who suffer and a desire to free them from the bonds of their insecurities. Now, even when snubbed, because I know who I am and don’t depend on this external definition of what I am for security, I barely care. It is on them, not me. I know I’m a good friend and focus my effort on those who appreciate what I offer.

The reality is that I’ve become a different person. I behave differently than I did when ruled by my anxieties and thus have become more attractive.

No, that doesn’t make what others did to push a person down a dead-end road any more right. The love of Christ should compel us to invest in the salvation of others and especially to help those who want to be helped. Things like slavery and denial of rights to people on the basis of outward appearance certainly do hurt and hinder. And yet, there’s also a way to live beyond our typecasting. to not be confined by the expectations of others, and transcend our circumstances.

For me, there was never that final triumph nor day of reckoning with those who hurt me. My hopes were shattered. My identity crushed. Those who caused my torment continued along their merry way and probably not with a second thought of how their attitudes impacted me. They never did listen to me when I tried to escape from the box they had put me in. But, nonetheless, I did emerge.

The Scarlet Letters others forced us to wear may remain emblazoned on our chest. However, we do not need to accept the meaning others have created for the symbol. In the novel, Hester’s daughter, Pearl, became upset when her mother didn’t wear the letter. For Pearl, the letter represented something other than shame. It represented her loving mother, not sin. That was a seed and very likely helped Hester to see her value beyond the opinions of the judgmental townsfolk. And, eventually, what Hester became changed the meaning of the symbol even for those around her.

Our Perfection Is Not Purity

One of the inspirations for writing this blog was a conversation about matters of sexuality and shame. My contention that the suffering of sexual abuse victims is a product of social expectations, as much as it is about the violation itself, and would be far less painful if we put less weight on perfection in terms of being ‘pure’ in a physical manner.

That’s where the shame comes in. It comes from this idea that by being physically violated, or even touched consentingly by another person, we have somehow become worth less as a person than we were prior. Of course, this is nonsense. Our value does not come from physical purity, a person who was raped is no less beautiful or virtuous even if she does now feel differently about themselves as result. It is this, this change in belief about oneself, that lingers long after the assault and is the real cause of suffering. We are conditioned to see those who have been through this as damaged or defiled.

And that’s not to say that the assault does not do real lasting harm beyond what is physical either. No, rather that a rape survivor is going to be re-traumatized hearing a sermon about saving yourself for marriage. It is going to add to their fears of being disadvantaged and may actually stigmatize them when they really should be loved and treasured. That’s what purity culture does, it heaps shame on those who themselves may have done nothing wrong and often forgives those who should be held accountable.

While holding sexual abusers accountable, like we would anyone who takes what isn’t theirs to take, maybe we should also take on this idea that someone is forever tainted because of sexual intercourse and therefore a perpetual victim?

It isn’t the abusers that define the worth of a person as being their virginity nor is it the abuser who assigns the value to what happened. No, we do that. And one of the reasons why sexual abuse is so painful for those who were raised in a purity culture is because they are convinced that their own value is somehow decreased because of something that happened to them.

Jesus, even in dealing with those who had willfully sinned sexually, was completely gentle.

Why?

Well, it is because Jesus valued the individual for more than their physical ‘purity’ and past behavior. Yes, he told the woman at the well, “go and sin no more,” but he did that for her sake. Her lifestyle was not good for her and, unlike the proud religious elites who can admit no wrong, she was already humble enough to know her own shortcomings and want the change.

So, if Jesus could forgive those who sinned of their own volition, why should those who were violated by the sin of another feel as if they are somehow damaged goods?

If we actually believe that our righteousness comes from being clothed in Christ, made perfect in him, then why do we place so much value on the physical and the past?

To be clothed in Christ means that our negative experiences can be redefined. No longer should the sins of the past (our own or by others) define who we are. Instead, we are new creatures. No, these things we have gone through are not removed, yet they can be redeemed and no longer a burden of shame that we carry, no longer a cause for self-pity or self-loathing, because our perfection does not come from our own abilities. Our purity comes from the inside, through spiritual transformation, and no longer by the reputation others give us or regrets we have.

The Symbolism of the Cross

When Jesus was stripped naked, his flesh cruelly shredded by scourgings, battered and bruised, finally mocked under a sign “king of the Jews” while he suffered unimaginable anguish, the whole process was intended to humiliate and shame.

He did not deserve the mistreatment nor was it a pleasant experience. It was the sin of others that put him there. It was a cross and a horrendous image of despair and death. There nothing worthy of celebration in that. But even this, intended to destroy him, could not.

Most of us, put through similar abuse, may curse God or at the very least we would not be in the mood to forgive those who torment us.

Jesus, by contrast, did not let the circumstances define his character. What they did to him was not a reflection of him nor could it be to his shame. And, most importantly, they could not keep him in the grave as much as they tried.

As a result, the cross, this symbol of their hatred and abuse, has now become something we can look to for healing. It is in the cross of Christ that we can see our worth as being more than what the crowd yells, more even than our broken physical body, and to have faith in God’s perfect justice.

Those ensnared in the world of sin and death, whether victims of abuse, self-declared advocates for victims or the abuser, cannot accept the message of the cross. It is foolishness to them. They are slaves of their twisted passions, prisoners of the past and bound to their own reasonings. And, for the victims who harbor grievance, their answer to being mistreated is always the same as what they feel was done to them. They want to take the marker of shame off of themselves and place it on those who harmed them.

But the message of the cross is that even shame itself can be defeated by the grace of God. Those clothed in His righteousness no longer have need to rank above their peers, no longer live for the acceptance of other people, and live for something altogether different from what many others strive for. No, rather than shrink in fear or fall into self-pity, they see their cross as something that is purifying, as the proving ground of their faith, and opportunity to serve.

If something as awful as the cross can be redefined to become a story of salvation, those letters we wear can also be changed in meaning and redeemed. We can be the Hester, in our own story, the one who proved that her character was about more than that one act those many years ago. In the end she was the better person, for what she went through, than those who had looked at her in judgment.

Dealing with Death and Despair

Writing tributes has become one of those things that I’ve done. It feels right as a way that I can give back to those who have positively contributed to my life. It is said, “a person dies twice: once when they draw their last breath, and later, the last time their name is spoken.” So, by writing, I feel like I’m extending the legacy of those whom have lived as an example and deserve to be remembered.

My thoughts were to do the same for my cousin Uriah. To honor him as someone who was there for me, as the brother who selflessly cared for his special needs siblings, as the young man mature beyond his years looking to contribute to society in a positive way, as a listening ear and true friend during some of my darkest days, as someone who never complained about being dealt a very nasty card and had every right to the question God.

A picture from Moyer Christmas a few years ago

So far I’ve collapsed under the weight of the task. There is simply no way to put into words or adequately describe the loss of a close friend. The other tributes I’ve written were for those who had basically lived a full life and, more importantly, cases where I could take a step back from the subject to capture their character. I’m simply not skilled enough as writer to give a summary of someone who meant so much to me.

But, still, since his death is something that occupies my mind and since grieving is a process that most have experienced, I’ll write about my own experiences with him and the feelings that I’m currently sorting out. I’ve decided to talk about death and despair. And not with anything glowy to offer as an alternative either. And yet also not as someone who is defeated or ready to succumb to hopelessness. Yes, I’m battling with some depression, but down does not mean defeated.

Anyhow, the blog from here will be in two parts. First the events of the past couple of years from my own perspective. Then, after that, going back a little further for some additional stories about my interactions with Uriah and why this has brought back some of the identity related questions and traumas that has been the overall theme of Irregular Ideation. It is relationships that define and show the depths of what a person is. Hopefully by sharing from my own eyes it will be easier to understand what manner of man Uriah was.

The Strange Lump On Uriah’s Ankle

After finishing up at Bloomsburg University, Uriah decided to enlist. I’m not sure why exactly, he was always up to a challenge, the National Guard was a way to serve his country and give back, and it was always something to put on the resume. I’ve always flirted with the idea, despite being raised in a conservative Mennonite culture that preached against military service, the structure appealed to me. But, unlike me, Uriah followed through.

A rare picture of Uriah without a smile.

He excelled in basic training. He was motivated and willing to put in the work to be at the top of his class. One testament to this tenacious spirit was that a painful lump developed on his ankle. Uriah, unlike a ‘normal’ person, decided to continue with his training rather quit to get immediate medical attention. He reasoned that it was better this than to repeat basic and simply endured. I’m doubtful this made much difference as far as the final outcome, but it did mean that he was active duty military during the fight and received the very best care possible.

It was when he came home, over the winter, to visit family and get this lump checked out that I first heard about it. I decided to visit over this time and it was definitely concerning. Still, I was optimistic, I had had a lump removed from my shoulder area before, my sister had a tumor in her abdomen removed, and there was no reason to despair about this. We would wait on the results of the biopsy and pray for the best in the meantime.

We would soon find out that this tumor was malignant and when chemo didn’t do enough, the choice was given: Allow the to cancer spread or amputate. Uriah elected to do the unimaginable for most young and active people. He had his leg removed below the knee. This was hard enough for me. I couldn’t possibly imagine having to make this kind of decision. To go from runner, weight lifter, and athlete, to having to learn how to walk again!

But Uriah, for lack of a better expression, took this huge setback in stride and committed to physical therapy. It felt very fortunate too that he was in the military, Walter Reed is a prosthetics leader and he very proudly showed me the attachments available that would eventually enable him to run again. Besides this, he also had the wonderful Shanae in his life, and knowing my lifelong struggles in the romance department, this was something significant for me. Lumps, and loss of limbs, life goes on.

The Terrible News, Moments Bittersweet

A little over a year ago, and about a year after losing his leg, soon after Uriah’s new normal began to slip from my daily prayers, came the awful news: The cancer was back, this time it was in his lungs and the prognosis was not good. My heart sank. And tears flowed. Uriah would not be with us for much longer and there was very little that could be some about it.

Still, I would not allow this dark cloud plunge me into despair. If we couldn’t save Uriah then we would give him a most glorious send off imaginable. My imagination ran wild with ideas, a day that would be unforgettable, with my brother flying him and faking an emergency landing in a nearby city where us cousins would be waiting to whisk him away in a waiting limo, maybe a mock car chase with him in the passenger seat of my Shelby, with police in on the fun in pursuit around the closed airport, me yelling “we only live once!”

Alas, that was never meant to be. Uriah needed medical treatment more than a memorable adventure, the pandemic shutdowns followed soon thereafter (briefly changing the mood from: “Oh no, Uriah’s going to die” to “Oh no, we’re all gonna die!) and then his marriage to Shanae. That last item being a far better send off than this bachelor and a bunch of crazy cousins could provide.

The last year with Uriah served to highlight his bravery even against these impossible odds. Uriah, even with late stage lung cancer, refused to stop living his life and made time to be with those who loved him most. On multiple occasions, when the restaurants were still open, we dined out together. Me and him or joined by friends and cousins. These are some of the most beautiful and cherished moments of a very stressful and emotionally draining year.

However, of those moments, one shines above the rest. Uriah, probably only because he was Uriah, asked me if he could come visit my church sometime. Of course, I was thrilled by this, that he would think of this, and soon the arrangements were made. Nobody seeing him that day would have guessed he was terminally ill. He looked as strong and vital as ever. The highlights when Father Seraphim, who I had ambushed together with Uriah, agreed to anoint him and pray for healing. I also had the opportunity to take Uriah on one more ride in the Shelby on the way home.

In the week that followed the anointing something amazing happened. A text message from Uriah with the first good news since his lung cancer and prognosis were revealed. The tumors had shrunk! Could it be possible?

But this relief would only be temporary and the next time I would see my cousin he was no longer looking so invulnerable.

Over Thanksgiving Uriah, his condition already deteriorated, became infected with the Covid-19 virus. He was not doing bad from what I had been told. Unfortunately, after walking into the hospital, he was soon put on a ventilator and his loved ones told he would likely never be taken off of it. Still, my courageous friend had yet one more trick up his sleeve. He ended up, at some point, ripping the ventilator out and was breathing well enough on his own. It was fantastic. I prayed he would be able to go home and he was going home.

My optimism remained until my last meeting with him. I figured as long as he was fighting I would keep hoping for that miracle.

I had not been able to see him for months, partially due to my own bout with Covid-19, and also because he was under the care of his parents and Shanae. I may have missed the opportunity to see him entirely had it not been for my cousin David declaring that he didn’t think Uriah wanted visitors. I thought to myself, “we’ll see about that,” and I sent a text message soon thereafter. Uriah told me he wanted to see me and directed me to Shanae, I asked if David and another friend Derek could accompany me. We planned for the next Saturday.

I had known, with the cancer spreading throughout his body and now unable to walk because of diminished lung capacity, that Uriah wouldn’t be an image of health. Still, actually seeing him was a little jarring, he looked rough, and I realized that, even if the lastest longshot treatment option would work out, there was irreparable damage. It was a struggle for him to breath. But he still ate a slice or two of the pizza that I had brought. It was their wedding anniversary and an honor to be able to be there despite the circumstances.

When David and Derek said their goodbyes, they offered a fist bump. But it did not seem appropriate. I offered a hand shake, I wanted to clasp his hand and look him in the eyes. My last words to him were to tell him how proud I was of him. It was only a few days later that I received a phone call during the day from David. Uriah had passed away that morning. We had done we could, he fought like a true warrior, never complaining or falling to despair. He died short of his twenty-fifth birthday.

The Time Uriah Asked Me For Advice

I am a good bit older than Uriah. I can’t remember exactly how and when our relationship took off. But he had his own unique version of the Moyer cousin humor and a rare determination. I recall him out running, as teenager, with bricks in the backpack he was wearing. He wanted to be the best at what he did and put the work in too. He was a decent athlete, played basketball and soccer, and I knew he was becoming a man when I could no longer take him in a wrestling match.

When Uriah enrolled in Bloomsburg University, I had very little doubt in his abilities. He was extremely intelligent, someone mature beyond his years, and thus it came as a bit of a surprise when he reached out to me asking for advice. We met at Weaver’s for some pizza and ice cream. And when there he expressed his doubts. He was thinking about dropping out and wanted to get my opinion.

Of course, as one who has long struggled with feelings of having buried my talents, having quit college before obtaining a degree, to open I urged, “don’t be like your loser cousin!” I went on to explain the lifelong benefits of a degree, my own regrets, and encouraged him to continue on pursuing his dreams.

Uriah would go on, finish that first year, and continue through the next year. He was on the Dean’s list, evidently a good student, and would graduate with his criminal justice degree. It was something that made me immensely proud, especially that I had a small part in his success, and it seemed as if even the sky wasn’t the limit for him. He had done the thing that I failed to do. Not only that, but he had met Shanae while on campus and there was a budding romance between them.

As I look back my feelings are mixed. On one hand, my advice came with an assumption that he would live a long life, that his degree would open career opportunities. Uriah never did get that far, he never had an actual career, so what was the point of all that hard-work and discipline? My nihilism creeps in. As the book of Ecclesiastes begins: “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” But, on the other hand, and as if to throw a wrench in my despair, had Uriah quit he would not have Shanae to accompany him during the last two years.

The Friend That I Didn’t Want

I’m a very idealistic person and loyal too. I remember my plans, as a child, to eventually live with my brother Kyle. I mean, we were peas in a pod, we understood each other, why would we ever go our separate ways, right? But, eventually, I had to come to terms with the fact that my siblings, including Kyle, are very motivated people and were destined to have their own lives away from me. Our childhood together a passing phase and not permanent. It’s tough, yet necessary for progress.

However, having learned this, I was not prepared for what happened when a close friend, a wingman for many years, got married. I’m not sure what happened, but right after his wedding he basically disappeared. And, after the first efforts to reconnect failed, I decided that he simply didn’t need the relationship anymore and had moved on. To this day his wife is the only person who has shown any interest in maintaining a connection and it truly is baffling to me. Is this normal behavior? Should I be concerned?

Anyhow, this friendship of over a decade that vanished overnight left me wondering what friendship really is? It also made me wary of making such an investment ever again. If someone like this other friend could completely abandon our relationship, effectively ghost me, was it truly worth becoming connected at this level again? I almost felt lonelier having lost a friend, my romantic life wasn’t helping that, and when someone else started to emerge as a friend (Uriah) I wrote the following in a journal:

Uriah is a faithful something. I suppose he is a friend, although I don’t know if I want any friends really, not after [omitted]. I feel antisocial, I am sick of people and yet would not fare well alone. Last weekend proof of that.

I was dealing with many things at the time, in rehab and off of work because of a knee injury, and still reeling from the loss of a friendship. Once bitten, twice shy, right? I was reluctant to allow someone else to become close. I felt better to be in control, to keep some safe distance between myself and other people.

Nevertheless, a stronger bond did continue to develop between Uriah and myself, he was capable of intelligent discussion, completely trustworthy, and never judged me. My ideations, given the feelings of betrayal, were extremely dark and it was safe to express them with him. He helped me to not take them, or even myself, too seriously and provided a bit of a reprieve. And when I holed up he persisted. There were times we sat quietly together. I knew that he cared.

When I left the Mennonite church many of the people that I spent years with made no attempt to connect. There were so many relationships pursued and never reciprocated. Or, when there was relationship it was forced, a part of their religious duty and not real. Uriah was always genuine, like I try to be, and was never going to be a fairweather friend like so many others. That’s what makes it so especially hard to lose him in a manner completely unexpected.

He’s the friend that I didn’t want because losing friends is too painful. In the weeks following his death my desire was to withdrawal, avoid intimate relationships, and protect against future disappointment. Of course, avoiding pain and risk is not a way to live and in the intervening weeks I’ve started to force myself to reengage. I can’t bring Uriah back, he’s gone. But there’s no point in joining him in the grave.

The Questions That Cannot Be Answered

The hardest part of Uriah’s death is where it leaves his parents. Ed and Judy are two of the hardest working and most dedicated parents I know. And for reasons we’ll never know three of their four children suffered terrible seizures. Renita Gail, I carried out to the cemetery on a cold day many years ago. Uriah’s two remaining siblings, Aleah and Isaiah, have not developed beyond a certain point and require constant care.

It goes without saying that there were many hopes that evaporated with the passing of Uriah. He was the strong and healthy son, someone more than willing to help with Aleah and Isaiah, and now he’s gone. It is unfair. There is no way to understand why misfortune visits some. Perhaps that is why the book of Job was written? To put to end this notion that people get what they deserve only good things happen to good people?

There is nothing I can offer that will come close replacing a young man who was my better in so many ways. It would be silly to even try, he was one of a kind, tall and handsome. He got the intelligence and work ethic from both of his parents. He had the compassionate heart of his mother and quirky humor of his father. He was their legacy, the one who was supposed to carry the Derstine name and support them in their old age.

Being a pallbearer for Uriah was a great honor. However, carrying that casket up that icy hill, like I had with Renita many years before, came with the burden of the many unanswerable questions. I won’t even attempt to answer. But maybe if I have another son, I’ll name him Uriah Edward and tell him someday about my cousin, my aunt and uncle. I have not heard one complaint from them Uriah’s parents. They feel the loss more than anyone else and yet their resolve to trust God is encouraging to those of us with our many questions.

Dealing with death isn’t easy, especially not when it is someone so undeserving and special. I’ve been battling against depression and despair over the past few weeks, despite having a year to prepare, and I suppose it would be strange to feel nothing in such circumstances? But I don’t plan to linger here. I acknowledge the feelings, I lost a friend, a rare kind of individual. There will never be another Uriah. There are no easy answers. But I will try to carry the legacy of Uriah as far as I am able.

Uriah E. Derstine

March 15, 1996 — February 4th, 2021

Memory eternal!

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