Entry #25
“Death has required so much of my attention.”
Something on Dying,
Howard Thurman refers to a “good death” as made up of the same elements of a good life. A good life, that which concerns what one does with the details of their living. Those “details.” The seemingly trivial yet considerable particulars that make up our existence. Even those things we hold and carry in us that we oftentimes suppress, question, and are embarrassed by. However, these things shape us as we give form to these intangible traits and introduce them to the world. I consider my own place in my village. As one who carries, often forgets, and values our stories. Stories I find by the wayside, pick up and travel with, like a stick in a young boy’s hand. But my memory betrays me, as does the much-needed tendency to learn. The war between ingrained ignorance and a quest for enlightenment. Yet, storytelling has become a defining aspect of my life. Whether reflected in the way I think moments from the future, present, and past must call back and out to one another, or the ways in which I can’t help but smell the scent of what is behind me on what is now. I constantly concern myself with the idea of story. This has worked against me, causing me to assign meaning to moments in life that are just nameless pages, lacking a theme or structure. Not part of a larger literary work, just a poem with no desire to mean anything. Even in death. When I reach the end of this state of my existence, will my life have been an instrument?
Will the song God uses my body and the details of my life to sing be remembered? What does it mean to be a poem God wrote, in a moment of rest, like crafting a garden, then walking through it? A poem or song held in the imagination and memory of the village. What poem has God carved into the very fabric of this earth, using the paths I trodded? I recently attended a Musica Divina session featuring Kendrick Lamar's music. It was held by the Center for Spiritual Imagination, in conjunction with the Episcopal Divinity School. We listened to "Heart Pt. 5" twice, then watched the video.
Grief can be so subtle, beautiful, tucked in every moment. Wanting something that has lost its ability to need. I can only imagine that what I am remembering even cares. But what leaves this earth becomes mine. How do you remember who is here, now? The tribute Kendrick pays to the late Nipsey Hussle is always eerie yet heavenly, a poignant reminder of the power of a poem to resurrect the essence of a friend. The way memory refuses to give up on the dead, and the forgotten parts of our lives and pasts. This is just something on dying.
