Crossing the Waters

Just recently a friend died--or, more factually, was killed in a terrible accident. She was 21, beautiful, smart, talented, generous, just out of Yale, and riding her bike on a fundraising-bike-trip across the country for Habitat for Humanity. A car struck her and killed her.

Friends, family, people all are saying things like "What a waste!" and "We are devestated!" or even the eloquent silence of shock and disbelief. All such responses are honest: and I cannot argue with them.

Death is a fact that all of us face--the deaths of people we know, of people we love, and indeed most of all our own deaths.

How we live, what we do, how and whom we love--that's what's important in the face of death.

These are just words, I know: and perhaps right now, that eloquent silence is what's needed. But what is truly needed by all of us is the Faith and Hope that our deaths are not in vain because we are baptized in Christ Jesus and beckoned into His eternal life, across the waters, to a new land.