Screaming in the Face of Death

By Zachary Groff - Posted at Reformation21:

"The forces of this world, expressed through much of our current discourse surrounding medicine, education, celebrity culture, law, and politics deny the reality and inevitability of aging, dying, and death...

It is difficult to tell if the countenance is grinning, scowling, or yawning open with insatiable hunger, but it seems that Death’s face is closer than usual as it stares out from the inky shadows at the edges of life. Death feels more present than usual right now.

International headlines continue to report on disease-related and suicide death rates around the world as Russian bombs pound Ukraine. An unprecedented leak from the Supreme Court has foregrounded death in American political discourse in what is fast-becoming a new chapter of our commonwealth’s spotty history of securing the rights and privileges of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to ourselves and our posterity. On the personal front, two individuals of great significance in my own life have recently died. It feels like Death is staring at me, and he is not friendly. And yet, he is not unfamiliar.

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