Before We Shatter
By Bethany Kaldas
‘Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.’
James 4:13-14
This year especially, I think we’ve all been reawakened to the unwelcome realisation that life is fragile. I’m sure I’m not the only one who knows someone who lost a friend or family member during this time, or at the very least felt the fear of losing someone you loved as they succumbed to illness or injury. You may even have experienced this yourself.
Our lives are delicate things—glass contraptions that rely on so much going right to function properly. Not only physically, but how we live our lives is subject to dramatic changes that are quite outside our sphere of control. What once were thought to be stable structures in our lives—simple things we never even really thought about previously—broke down into chaos and uncertainty. Suddenly, and quite unhappily, the familiar was shattered and we were left with broken pieces and no clue how to stick them back together again.
These last couple of years of plague and lockdown may have felt alien to us when they hit, but uncertainty has always been something that underlies our lives. Every time you’ve driven to work, you could’ve crashed. Every time you’ve slept in your bed, you could’ve been robbed. Every time you ate, it could’ve been infected. And even apart from all these external factors, you can never be sure there isn’t some nasty factor lying dormant in your genes or in your cells to take you out without warning.
Life is fragile, and the end is not always heralded by trumpets. So what do we do in the face of this uncertainty, the realisation that we have far less control over our own destinies than we may have thought? What do we do when we realise that our lives are made of glass?
‘Don’t give your heart over to grief; stay away from it, remembering your own end.’
Wisdom of Sirach 38:20
These moments of realisation are not the time to be crippled by fear or sorrow. They are calls to action. Calls to live as best we can with what we are given. And living as best you can means to try your hardest to be the person God made you to be—to instil virtue in your heart and remove sin from your soul—but it also means focusing on what matters, and letting go of what doesn’t.
Do not give your heart to grief, says the son of Sirach. That does not mean we don’t engage with grief at all. Loss is real, it must be dealt with. Prior to this verse, he also says that you should grieve for the appropriate amount of time—and this may be a long time indeed.
‘I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process.’
C. S. Lewis, ‘A Grief Observed’
The pain may never fully go away. But you can’t let it consume your life. Express your grief, your anger, your bitterness—but don’t become them. Life is too short for that. Use your loss as a reminder that everyone has an end and the time you have now is precious.
We are constantly waiting to be less busy to do the things that matter. But that time may never come. Don’t wait to do the things that are important. Don’t wait to do the things that make you happy. Don’t wait to see old friends you haven’t spent time with in ages. Don’t wait to spend time with your family. Don’t wait to see the places you’ve always wanted to. Don’t wait to forgive. Don’t wait to make amends, or say the words that have gone unspoken for far too long already. And don’t wait to tell the people in your life how much they mean to you, how beautiful they are.
A dear friend of mine once told me of a saying she heard: ‘Give your friends their flowers while they’re here’. You don’t have to wait for a birthday, wedding or eulogy to tell someone they are loved. You may not get the chance. Everyone has their end. Including you. Including them.
‘See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.’
Ephesians 5:15-16
Our lives may be glass—we could shatter tomorrow. But if you let His light shine through today, the beauty that comes could last an eternity. It is only here and now that we can start to become what we are meant to be forever—and see that wonder in those around us. The time to do and say what matters is now. You may not get a tomorrow. Today is your chance.
‘He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time, which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.’
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters