The Woodchipper
I recently lost a loved one. A person very close to my heart and very dear to me. And in going through this process a word picture of a woodchipper came to mind of what life really is like and all about. Basically I had this sense that all of humanity is just shuffling in line towards the inevitable woodchipper that awaits us all.
At first this mental image was startling to me. I am a Christ Follower. I believe in a concrete heaven with literal gates made of pearl and glassy streets paved with pure gold. I believe that for Christians, we will be ushered into the New Heaven and the New Earth where the four fold city will reside. So basically I believe in a very literal banquet and a literal feast for the marriage supper of the lamb that awaits us some day.
So why the wood chipper image? Even though I believe in the goodness of heaven that awaits me I was still shocked and awed by the pain and the torment that may very likely greet me on my way to the pearly gates. Let me clarify, I am not worried or nervous about dying. I’m not afraid to die. Or of the pain either.But I was saddened by it. Even angered by it really. Let’s just say I had a few harsh words with my Creator the night my dear friend passed.
It just didn’t make any sense at all.
I even went so far as to turn off the theology that I am so intimately familiar with and to shelve my logical brain as the pain in my heart took over.“Don’t you even…” I said to myself – the more organized and logical side of my head. How can all of humanity be mindlessly be marching towards this terrible end without much of a thought or a second consideration?Baffling.Wouldn’t this knowledge of the chipper cause us all to rage against the dying of the light somehow? Change the lives we are living from the tripe and silliness that fill our days?
But eventually a single thought jumped into my brain unrequested. “The Fall”. When the world was originally created it was perfect.Then man introduced sin into the world and corrupted the planet in ways we can’t even conceive of fully.Enter the Wood Chipper.And while I don’t like it – I know that I deserve far worse than the physical experience of dying… far far worse.
So while I don’t like the physical death that most probably will come my way – I understand where it comes from and understand my part in its origination. But I do want to never lose hold of the one thought that told me to fight against the dying of the light. I never want to forget that the machine is ever-waiting, even if its sting has been defeated. I always want to live like a man on fire. Someone with a drive and determination to touch others for Him and to make a difference in everything that I touch.
