On Death, Life, Grief, Community

I would like to say thank you to everyone who has extended their condolences to myself and my family. My Grandmother’s funeral is on Thursday.

After shedding many tears over the weekend, today has not been as emotional. As I mentioned before, this is really my first time I’ve had to deal with the death of a loved one. One of my grandpas died when I was 7 but I don’t remember that much from it. I have to be honest, it has been very hard at times. I am very fortunate to have my fiance, Jenae. She seems to know what to say and when to say nothing. I just have to keep reminding myself that my Grandmother is finally free. Free from the physical pain she had been in and free from this temporal world we live in.

There is also something about death and grief that brings people together. On Saturday much of my Mom’s family gathered together at my Grandpa’s house and just enjoyed each other’s company. We played Trivial Pursuit, a tradition at the Banta family gatherings, and enjoyed spending time with each other. It hurts me more to imagine what my Grandpa is going through than anything.

Somewhat related, over the past few months my idea of what the Church is and what it should be has become much more refined. It kind of started with this revelation from a fellow blogger. Basically, that the greatest witness of the Church is the community and how it functions. The intellectual idea of this has very much sunk, but I’ve felt like I wasn’t really allowing myself to be open and letting this idea take place in my life. This is mostly because right now I don’t belong to a “Community Group”, which is my church’s home meeting groups or whatever you feel like calling them. But, being at church on Sunday made me realize that what I was feeling wasn’t necessarily true. I felt an incredible sense of community on Sunday. Many people had heard about my Grandma’s passing and many people asked me about it. I felt love from my church community like never before and tried my best to be as open, honest and sincere about it as I could. So I must keep telling myself this as I will tell you: open and honest Christian community is essential for the Christian and for the Body of Christ to function.

When you are faced with somewhat of an emotionally rollercoaster as many are when facing death, it is hard to decide what music to listen to. Many of my favorite bands I have just not felt like listening to. On most other days, I would love either the pop of Death Cab For Cutie or the somewhat opposite melancholy of Pedro the Lion. But the only stuff I’ve been listening to since Friday has been Joseph Arthur. I have a hard time enjoying anything but him right now.

That’s all for now. Thanks for all the prayers for myself and my family.

Dustin

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