August 29, 2004 - It is again Sunday morning. On this Sunday my father-in-law will attend Church with us. It is a milestone for him and for us. Friday marked one week since his Doctor told him and us that the PET scan showed that his cancer that began in the lung had made its way to three spots in his brain and the end of his first course of radiation treatments. Let me make one thing clear. Raymond Clark is not dying of cancer, though he knows that his condition is inoperable and terminal. No, Raymond Clark has made the decision that he is living with cancer and that is why he is going to travel with us the 75 miles to the country Church he has helped to lead this many years. He will lead the congregation in thanking God for the gift his has received – the gift of living each new day. We, Linda and I and the rest of the congregation of that little church in Indianola, will join with him in his prayer of thanksgiving. It is not a time for us to grieve and be sad. There will time enough for that. It is a time for us to be glad and rejoice that we have received the gift of one more day.

There is no tragedy here. Ray’s journey upon the pathway that starts with birth and ends with death is a journey that each of us will travel. Each of us has begun the process of dying at the moment of our birth. The end of life is as natural and as much a gift from God as life’s beginning; Ray Clark is one the few who understands that. He is one of the few who have accepted and continues to accept each new day’s gift and used each gift to live that day.

Yes, there is tragedy in death but it does not come with the inevitable end of life. Tragedy comes when the gift from God is torn from a man, a woman, or a child by the acts of men. Tragedy is written in the explosion of shells, the blossoms of fire rained from the skies; the thud of bullets striking flesh and ripping away the precious gift that God or YHWH or Allah has given us. Tragedy is there when the tangled metal of a car driven too fast with reckless abandon shreds the stuff of life. Tragedy is there when one child’s belly swells with starvation while no one cares or listens to its cries.

And so this Sunday, Ray and Linda and I will travel the well worn path and join with our friends to thank God again for the gift of one more day and the privilege to share its blessing with our family and our friends. I ask you, wherever you may be and whatever you may be doing this day to pause a moment and reflect for this is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad and give thanks for it.