Abstract
This article presents an extended meditation exercise on Christian learning through the lived experience of frailty. It was composed at various points of calendar distance from the author's experience of sudden cardiac arrest. The structure of the meditation conforms to a catechetical–doctrinal framework, appealing to didache, didaskalia, and didasko. An original poem by Dan Haase is referenced and included in the appendix.
As those entrusted to study and teach God's truth to God's people, we ourselves are called to model a pedagogy—an intentionality in everything that we do in teaching so that people actually learn—that displays the full message, ethic, and beauty of life in Christ, lived well. It is this sense of sacred stewardship that compels our response to the calling and mission of Christian teaching, as scholars, leaders, and practitioners. This article represents my attempt to model a redemptive pedagogy in the context of my particular lived experience. 1
Overture
Teach me to live that I may dread
the grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die that so I may
rise glorious at the awefull day. (Ken, 1709)
I’ve been thinking a lot about flourishing, but through a counterintuitive lens. Counterintuitive to the popular #blessed notion of flourishing, at least. I’ve been thinking a lot about how our frailty, or more specifically, my frailty, teaches me to actually value and pursue living life well.
Frailty, in a word, is weakness. Maybe more specifically: the state of being weak in a manner that you are vulnerable. Frailty is oftentimes painful. But it's not synonymous with pain. C.S. Lewis (1940/2001) famously and rightly observed that “pain cannot be ignored. … It insists upon being attended to” (p. 91). This is one of the distinctions between pain and frailty. It takes substantial resolve to “think much on all occasions of my own dying” (Edwards, 1998, p. 753). Frailty can be ignored. Most of us can live as frail people who distract, deflect, and busy ourselves into ignoring our inherent weaknesses, at least until those inherent weaknesses become manifest weaknesses. And if we can forget our frailty, we can ignore our humanity. The industries of technology and politics compel and reward us for doing this very thing—objectifying and commodifying life rather than truly living it.
Thus, the first thing to affirm about frailty is thus that we tend to be frailty-deniers, because it is inconvenient, uncomfortable, and emotionally disquieting to be frailty-embracers. At the same, in our gut, we all know better. Those of us who are scholars and practitioners in the ministry of teaching unto holistic discipleship should know this best.
“Come to me, all who are weary and burdened,” Jesus says (Matt. 11:28). “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says (Matt. 5:3). “The sufferings of this present time are not to be compared with the glory to be revealed in us,” Paul says (Rom. 8:18). “Count it all joy when you experience trials of various kinds,” James says (James 1:2). “His power is made perfect in weakness,” Paul reports the Lord as telling him (2 Cor. 12:9). “We have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weakness, the writer of Hebrews says (Heb. 4:12).
We are all frail. We are all vulnerable. In the same way, our hearts are “prone to wander” (ref. Robinson, 1758) in a postlapsarian world, so our bodies and souls are delicate and prone to vulnerability and sickness. Our predominant western social and cultural ideals nurture us into ignoring this reality, but it is reality nonetheless.
The question, therefore, for us who seek first Christ and his kingdom is not whether we are frail. The question is not whether we should acknowledge our weaknesses. The question is whether we are willing to humble ourselves in order to infuse our sense of frailty into our sense of hope, so that we tangibly demonstrate the ironic and glorious power of weakness; and so that we call the world that we are sent into (John 17:18), the world for whom God sent his only begotten Son (John 3:16), to believe in the One who became weak (Heb. 4:14–5:10; 2 Cor. 13:4), who sympathizes with the frail (Heb. 4:15), who is the same One before whom every knee will finally bow (Isa. 45:23; Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:10).
My hope and aim here is to serve as an ambassador for you from the world of frailty, and I’d like to invite you to be fellow ambassadors with me. I want to propose, particularly in considering the perennial theme and ethic of Teaching for Redemptive Flourishing, that acknowledging and reckoning with our frailty is basic to pilgrimaging unto righteousness. The way of frailty is the way of redemptive flourishing. And this is good news.
My Story: Mortem
“This is my story, this is my song…” (Crosby, 1873).
Kate Bowler (2019), reflecting on the reality of her cancer diagnosis at age 35, has said “I used to imagine bad things happen to other people, and then it was all interrupted.” This was the case with me. I was, like most everyone, a frailty-denier. Vigorous. Active. Energetic. In control. Omni-competent. Multivocational. Probably self-important to the point of vanity. Then, it was all interrupted when, in November 2020, I was running a time trial event ahead of a marathon qualifying race. I had run more than a thousand training miles in the prior few months. Now, it was all paying off.
Then about halfway through that event, I began to feel tired, maybe more so than usual. But I was really exerting myself, so I figured that was part of the deal. Carry on. Then in the span of a few seconds, I went from feeling tired (which was expected), to feeling somewhat dizzy (which wasn't expected), to thinking that I may have to actually slow down (which was annoying), to thinking the unprecedented and unthinkable thought that I may have to walk (which was disturbing), to finally realizing (for a moment) that I—John David, the one whose sense of self is so largely predicated on being in control—was very much not in control.
And then I stopped. My arms and legs stopped. My body stopped. My brain stopped. My heart stopped. Literally, seconds before I was clipping off sub-7 minute miles. An apparent picture of health and vitality. And then I laid on the ground, a very apparent picture of helplessness and lifelessness, in a distorted position described by witnesses on the 911 call as “crumpled up.” 2
I was clinically mortem. I was, myself, irrevocably lifeless.
Frailty is the forged weight
of an anchor set down
in the chaos of anxious waters,
in a moment of affliction,
the collapse of the captain. (Haase, 2021; see appendix)
Studies indicate that cases of sudden cardiac arrest outside the context of a hospital or medical facility result in permanent death more than 94% of the time. The particular cause of my cardiac arrest, a condition known as spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), reduced those odds further. To state the obvious, though, and to capitalize on the opportunity to appropriately invoke Mark Twain, the initial report of my death was an exaggeration. I did not die on that Saturday in November 2020, not permanently at least. I was seized upon by five image bearers, all strangers to each other, all strangers to me. These people intuitively snapped to action to save my life. None of these people garnered professional medical training and experience; all of them garnered the capacity to love and serve and rescue a stranger. Selah.
They would not be denied. In about 5 minutes time, I had a broken sternum, but I also had breath. A couple of minutes later, I moaned, and in a spontaneous chorus of solidarity, the people who had gathered on the scene clapped and cheered. A couple of minutes later, I moved my eyes. Again, the people clapped and cheered. Is it not remarkable that these strangers, who otherwise presumably would not unite over much of anything, and who were only in one another's company for a few random minutes on a Saturday morning, were immediately and indivisibly united—and prompted to celebrate—when they saw death overcome with life? Selah.
Very notably, at least two prayers were spoken and recorded on the 911 call during those few minutes. The first recorded prayer was quiet and wouldn’t have been heard by anyone had it not been said by the 911 caller herself: “Dear God,” she prayed, “please be with this man. … I see that he's married. His family needs him. Dear God, he needs your help, Lord. He needs your help.” That first recorded prayer was whispered. The second recorded prayer was shouted by another woman on the scene who prayed this prayer, extemporaneously: “God, I thank you for the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Send forth your Spirit right now. … In Jesus’ name. (Short pause) I'm sorry if you don't believe, but I believe. … I speak life over this man in Jesus’ name.” Yes, that is an exact quote. Yes, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power” (James 5:16b). Selah.
Now at this point, it would be most convenient for me to rattle off a litany of theological truisms for how my rising from medical death highlights and foreshadows in a powerful way Jesus's rising from death and the promise of victory for all who believe. And by the way, I do believe! (Mark 9:24). I would be remiss to do that, however, because to be honest, the reality of my experience and testimony has resembled Lent more so than Easter.
The two years since my heart attack and cardiac arrest have been an extraordinary journey in the most accurate definitional sense of the term extraordinary. It has been a season of innumerable joys; of recognizing how “the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places” (Psalm 16:6). It has also been a season of straining toward recovery and sustainability in my body and soul. On the one hand, I have tasted the sweetnesses of life in a new and deeper way. On the other hand, I have felt and uttered, sometimes angrily, the “groanings too deep for words” (ref. Rom. 8:26) in a manner to which I was heretofore oblivious.
My frailty is ever before me. I feel it now. Sometimes I feel like I am immersed in frailty, like my life is an exercise in it. There is a distinctive imbalance and disequilibration that comes with constantly facing the uncertainty of your own life's viability. This is not something I would choose. Yet, even though the ache of not knowing if I will live life long, my frailty is teaching me something about living life well. There is a particular conduit unto redemptive flourishing that we access when we reckon with our frailty. I know this is true. “…praising my Savior, all the day long” (Crosby).
Bulletin: Framing a Pedagogy of Frailty
In the same way that our knowledge of God, in loving and being loved by him, should lead us to discernment and wisdom, so our longing for God's redemption at the intersection of our frailty should lead us to envision and pursue the pilgrim path of gospel-shaped flourishing. This does not happen impromptu. Actually, it can sometimes happen impromptu, but never impromptu without preparation and practice. It takes organization and effort to learn (dao) in the full redemptive schema of education and personal development: receiving (didache), understanding (didaskalia), and manifesting (didasko).
It would be helpful to clarify the framework for the “pedagogy of frailty” meditation below. I have arranged this meditation in three movements: a series of meditative confessions (didache), a series of meditative reflections (didaskalia), and an interlude leading into an essay that serves as a meditative exhortation (didasko).
I wrote the didache section of this meditation in one sitting, within a few days of my heart attack and cardiac arrest. The didaskalia section came a bit later, in multiple sittings, in the weeks and months following. The didasko section I have included here is a recent addition prompted by a particular recent event. It represents a phase of my meditation on this topic which could only have emerged with some significant distance and lived experience. The labeling of these into a coherent set of three dimensions came last. I mention this because, sublimely, I now see that I have been shepherded through a curriculum, one tracking the movements of the church's most historic educational framework—catechesis. I would have cleverly devised it this very way had I thought of it in advance, since this is the framework I myself have sought to promote and develop (see Trentham, 2021, 2022a, 2022b). But I did not cleverly devise it this way. These have been the phases of the formative journey prepared for me rather than prescribed by me. Praise be to the God who teaches, who works in us what is pleasing to him (Heb. 13:21).
A Catechetical–Doctrinal Primer
To clarify my appeal to catechesis and doctrine, here is a condensed sketch of the scriptural paradigm and philosophy of education according to a catechetical framework. For a more thorough presentation, I recommend Packer and Parrett (2010) and Augustine of Hippo (1961) on catechesis, and Vanhoozer (2005, 2019) and Trentham (2021) on doctrine.
I will appeal to Ezra 7:10 as a scriptural touchpoint, along with Anselm's (1998) famous prayer: I acknowledge, Lord, and I give thanks that You have created Your image in me, so that I may remember You, think of you, love You. But this image is so effaced and worn away by vice, so darkened by the smoke of sin, that it cannot do what it was made to do unless You renew and reform it. I do not try, Lord, to attain Your lofty heights, because my understanding is in no way equal to it. But I do desire to understand your truth a little, that truth that my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that “unless I believe, I shall not understand” [Isa. 7:9]. (p. 87; emphasis added)
Didache: Learning is embracing and believing the Truth.
Learning is “seeking to understand God's truth a little” (Anselm, Deut. 29:29). Ezra set his heart to study the Law of the Lord that he devotionally embraced (Ezra 7:10). Built on the foundation of believing, understanding is seeking to develop knowledge as one who has been fully known (1 Cor. 13:12, Gal. 4:9). “Powers of discernment” should be the reflective wisdom that emerges from authentic faith (Heb. 5:14). The Spirit enlightens the heart-eyes of those in Christ so that they understand themselves and the world around them with a redemptive imagination (Eph. 1:18).
Didaskalia: Learning is seeking understanding of the true Life.
Learning is the training of those “powers of discernment by constant practice” (Heb. 5:14; emphasis added). Learning is doing what you were "made to do” (Anselm). Ezra set his heart to “do it (obey God) and to teach his statutes and rules” (Ezra 7:10). Wisdom not only entails understanding in the form of discernment but also it “dwells with prudence” in the form of action (Prov. 8:12). Receiving and understanding are for becoming teachers (ref. Psa. 51:13, Matt. 28:20; Heb. 5:12). Faith is manifested in fruit bearing (Matt. 7:24, John 15:8, Eph. 2:10). Hearing is for doing (Deut. 29:29, James 1:22). If we are truly established in the faith through receiving Christ, so we will walk in him (Col. 2:6).
Didasko: Learning is walking and teaching the true life lived in the Way.
The Pedagogy of Frailty Movement 1: Didache (Confessions)
“…may the inescapable decline of our bodies here not be wasted. May it do its tutoring work, inclining our hearts and souls ever more vigorously toward your coming Kingdom, O God.” (McKelvey, 2021, p. 5) Our frailty teaches us to know God. “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.'” [Jer. 9:23–24] Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to understand and know you, to count everything as loss for the sake of knowing you, and being found in you. In Jesus’ name. Our frailty teaches us to know ourselves. “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” [Psa. 8:3-4]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to understand ourselves in light of your care for us, and to learn to see ourselves in light of how you see us. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us how God knows us. “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” [Psa.139:16] “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” [Psa. 103:14]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to remember how you know us and love us, and to trust in your redemptive plans for our lives. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us how to regard our life. “…yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” [James 4:14]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to regard our lives in this world as fleeting and temporary, and lead us in your everlasting way. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to love our life (in the saeculum). “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” [Psa. 90:12]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn to make the most of our days, and to love living life, for your sake. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to avoid idolizing our life. “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” [John 12:25]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn to live as pilgrims in this world, and again—to love living life for your sake rather than for ourselves. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to live “one day at a time.” “Give us this day our daily bread…” [Matt. 6:11] “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” [Matt. 6:34]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn to trust you for today, and not to be anxious about tomorrow. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to love our neighbor. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” [2 Cor. 1:3–4; emphasis added]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn to consider others as more important than ourselves, and to extend the comfort you provide to us, to our neighbors. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to embrace community (contra self-sufficiency). “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” [Gal. 6:2]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn how we may uniquely honor and serve you by bearing others' burdens—and by sharing our burdens with brothers and sisters in Christ. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to long for redemption. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” [Rom. 8:23]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn to anticipate our eternal life with you eagerly, through our inward groanings. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to lament. “O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?” [Psa. 88:14]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn how to register our complaints with you, in faith and obedience. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to rejoice. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” [Phil. 4:4]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn how to rejoice in every circumstance. You give and you take away. Blessed be your name. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to rest. “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” [Psa. 4:8]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn how to rest as an exercise of faith and trust in you. In Jesus' name.
Our frailty teaches us to live well, and die well, in this life, with hope. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” [1 Pet. 1:3-5]
Gracious Father, help us, by your Spirit, in our frailty, to learn how to grieve our various trials-with hope. Because Jesus is the One what was, and is, and is to come-and our hope is alive. In Jesus' name.
The Pedagogy of Frailty Movement 2: Didaskalia (Reflections)
In view of and in response to the meditative confessions above, this is a selection of reflections that I recorded in my personal journal at various times during the several months following my heart attack and cardiac arrest. In catechetical terms, these reflections are some of the branches that grew in my early journey of seeking to understand God's truth applied to my frailty—a little (ref. Anselm).
On time or eternity. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” [Eccl. 3:11] “… lead me in your everlasting way.” [Psa. 139:24] Frailty teaches us about living in the reality of time, the City of Man, or alternatively, living in the reality of eternity, the City of God (ref. Augustine, 2003). In the City of Man, all our pursuits and all our relationships are destined to end, and to end incomplete, because “time does not permit;” in the eternal City of God, there is (will finally be!) “time enough.” In the City of Man, we live in the spiraling grip of time—always tightening, restricting, and ultimately devouring us; in the eternal City of God, we live in the flourishing flow of time—always securing, drawing, and forever enlivening us. In the City of Man, we justify ourselves according to our noble merits; in the City of God, we do justice as we are increasingly filled with Christ's noble virtues. Frailty teaches us to “become aware of our immersions.” It is, I believe, emphatically the case—for most of us if not all of us—that if we were to receive a definitive report of our activities and ruminations at the end of any given week, we would be shocked at the priority of place and time that we give to the stuff that averts rather than fixes our eyes on Christ. Stuff that affirms the disdain and objectification of- rather than the love of our neighbor; stuff that depletes rather than enlivens our souls; stuff that contributes to human withering rather than human flourishing; stuff that motivates us to cater our values to the fickleness of the immediate present rather than pursuing a long obedience in the same direction. As James K.A. Smith (2016) asserts, appropriating David Foster Wallace (2009), “we need to become aware of our immersions” (Smith, p. 38). Frailty should teach us to do just that. On “my end.” “O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!” [Psa. 39:4] Frailty teaches me to live in acknowledgment of “my end,” and so to steward well the days till then. In order to live well, we must acknowledge and spiritually account for the fleeting nature of our earthly lifespan. If we are unable to live with a conscious awareness of our impending death, we are unable to steward our lives as a precious gift. Rather than savoring the gift of life, we instead choose to live and move and have our being in the accumulation of tasks, the distraction of artificial stimulation, or the consumption of superficial pleasures. The real prospect of our physical death is terrifying and fear inducing, and we should never be so glib or ignorant of our own selves to think otherwise. Ask a medical professional with experience around critical patients about how our bodies are so wired to fight for life even in the absence of mind consciousness. That impulse to fight is no defiant shaking of one's fist at death as we may romanticize it to be, no übermensch drive to seize control of one's destiny for oneself (ref. Nietzsche, 1961). It is the fear of death that, as the image of God, we experience and engage with on a visceral level. Hebrews 2:14–15 says: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death … and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” Reflecting on this passage in his book, The End of the Christian Life, Todd Billings (2020) observes, “Hebrews does not say that Christians should no longer fear death because of Christ… . No. Our deliverance is from slavery to death's fear. Stated differently, the goal for the Christian life is not eliminating the fear of death but removing death from its throne.” (p. 75–76) “You fearful saints, fresh courage take / The clouds you so much dread / Are big with mercy and shall break / With blessings on your head.” (Cowper 1774/2010, p. 63). On faith. “Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, 'I believe; help my unbelief!'” [Mark 9:24] “…if we are faithless, he remains faithful-for he cannot deny himself. [2 Tim. 2:13] Frailty teaches us that the most basic exercise of faith is not our willful confidence and assertion in the strength and immovability of the faith we possess-but rather our willful humility and deference toward the strength and immovability of the faithfulness God possesses. Harold Senkbeil (2020), in his beautiful little book published during the Covid-19 pandemic, Christ and Calamity, says: “When calamity strikes, you can count on God-not because you feel close to him, but because he remains close to you, in his word, for Jesus' sake. … In life's tight spots, focus not on your faith, but on God's faithfulness. Look not at your promises to him, but his loving promises to you in his Son.” (p. 17-18) “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” [Rom. 8:11] Frailty teaches us to recognize and reckon with the dynamic of faith in this life. To the extent we allow ourselves to rest assured in our strength, our “faith” is little more than a pretense for maintaining an illusion (of hope and security), as if our endeavoring triggers God's grace and glory. Alternatively: To the extent we humble ourselves to rest assured in God's strength, “our” faith is nothing less than the divine wielding of the same power that raised Christ from the dead, and our endeavoring enlivens and manifests God's grace and glory. “He has broken my strength in midcourse; he has shortened my days. 'O my God,' I say, 'take me not away in the midst of my days-you whose years endure throughout all generations!'” [Psa. 102:23-24] Frailty teaches us that we should pray (with the Psalmist) for strength, livelihood, and longevity in this life, while at the same time acknowledging the reality and embracing the hope that, in this life, that prayer will ultimately, graciously be refused. Indeed, my living-into the hope of that coming refusal is living-into the shape of the gospel of Christ-the One who was “broken in the midst of His strength” in order to bring his adopted children to glory (Heb. 2:10). On Frailty and hardship. “Count it all joy, brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” [James 1:2–3] Frailty should teach me to respond to hardship both by (1) leaning more hopefully into an eternal perspective, longing for my ultimate life, and (2) leaning more joyfully into a sanctified perspective, longing to steward and redeem the precious, fleeting gift of my current life. Instead, however, my temptation is to respond to frailty by living in the denial of both, presuming that what I can and should do with hardship resulting from frailty is to treat it like a pesky nuisance to be ignored, dispensed with, or shaken off. Jesu Juva! Oh God, teach me, and make me steadfast! On frailty and life. “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” [Eccl. 9:4] Frailty teaches us to really value human life. Try posing a question like this to the students in your class or the young adults in your congregation: “Would you rather have a contented life with a billion dollars and extraordinary privilege for the next ten years or have a contented life for the next eighty years?” Almost no one will take the money. That's fifty-times the average middle-class lifetime income. But almost no one will take the money, and those who do will likely have a rationale that hinges on making a unique impact in people's lives (thus in a real sense extending and sustaining the influence and impact of their own). It is a human thing. “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” (Eccl. 9:4) To interpret that metaphor in the spirit of redemptive flourishing: it is better to be led in the everlasting way of living, even if one is a scavenger, than to arrive in the temporary way of living, even if one is a ruler. As a child I frequently sang and affirmed, “Life is worth the living, just because he lives” (Gaither and Gaither, 1971). Now that I have put away childish things, I still affirm that this refrain is true on its own terms. But frailty is teaching me that I often lose sight of what “the living” really is.
Interlude: The Time of Your Life
Before we turn from confession and reflection to exhortation, a bit more consideration is due to the essence and meaning of “the living” and the presentness of time in the context of our frailty.
Redemption Deferred
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day. (Watts, 1719)
Frailty, if it is acknowledged, jolts us into a recognition that all things around us are falling apart and we are falling apart with them. “All flesh is grass” (Isa. 40:6). For Christians, frailty should provide us with a consciousness of our own withering and fading (v. 8). Even as we dream of eternity and seek the everlasting way (Eccl. 3:11. Psa. 139:24), for now, we dwell in terminal mortality. There is a disease and degradation component of frailty: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Prov. 13:12). Langston Hughes (1995) appropriates this reality into his piercing masterwork, “Harlem [2],” which begins, “What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?” (p. 426).
Resurrection is the ultimate dream. Already-but-not-yet redemption is the dream deferred. Frailty and death are the gut punches that make us wonder if our dream of redemption will “dry up like a raisin in the sun” (ibid.). For Christians, every human death is like another touchdown scored by our archrival, when the game has long since been out of reach. Every funeral is like hearing that wicked celebratory fight song played, then having to watch an unnumbered throng of rival enthusiasts rejoice in their sure victory and our sure defeat. And to make it worse, the game isn't over. It's not even close to over. It is not even halftime. Will it ever be halftime? No. There is degradation in death. Death is degradation.
“If we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). If there is no resurrection from the dead, we deserve for our archrival to come onto our field, mock us, defeat us, and dance on our 50-yard line. Placing our ultimate hope in the next life does not mean that we displace all hope in the present, however.
Life and Death, Time, and Money
What do we really value in life? Here are a couple of all-factors-equal profundities worthy of consideration: Life is more valuable than death; time is more valuable than money. The first of these is indubitable for the most part. The second is confirmed repeatedly in social scientific studies on the phenomenon of human well-being and happiness (e.g., see Whillans, Weidman, & Dunn, 2016), but it is not indubitable.
Let's say you were an alien interloper commissioned to report back to your home planet about the dominant socio-cultural values evident in the practices and rituals of earth's civilization en masse. If you observed but did not interview, your data would indicate the decisive and clear dominance of commercialism and consumerism among the earthbound, concluding in terms of resource value, that money > time. If you interviewed and did not observe, however, your data would render much more complicated results, and your conclusions would be unclear. If you controlled for happiness in your interview population, your data would indicate decisively and clearly that among happy earthlings, time > money.
The rub is this: “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41). We all frequently choose momentary pleasure and payoff over sustained contentment and vocation, even though none of us would adopt or condone this posture upon reflection. Indulgence is so often the bully of contemplation in our decision-making. This is why education and pedagogy are so vital—because in many cases it takes instruction, accountability, and practice to learn to chew before we swallow in order to avoid choking.
The Present
The present is precious and sacred. This does not mean it is preferable to eternity. Nor does a sacramental perspective on the present entail that “heaven (eternity) is a place on earth” (Nowels & Shipley, 1987). Valuing the present does not evaporate the fog that keeps us from comprehensively understanding and appreciating the providence of God. We must always be careful in our love of life, that we “judge not the Lord with feeble sense” (Cowper, 1774/2010). If you attempt to judge the character and purposes of God with your present senses and sensibilities, you will misuse your powers of judgment as if they are calibrated to eternity, and you will misunderstand God's character and purposes as if they are calibrated to your current experience. But for those who “trust him for his grace” (ibid.), in the redemption of Christ, this place we call earth, with all its limitations and brokenness, is nothing less than an onramp to glory (2 Cor. 4:17). “I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself” (Lewis, 1946/2001, p. ix).
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
in you do we trust, nor find you to fail.
Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end,
our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend! (Grant, 1833)
Present Time
As the death angel in Tom Waits’ (1985) haunting song reminds us, “It's time, time, time that you love.” We all want time. More time. If only we could freeze it, slow it down. We do love time. But what is it about time that we love? Is it the volume of it? The chronology of it? The promise of preserving it? No. What we love about time is the present of it.
Perhaps even suicide is a testimony to this. Whatever the many various motives for self-murder are in any given case, perhaps the most common rationale hinges on a judgment about the present-ness of time in one way or another—that is, a response to the despairing of the ongoing and oncoming now (ref. 2 Cor. 1:8). Suicide does not erase the history of a person's life in the past, and it certainly does not erase the impact of a person's life in the future; it eliminates the present of a person's life. In a redemptive perspective, the gravity of any murder has to do primarily with the theft of the most valuable thing life has to offer, the present: “This is the day the Lord has made… (Psa. 118:24); Yes, and I will rejoice… (Phil. 1:18); Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Rev. 4:8; emphasis added).
From her pedagogical reflection on time and the flow of creeks and rivers, Annie Dillard (1974/2007) says, “You don't run down the present, pursue it with baited hooks and nets. You wait for it empty-handed, and you are filled. You'll have fish left over” (p. 104). Indeed, it is in the already of redemption that “my cup overflows” (Psalm 23:5). Frailty should teach us this; mortem certainly does. After experiencing a heart attack near the end of his life, the renowned developmental theorist Abraham Maslow made this remarkable statement in an interview: One very important aspect of the post-mortem life is that everything gets precious, gets piercingly important. You get stabbed by things, by flowers and by babies and by beautiful things—just the very act of living, of walking and breathing and eating and having friends and chatting. Everything seems to look more beautiful rather than less, and one gets the much intensified sense of miracles. (Harris, 1970, p. 16)
Okay, so now what?
The Pedagogy of Frailty Movement 3: Didasko (Exhortation)
Learning gives you something to contribute through teaching. This is the key principle of Augustine's (1999) scriptural hermeneutic: “There are two things on which all interpretation of scripture depends: the process of discovering what we need to learn, and the process of presenting what we have learnt” (p. 8). What if we adopted this as our life hermeneutic?—“There are two things on which all pursuits of redemptive flourishing depend: the process of discovering God's vocation we need to receive, and the process of presenting God's vocation as those sent into the world" (ref. Rom. 6:12–23; 12:1–2; John 17:18). If the roots, trunk, and branches are alive, leaves and fruit will be produced (ref. John 15:1–8).
Although I cannot speak to pedagogical efficacy, my students would at least report that I frequently attempt to pay forward the wisdom I am gaining through my frailty-journey in formal and informal, planned and spontaneous ways. I cannot not, to be honest, because it is as if “I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck” (Dillard, 1974/2013, p. 36). Recently, I was confronted with a new and acute episode of frailty, one situated very close to home. This section presents the short essay I wrote in an attempt to process that experience as a teacher—seeking to edify on the basis of what I have been learning.
“On God's Plan for Your Life” (A Teaching Essay)
“If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.” (Phil. 1:22)
Since my experience of surviving sudden cardiac arrest, I've been told countless times: “God clearly has a plan for your life!”
I love and appreciate all the people who have told me this, and as my wife's grandmother was fond of saying, I can and should “take people for what they mean, not necessarily what they say.” Nonetheless, I'm troubled by one potential implication of this saying and I'd like to propose an alternative.
Consider: What if one of the people who were essentially instrumental in saving my life that November morning died suddenly later that same afternoon? Did God (clearly) have a plan for my life but (clearly) not for theirs? Surely, the warrant for asserting God's “clear” plan for my life is not that I am alive and breathing. Well, I suppose it's not less than that. It must be more than that, however.
God's plan. As I write this (December 2022), my brother Travis is in the hospital after suffering a major stroke. By God's grace, by the courage of his wife, Stacy, by the privileges of available medical resources, by the skill and competence of a host of medical professionals and institutions, and by the providence of favorable circumstances, Travis is expected to fully recover.
One of the physicians primarily responsible for providing Travis's immediate medical care was Dr. Shola Aluko. Dr. Aluko was compelled to become a “stroke doctor” (Neurointensivist) through the tragedy and trauma of his mother's death, caused by a stroke. He believed that his mother's doctors could have saved her if they had better knowledge and preparation. So he became that doctor with better knowledge and preparation. On his professional bio page, he is quoted as saying, “I treat every patient as if they were a loved one. Helping save a life is the most gratifying gift I can give to the world” (https://www.avera.org/doctors/profile/shola-aluko/).
I believe God has a plan for Travis's life, to be sure. In a very tangible way, I can attest to God's plan for the lives of those people such as Stacy and Dr. Aluko who were ministers of livelihood to Travis when he was helpless. Beyond this, another evident reality grips me: God has a plan for Dr. Aluko's mother's life. Selah.
The dead (faith) cart. To claim, “God has a plan for my life!” solely on the basis of me being alive, is akin to claiming, “I have faith!” solely on the basis of saying I have it. Can that faith save me? (James 2:14). No. When it comes to real faith, talk is cheap, even if you “believe” the talk (v. 19). The telltale indicator of genuine faith is not a declaration; it is discipleship (John 15:8). Discipleship is the manifestation of redemptive love (Rom. 5:8) through fruitful labor (Phil. 1:22).
The distinction between those who are truly alive and those who are not is more subtle than who is breathing and who is not. As Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam and Jones, 1975) so aptly teaches in the timeless and edifying Dead Collector scene (“Bring out y'dead!”), just because you can say you are alive does not mean you are not dead. Declaring “I feel happy!” is not the same thing as demonstrating a life of meaningful happiness and flourishing (Gk. eudaimonia). You may as well be tossed on the dead cart if all you can manage is to claim to have life. This is the biblical schema of saving faith. The Dead Collector's dead faith cart is overloaded with souls claiming to have faith.
There is a keen distinction between being alive and living life. Likewise, there is a keen distinction between claiming God's plan for your life through the ethic of self-preservation and vainglory, versus demonstrating God's plan for your life through the ethic of self-sacrifice and redeeming love.
What a mockery of living it would be to synonymize “God has a plan for my life” with “I'm not dead.” It may be a slight improvement to say, “God clearly has a plan for you being alive.” But if this is a gain for empirical accuracy, it is a loss for rhetorical force. There is something deeper.
Abundant living. In the epic film Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg, 1998), Captain Miller's dying words spoken to Private James Ryan are not “Go live a long life, James,” but, “James, earn this. Earn this.” He means: Honor the sacrifices that have been made so that you may live. See to it that your manner of life reflects the value of the price paid to preserve your life. Do not neglect so great a salvation as that which has been accomplished for you. Do not ever seek to elude the responsibility that comes with being rescued. Do not measure your life by how long you live; but by how well you live.
In the epic tale of redemption, the Good Shepherd says, “The thief comes to kill and steal and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Abundance in the economy of the City of God is an ironic reality. It has less to do with collecting capital, currency, and influence, and more to do with practicing love, justice, and mercy (Jer. 9:23–24).
Living life well means caring more about fruitful labor than longevity—even while never discounting or despising the latter. On April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968) said, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life—longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will” (kinginstitute.stanford.edu).
Living life well entails more than rationally acknowledging and submitting to the eventuality of a divine plan that superintends your life's being. Living life well entails actively hearing and responding to the call of God's plan that compels your life's ministry: “…the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20b).
So, for people such as Travis and me, rather than “God clearly has a plan for your life,” I propose: You're (clearly) alive! Now go find out what God has planned.
Benediction
Cardiac attack of the sea in man,
but also, morning's new horizon,
the resurrection of the sun—
anchor raised as man sails on. (Haase, 2021; see appendix)
I cannot stop thinking about the people standing around my body on that Saturday, who broke into applause and celebration. I think it was the juxtaposition that really sealed it for them. Just minutes earlier the people were witnessing my body become a corpse. Then, they witnessed my body be revived. When we are close enough to see death overtaking life, we are impulsively shocked and traumatized. When we are close enough to see life overtaking death, we are impulsively euphoric and fulfilled. It's a human thing. Life is sacred and precious. More so than any accomplishment, distinction, or power gained in life, in the end it is life itself that we value and long for. And for us who are in Christ, it is Life Himself that we live into—the pursuit of redemptive flourishing—the active life of prayer and endeavor that God would manifest his will, through us, to accomplish his kingdom purposes, on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10).
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
As Editor of the Christian Education Journal, I am employed by the Society of Professors in Christian Education.
Notes
Appendix 1
“Corpse Revived”
A Poem by Dan Haase
Note: This poem was composed by my friend and colleague Dan Haase, Associate Lecturer of Christian Formation & Ministry at Wheaton College. This unpublished manuscript is presented here with permission from the author, who retains all property rights.
for John David Trentham
“I was seized upon by five image bearers…