Familiarity and Loss: Mourning the death of someone you’ve never met.

For those who know me, the example I am about to use will not come as a surprise. For those who don’t, I hope it will help make my point.

There is a scene in episode 5 of season 3 of the beloved series Star Trek: The Next Generation where the ever inquisitive and almost innocent android, Lt. Commander Data, is pondering the nature of death. In this episode, Trek handles a moral dilemma in a way that only Trek can by asking the question of familiarity in the process of mourning. In an exchange between Data and Commander Riker, first officer of the Enterprise-D, Data’s perception in the wake of the death of a crewmate forces all of us to consider the death of someone we either don’t know or don’t know well:

---

Data: “Since her death, I have been asked several times to define how well I knew Lieutenant Aster. And I heard you ask Wesley on the bridge how well he knew Jeremy (Aster’s young son). Does the question of familiarity have some bearing on death?

Riker: Do you remember how we all felt when Tasha died?

Data: I do not sense the same feelings of absence that I associate with Lieutenant Yar. Although I cannot say precisely why.

Riker: Just human nature, Data.

Data: Human nature, sir?

Riker: We feel a loss more intensely when it’s a friend.

Data: But, should not the feelings run just as deep, regardless of who has died?

Riker: Maybe they should, Data. Maybe if we felt any loss as keenly as we felt the death of one close to us – human history would be a lot less bloody.

---

Data’s perception, innocence, and frankness always play well to disarm a situation or an issue that could easily become polarized and politicized. This is really where science fiction shines. This scene is the living embodiment of Isaac Asimov’s quote that, “Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today – but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.“

Now, this is obviously a Christian blog and a Christian pastor’s blog, so I am in no way saying that science fiction will save us. Nor am I saying that the humanistic perfection that is embodied by science fiction, particularly Star Trek, is what will save us. Only the perfection of Christ Jesus our Lord will save us. But, I bring up this scene in order to make the same point that had so confounded the innocent android second officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D: how should we react to the death of someone that we have never met or someone that we might only be slightly familiar?

We have all had moments of mourning the death of a beloved celebrity whose work has impacted our lives. Personally, the deaths of Alan Rickman, Andy Griffith, Leonard Nimoy, and Carrie Fisher are just a sampling of celebrities whose on-screen work has had an influence on my life. Pastor and theologian, R.C. Sproul’s death hit me in a way that I never expected. And even though I never had the opportunity to meet him personally, his works have had a profound influence on my understanding of the nature of God, Scripture, the Church, and the work of Christ. Another, more recent, death that has had an unexpected impact on me is the tragic death of Anglican priest, Father Thomas McKenzie.

A word of a disclaimer, I never met Father Thomas. I never sat under his authority or his preaching. And I am in no way trying to trivialize the hurt of his and his daughter’s loss for the sake of boosting my blog hits. If anything, I want this to be a place for Christians to think deeper and ask hard questions, and from my reading of Father Thomas’s works and blog, I think he would agree.

So, why would I dedicate an entire post to a priest who I have never met and even who was a different denominational background? Simply put: this brother in Christ has had a lasting impact on my life through his writings and, even because I never knew him personally, I almost feel wrong mourning for him. But I do mourn his loss! I mourn for his wife and daughter that he and his oldest daughter have left behind. I mourn for the church without a pastor. For a flock without a shepherd. I mourn.

Father Thomas has been my companion for the last 3-4 years throughout the Lenten season through his work Lent with the Desert Fathers. Father Thomas and I (and sometimes my wife) would travel the desert together, learning wisdom from the early fathers and mothers who sought a life of solitude with Christ in the wilderness. He would help me make sense of their beautiful (and yet strange) “sayings,” while also challenging me to contemplate the temptation and struggle of Christ as we inched our way closer and closer to the Cross.

I am not an Anglican, but I have many friends who are. From my reading of his work The Anglican Way, I have come to an appreciation for that tradition of the Christian faith. I love it’s beauty. I love its liturgy. I love its prayer book. I love how it seeks, like all of us who follow after Jesus, to guide people towards proper worship of the Triune God. I may not be Anglican, but I adore the bride of Christ more because of how God has used men like Father Thomas, Bishop Todd Hunter, and the late Robert Webber.

No, I won’t trivialize Father Thomas’s death or the loss and pain that his family, friends, and church are going through. Instead, I want to reflect on how his death has caused me to be more aware of not only my own mortality, but also of God’s sovereign hand. For those unfamiliar with the situation, Father Thomas and oldest daughter, Charlie, were killed on the highway as they were leaving Nashville last week. Thomas was driving Charlie back to school out west and then planning to continue on for a much overdue sabbatical, including a trip to the UK and Europe I believe.

And here is where we see the sovereign hand of the Lord at work in all of our lives. If we ever needed an excuse to read the Old Testament book of Job, it should be after a death that impacts us. Job reminds us that our days are determined by God. In chapter 14 he starts by saying, “How frail is humanity! How short is life, how full of trouble!” Then in verse 5 he says, “You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a moment longer.” So then… sings Moses in Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.“

In our culture, we have become so obsessed with the avoidance of death we have forgotten what it means to live as wise. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t try to cure diseases, cancers, and ailments. This isn’t to say that we should run headlong into death. But it does mean that in our obsession with life we ignore the reality of death. This is true not only for the rich and famous who seek to look forever youthful, but also for the funeral industry which tries to “mask” death by changing the vocabulary. But scripture teaches us that “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Ps 116:15).

What does this have to do with mourning the loss of someone I have never met? I guess it’s this – my unmet Lenten companion has now joined the “great cloud of witnesses” of Hebrews 12:1-2, and his life and works while on this side of the veil have helped me to “look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” And while it seems odd to mourn someone that I have never personally met, Scripture teaches me that it is far far from odd. But it also teaches me to remember that my life is but a vapor that appears for a little while and then is gone (James 4:14).

So, Lord, teach me to number my days that I may gain a little wisdom and live wisely.

Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.