When the Homily is about Immunology

Again…death

It seems that 2004 is intent upon being know to our family and others we know as a year of death. But, is this not so of every year, even if it does not ravage those in our immediate sphere of emotional and literal proximity

We learned last Tuesday that my wife’s brother died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack. He was 38. So once again death is on my mind…probably a healthy thing, really.

(Stepping up onto soapbox) Damn death! The “circle of life” crap, espoused by some, is just that: crap. As much as I enjoyed the movie “The Lion King”, if I hear that song belted out again and that absurd little bit of natural life-death philosophy preached by Mufasa (sp?) I shall have to scream. Yes, there is a circle of life, but it is broken by death you dorks! Life and death, it seems are mutually exclusive…at least until all is restored by Christ.

When I die, I need to be fixed…not joyously content that I mysteriously live on in my kids or in the animal that might have devoured me. Such an idea reduces personhood to molecular biology and I have this strange feeling that I transcend those things that I manipulate in this lab. Is the whole, greater than the sum of it’s parts? If so, then I think this MEANS something…something grand…something wonderful…something holy, I dare say.