Death is an intruder, an uninvited guest who crashes the party. We don’t choose the times when death comes, or the places where death comes, or the way that death comes, or the people for whom death comes. Death just comes. It stalks us our whole lives long, and then one day it reaches out and grabs hold of us, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Two of my son’s classmates from high school died this week. He’s shattered. Thirty-somethings are not supposed to be grieving the deaths of the people they grew up with. Grandparents – yes. Aunts and uncles – yes. Even parents – yes. But not the people you went through school with as a kid, people who have finally figured out who they are and what they want from life, and who are just beginning to make some meaningful strides in the direction of that future they have claimed for themselves. To be taken then is especially cruel. There is a special anguish to the death of someone who has just begun to live. The death of a thirty-something underscores the sinister nature of death, why it’s called our “enemy” (I Corinthians 15:26).
The author of Hebrews said that we live our entire lives as human beings in the bondage of our fear of dying (2:15). Vitezslav Gardavsky (1923 – 1978), the Czech poet, playwright, and philosopher, traced the outlines of this familiar fear when he hauntingly wrote – “That I die means that I cannot complete my work. I will no longer see those I have loved, and I will no longer experience beauty or sorrow. The unrepeatable music of this world will no longer ring in my senses; never again will I anywhere or in any way move out beyond myself.” Death destroys and denies. It strikes at the very heart of what we say we believe is true and value as good. Death, especially an early death, is a psychic fruit basket upset. It jumbles things.
When our worlds fly apart, the very first thing we need to do is to find the eye of the storm, the still point at the center around which things spin, and where we can be held secure. In the Eastern Church, praying the “Trisagion” is a reliable way of getting there. The “Trisagion” (The “Thrice Holy”) is a prayer that says –
“Holy God,
Holy Mighty,
Holy Immortal,
have mercy on me/us.”
The Eastern Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov explained the meaning of this three-fold invocation of the name of God –
“Holy God –
The Father, the source of holiness is the Holy;
Holy Mighty (and strong) –
The Son, who triumphs over death, is the Strong;
Holy (and) Immortal –
The Holy Spirit, the breath of life, is the Life-Giver.”
The Eastern Church prays this prayer at the moment of catastrophes. It is prayed in the burial service when the body is interred. It’s a prayer that expresses the Church’s faith in the resurrection, the re-establishment of what is normal, what they describe as its “ontological healing.”
According to the “Shepherd of Hermas,” an early Christian text, it is “the name of God that sustains the world.” As the Christ hymn of Colossians 1 explains, “In Him all things hold together” (verse 17). It is through prayer that we seek the experience of this equilibrium, and the “Trisagion” prayer is a specific way of seeking this healing of our woundedness. It’s a way of restoring order to the disarray. It’s a way of asking for peace in the storm by naming the God who stills the wind and calms the sea.
When our days “collapse into chaos” and we are left feeling helpless and hopeless, praying the “Trisagion” it is a way of deliberately placing ourselves and the world back into the hands of the God who made us, who loves us, and who is saving us. This act clears a space big enough for hope to sprout and for ways of helping to break forth.
*SOUNDINGS 