Thank You For Not Dying

For the last nine months or so I have been exploring the possibility of building a residence hall for The Wesley Foundation at Arizona State University with Tempe First UMC and a company called Newchapter.  Through this process I have become very good friends with Newchapter’s Director of Business Development, Ian Clark.  Ian is more than a business man, he is also a moderate evangelical Christian, and before working with me he hadn’t known much about denominational Christianity.  For my part, I hadn’t known many non-denominational Christians, at least folks that I ended up having deep theological conversation with everyday.  My intention has been to do some posts with Ian and another buddy of mine, Drew, who is about as close to an atheist as you get, without being an atheist.  We were actually close to having our first evangelical vs. United Methodist vs. atheist showdown (I was totally going to win) when something really scary happened.  On the morning of April 14, Ian and I had a long conversation about the building project and then Ian needed to go to lunch.  The last thing he mentioned to me was he was going to get some running in during his lunch hour.  A couple hours later, I got an instant message from Ian’s boss, Nat, that said Ian had collapsed during his run and was being rushed to the hospital.  A bit later I found out, that at age 32, he collapsed because he had a massive heart attack.  The scariest part was that he actually stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating for a few minutes before he was revived.  That events of that day are actually pretty unbelievable, and thank God, Ian survied.  He has written about his experience in a blog post that was featured on the Faith of Campus blog (be sure to check-out the full post).  In reflecting on the experience, and his brush with death, Ian writes:

This challenges me theologically. You see, I’ve never liked hearing people say, “Everything happens for a reason,”  and I don’t think the families of the 95% of cardiac arrest victims that don’t survive like it either.  Was I really the recipient of a miracle, or were the hundreds of little things that needed to occur at just the right time and in just the right order for me to survive, just a matter of chance?

Now, normally this is the kind of event I could explore theologically for hours and days and weeks… well, forever.  This time, though, my theological reflection on this situation has been little.  Actually, I don’t really care about having theological debate or conversation about why and how this happened. I’m just happy and thankful that my friend is alive.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been very close to suffering and tragedy before and have had to deal with some extremely painful questions, doubt, depression, and anger.  I’ve lost two friends, including my best friend to brain cancer and my wife is not even a year removed from cancer treatment herself.  In many ways these experiences have not only shaped my theology, but also who I am today.  Tragedy and suffering makes you think about who God is and how God interacts with the world and it also makes you think about how you take care of yourself, the priorities in your life, and how deeply you love your family and friends.

So here’s to to you Mr. Clark, thank you for not dying.  I don’t care why you’re still here, just as long as I still get to talk to you everyday.

I guess my only theological reflection is this:  Thank God for the the ability and the chance to experience love and friendship.  May we always appreciate those relationships and even get to a point where we care so deeply about the one’s we love that we are willing to lay our lives down for them  (I think Jesus said something about that).  I just hope it doesn’t take tragedy or near-tragedy for us to realize that.

Tagged as: friendship, ian clark, problem of evil, theodicy