April 4, 2019
I perched on a rock, taking in the view. Trinity Beach in Cairns, Australia, may not be a magnet for surfers and jet-skiiers, but to eyes that had been looking at mountains for seven months, it was glorious. I was out of the bush on my mid-internship holiday.
The day had been mostly overcast, with occasional showers that made us grateful for umbrellas and raincoats. When we arrived at Trinity Beach, however, the clouds dissipated and the sun emerged triumphant. The change of weather, a stroll, and then a stony seat enabled some quiet reflection.
The waves that rolled in were not particularly impressive. Their diminutive crests fell, splashing onto preceding waves racing back to the ocean. Their only feature that caught my attention was their regularity. One comes, then returns to where it came from as the next follows suit. And the next, and the next, and the next.
Peering farther out to sea, I wondered at the barely discernible ripples that would eventually make their way to the beach and turn over, as a million before them had already done.
I asked my friend Hannah, “I wonder if these waves are like the ones William Shakespeare admired as he wrote ‘Sonnet 60’? Couldn’t have been…since his beach was pebbled, not sandy like this one. But the thought is the same…”
Like as the waves make toward the pebbl’d shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
I don’t get to teach literature anymore, so I thoroughly enjoyed enlightening my friend to the significance of Shakespeare’s simile. (She was awestruck, I’m quite certain.) “Just like these waves keeping rolling in, one after another, the minutes that make up our lives never stop coming. As one ends, another begins and takes its place.”
And a little more than a week later, Shakespeare’s words of wisdom echoed through my mind again.
April 13, 2019
I crouched in the darkened hut, taking in the scene. Kyle and Lauren had entered the hut before me, and they now leaned against the corner of the bamboo walls on my right. Marie sat to my left, quietly crying. Sila laid her head on Marie’s shoulder, cuddling someone’s baby. Continuing around the circle of mourners, there was Gideon, and Ham’s second wife, three older women, then Osula and her little son Losten. Two old ladies sat in the corner across from us. Ham’s other wife was beside them. Kilau’s wife and Kimatu took turns wailing. Hidden from view, a woman mourned in dissonance from the next room.
In the center of it all, the fire smoldered, filling the room with a smoky haze. Manada sat by it, cross-legged, occasionally jabbing the embers with a piece of bamboo.
To my right lay the reason for the gathering. Her body had been clothed in a royal blue meri blaus and matching skirt. Her legs were bound together at the knees and ankles. Her hands were swollen. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth turned upward slightly at the corners, giving the appearance of a little smile.
I thought about her life. Adnapi was born in this rainforest. She had worked her garden, eking life from the nutrient-deprived soil of these mountains. She had raised her children, Mandela, Manada, and Donanda. In her lapun (old age) years, she held her bubus (grandchildren).
As we knew her, Adnapi had been sick off and on for several years. Her lungs were tired from breathing decades of smoky air in huts like the one we sat in now. A few months ago, her sickness worsened to bring her oxygen saturation below 80% (that’s very bad). She was staying at her daughter’s house, across the road from the mission: a good location, since she needed shots and twice-a-day nebulizer breathing treatments for a couple weeks. Marie, Emma, Manandi, and Sarah walked back and forth, praying and providing the care that would prolong her life.
Pastor Ben and some friends from church went to visit one evening. They stayed until late in the night, talking, singing, and praying. Clearly and sweetly, Adnapi testified of her faith in the cleansing blood of Jesus. Whatever would follow in the coming months, the certainty of eternal life provided hope beyond the grave. We thought she might see Jesus soon, but she recovered and went to stay with her younger brother Amon.
A couple months later, we heard that she was sick again. She never came to the clinic, but the nurses sent medicine. When they made a house call three days later, they discovered that Adnapi hadn’t taken any of the meds. She was sitting quietly by the fire, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. They said she wasn’t talking much. For another ten days, the nurses asked for and received updates, taking the time to visit her on the way to market.
And April 12th, Adnapi closed her eyes in a bush hut and opened them in the presence of Jesus.
—
Facing death forces us into reflection. As Solomon writes,
“It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.”
Ecclesiastes 7:2
In that hut, I pondered realities of life and death. In my home country, death can masquerade as a gentle good night. In this place, without funeral homes, embalming fluid, makeup artists, and extravagant caskets, the charade is impossible. This place has a way of systematically dismantling every construct that insulates a person from the harsh reality of death.
I have plans and hopes and desires for the future. But the truth? The future isn’t mine. Death is the end of all men, and no one knows how many days will delay that end.
My thoughts were interrupted when I saw the little guy across the room. His eyes lit up, and his lips spread into a broad smile. An auntie extended her arms, and he ventured a shuffled step, falling in her direction. She caught him, and he bounced happily in her lap.
The comparison between the baby and Adnapi was striking. He, a cherubic child with smooth skin and undeveloped major muscle groups. Adnapi, an aged woman with wrinkled face and withered limbs. He, at the beginning of his days, still unaware of life beyond eating, sleeping, and staring wide-eyed at bright colors. Adnapi, at the end of her days, having lived them to the full in this remote corner of the world, mostly unaware of life outside these mountains.
Once upon a time, Adnapi was a child too, toddling into her mother’s arms. The difference between her and this little boy suddenly didn’t seem so vast.
And then I realized I was looking at the second and third quatrains from “Sonnet 60,” in real life.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d
Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
The minutes of that child’s life pass with the undisturbed regularity of waves breaking on the beach. Presently, time is a blessing to that baby. Physical strength, cognitive abilities, manual dexterity – all increase as each passing minute bequeaths her gifts to him. Time will enable him to walk, to talk, to understand, to learn. He will become a powerful young man, and someday he will hold his own children.
Yet there will come a day when time will turn against him, and every passing minute will steal away some of the strength he enjoyed, and he will grow old.
Adnapi knew time as both a benefactor and a thief. And this is the end of all men.
Death may be the end of all men, but it is not the Christian’s final end. There will be a day when minutes will no longer hasten on, either giving or taking. When time ends, and immortality begins, we will receive the fullness of God’s everlasting joy. Eternal life will only give…and give…and give.
Sitting next to the body that had housed Adnapi, I imagined scenes from her life. But I couldn’t begin to imagine the scenes that were at that moment unfolding before her eyes. Nothing about her life in time was as precious as the grace and faith that secured her life in eternity. I breathed a prayer, “God, as time gives and takes my strength by Your sovereign hand, make my life matter for eternity. Let me spend my strength in this world for what will matter in the next. Let me proclaim the power of Your salvation in every season of life, so others believe like Adnapi did. Make my time count for eternity.”
The next time I see Adnapi, we won’t smile and shrug and say things to each other in our respective languages. We met in time, but we will know each other in eternity, as we worship our God together in boundless delight.
Shakespeare concludes his sonnet,
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
I am sure the object of the poet’s affection was smitten with his desire to speak her value beyond the time of his life. He accomplished that goal, obviously, as ninth-graders memorize his words four centuries later.
Yet truly, there is only One Who is worthy of eternal praise. That is the end for which we must spend every degree of our strength.
May our efforts in time stand to praise His worth, with all the hope of eternal giving to come.