In August of 2010, our church received the startling news that fellow member Brian Carderelli was murdered while serving on a medical missions trip in Afghanistan. He was a photographer documenting aid work and a recent college graduate from James Madison University. He was only 25 years old. Like a stone cast into still waters word of the tragedy spread from small country towns to the furthest cities of the world. At home, on the quiet front, the small city of Harrisonburg felt the brunt of the impact.
Two months ago, Mike Broderick, a prominent member of a Virginia based trail running club and community was diagnosed with lung cancer. He had dedicated the last 15 years of his life to coaching, mentoring, and helping others pursue a healthy and vibrant lifestyle. Yet, before anyone really had time to come to full grips with the weight of the situation he was gone. There was no epic battle, no months of chemo, just an abrupt end to a talented and rich life.
There's no doubt that in either case the internal reflection is weighted with a mighty burden. How could two men, both seeking the betterment of the world through their daily actions, come to such ends as if any means could justify? There is a universal truth that when we lose people in the fashion the world lost Brian and Mike, then the gut reaction is grief, sadness, and then the rejoicing of the life lived in their memory. But, as in all too many instances of life, that memory of life fades into the bleak abyss of the mundane trudge of life.
How then do we truly honor the memory of these people beyond the ritualistic motions of memorial and basic remembrance? Do these men truly live on inside of by bringing birth to new ideas and innovations distinctly inspired by the screen captures of their life? Life is but a motion picture, yet we are merely living within a single frame caught at a rare moment in this collective second of existence. I wonder how long inspiration can manifest itself, or to what degree life must make its appeals before the hybernation period yields to verdant bloom. Memories are merely the black and white replication of a two dimensional mode of thought. That what changes the inanimate and provides autonomous motion is truly the unique gift of the inspired. We can take and create, or we can choose to leave behind, but less us not leave behind all that is worth keeping.
