If I Don't Do It, Who Will?

Today I went to the funeral of my 8th grade English teacher. Most of the memories I have of being in middle and high school include being depressed, despising my "broken" family, hacking up my body with a razor blade, and losing friends. My English teacher, however, was a bright spot in my dark world. Ever competitive at my heart, I was determined to be the top speller in his class. I was pretty bitter about being tied for first place, but it was rewarded with a Beanie Baby! Now, 18 years ago, that was pretty sweet stuff! Every time I hear Alanis Morissette's song, "Ironic," I always think of his lesson on what irony is. We went through each line of the song to determine if it was irony or not. "That's not irony!," he would say. "That's just bad luck!" I'm not sure how, but I kept running into him over the years. He would be acting in plays or directing plays that I would go see or he would come into my work (a bookstore) looking for the latest collectibles, and we would catch up. Then all of a sudden there was a car accident, days later he passed away, and I found it hard to believe I had only seen his smiling face the week before at a summer play he had directed. As I sat in the sanctuary today, I giggled to myself half wondering if the pastor might begin with, "Please silence your cell phones for the duration of the service. There aren't any Pokemon in here; I already checked."

Thinking about death is nothing new to me. I've feared it. I've fantasized about it. I've embraced it. I've attempted it. When I found out that my beloved teacher had suffered severe brain damage and would likely die, I immediately thought, "I don't deserve to live. I'm not doing anything that matters. Good people are doing great things, yet keep dying!" I wallowed in this line of suicidal thinking in the days my teacher laid unresponsive in the ICU. He had lived his too short life fully and reached so many people in both small and massive ways. "He's not done!" I pleaded with God. "What about all the people that he hasn't reached yet- the friends, the teachers, the students, the strangers, the poor, the sad? He's doing such a great job being the hands and feet of Christ. There will be a huge hole in the universe now. An emptiness that can't be filled. Take me! I am nothing! I cry too much, I sleep too much, I yell too much, I hide too much, I neglect too much. I'm not doing anything! Take me instead!"

A few days later I had a bizarre dream. I was standing outside with a coworker of mine. All of a sudden meteors plummeted to the Earth, burrowing into the ground, narrowly missing us. "What does this mean?" my friend asked. Without skipping a beat, I answered, "God is telling us he is in charge." God definitely got His message across to me. Not my will be done, but His. I am meant to be alive, and my teacher was meant to die. I may not understand why, but God makes no mistakes- He is in charge.

The truth of this one sentence spoken in my dream could not have become more clear as I listened to the four people at the funeral speak about how my teacher had touched their lives, made them laugh and smile, and shared memories and stories. His children and family carry him with them in the way they act on the love he shared with them. The teachers and students carry his many lessons on to new generations. There is not a hole in the universe as I originally thought. The torch has been passed to the people that he reached. We all carry a piece of him wherever we go. The people he didn't have a chance to reach yet will be reached by all the people that were sitting in those pews this morning. The teachers he touched will go on in his place to nurture blossoming students. The actors and directors and speech coaches will continue the legacy he left on this Earth that he can no longer carry for himself.

The question the pastor kept repeating during his message today was, "If I don't do it, who will?" I thought that if my teacher couldn't do it, then no one would! That his light would extinguish, and darkness would eternally appear where he had once shown his infectiously radiant presence. That question stirred a new purpose inside of me. "If I don't do it, who will?" I will! We will! We all will! I may not know what "it" is in my life right now, but there is an "it" and only I can do it. I'm not dead; I am alive. If I am alive, then there is still work for me to do.

So I challenge you all to ask that question of yourselves today: "If I don't do it, who will?" What is the "it" in your life? Is "it" that person you really want to get to know, but are too afraid to ask? Is "it" that family member, friend, or pet that you probably don't invest as much time in as you would like? Is "it" a great idea that's been bouncing around in your head for a while but hasn't come to fruition? There are as many "its" in the world as there are people.

Go out and find your "it." Do whatever "it" is. And like my teacher did, live it with all your being. You may not have another tomorrow to act on it.