By Fr. Glenn Jones

This evening … a dead body lies in the street just below. To one side the blue compact car—a Honda, I think—its hood laying several feet away. A little farther up … a mangled motorcycle, almost unrecognizable … bits of mechanical and fiberglass detritus strewn about for yards around. Lomas Boulevard is blocked and taped off … police milling about, apparently waiting for investigators. Coroners. Official vehicles come and go. To the south a church … the normally-scheduled Mass being celebrated within. If the worshippers are aware of what happened outside, no doubt prayers are going up for a soul. The continual admonition of Jesus comes to mind: “Watch, therefore; you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Contemplating the scene from a perch in the old convent by the church (the church perch?), it strikes that the police seem so nonchalant at a vision that would horrify most. Many might criticize them, but not I; they are all too familiar with such scenes … for them almost a daily task, in their own psychological defense becoming almost inured to strangers’ deaths. Because death is so familiar to us priests and ministers, that attitude becomes one that we, too, must constantly guard against … remembering that each person is someone’s child and loved one, and, as Pope John Paul II wrote, “Each…a unique and unrepeatable gift of God.” Somewhere tonight there will be hearts torn with agony.

As solemn as the scene is at the moment, there also is the realization that, in a couple of hours, the street will appear as if nothing happened. People will be rushing to destinations unhindered … no idea that a soul went forth to God from that very spot just moments earlier. Remembrance is renewed of screaming motorcycles ripping down Lomas every weekend in the risky pursuit of adrenaline rush and dopamine hit. Alas … there will be one fewer tonight.

The odds. We love to play the odds. The horses … the market … the casino. The young lad there lying in the street made his own calculations of risk vs. reward … and lost, bringing to mind the reading for the Mass this evening from Isaiah: “…they lie prostrate…never to rise, snuffed out and quenched like a wick.” Thus the shortness and tenuousness of our lives … the brevity of our remembrance. Certainly in some grieving family—as in all families—there will be recollections of a life snuffed out much too early … a novel unfinished. But … the world as a whole will take little notice. This is the human condition.

Certainly we cannot avoid all risk in life; simply driving to the store (especially here in Albuquerque!) can be taking one’s life in one’s hands. But young men especially often feel a need to prove themselves with taking greater risks. Been there, done that … having put more than a few guardian angels into the retirement home single-handedly, no doubt. Certainly there are risky occupations—the military, police, firefighters, etc.—but they serve necessary purposes and goals. Extreme risk for its own sake—for that adrenaline rush alone—can be one of the most uncharitable things we do, for the loss is not ours alone, but that of everyone we love … and who love us.

Tonight there will be wailing relatives … called to identify the body.  Mother … sister … daughter … father … son? Not sure. How sad. Very tragic.

But … amongst all such sadness for the Christian: Hope. 

Isaiah in his quote above was speaking in worldly terms; the fullness of what he foreshadows in his writings were as yet unknown. But, as we approach Easter coming up in a couple of weeks, we Christians believe that the day’s very essence IS hope of rising again to new life, as we recall the resurrection of Jesus as the “first-born from the dead”—one whom we are called to follow in an undying life with God to come.

At this point the naysayer will roll his eyes: “There he goes again with his psychological dependency for a ‘big daddy’ god!” Ah … there’s that “playing the odds” again—betting that ol’ Father Glenn … Christianity as a whole … has for 2000 years been snookered by some dead carpenter and his uneducated lickspittles … all who had nothing better to do or to gain with their time other than to be crucified and tortured to death in sundry ways … and yet who also somehow managed to have convinced many thousands of followers in their own lives, and who began a religion which spread like wildfire throughout the Mediterranean and beyond—through various cultures and regions—within a few decades. Even before Facebook!

So … are you sure of the Christian error? I mean … REALLY sure? Talk about playing the odds! Perhaps you might hearken to yesteryear in the article about Pascal’s Wager—that (if I might plagiarize myself): “…the rational person would seek to live as though God exists and seek to believe in God, for if God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a comparatively minor loss in earthly pleasures. However, the unbeliever risks (wagers) losing infinitely more (eternity in Heaven, including possible eternity in Hell). This wager…is one we all must make.”

“But…it seems so unlikely! So counterintuitive!” Well … so does quantum entanglement, and if you hadn’t read about and researched it, you might not believe in that, either. 

And certainly simply “hedging one’s bets” is by no means a reason for “faking it”. But … before rolling the dice … before you dismiss the Christian faith … make sure you research well the reasons for our belief, because it’s not just “pie in the sky”, but rather there are very real tangible things which underlie this faith and belief. After all … when you drive by the churches in Los Alamos, those are filled with persons much like yourself—steeped in science and taught to be healthily skeptical … just as you may be.

Ah … the street has reopened … a speeding motorcyclist zipping by. 

Sigh.

Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.