Walking Among The Dead

I grew up walking among the dead...quite literally. As a child, my family lived near a cemetery. In addition, my daddy worked for several years at a funeral home. As if those two facts alone weren't enough, my grandmother lived in the apartment atop the funeral home for about ten years. Just across the hall from her apartment was the room filled with casket samples. Between playing hide-n-seek in the cemetery, riding to school in a hearse, roaming the halls of the funeral home, and making bouquets out of the left-over burial flowers, being among the dead was no big deal.

Most people cringe at the idea of being near a dead body. Certainly, cemeteries are no place for children to play. And riding in a hearse? Well, nobody wants to do that. But like anything else, when you're around something long enough, you become accustomed to it. Our senses dull to the strangeness of it all.

Maybe it's why we aren't shocked when the church gathers and sings "My chains are gone," yet everyone looks as if they've never lived a day of freedom. Maybe it's the reason we're okay with neglecting our God-given dreams. Maybe it's why we settle for endless, mindless chit-chat, never scratching beneath the surface.

We're walking among the dead. And we don't even recognize it.

But there are some who awaken to life. And when they do, they want to run for their lives! They want to find others who've awakened, who've emerged from walking among the dead. And they cling to Life as if their very existence depended on Him.

I don't want to walk among the dead with my senses dulled. I don't want to settle for mere existence. I want to be among the living. I want to experience life and freedom.