Today's Consp!re article from Shauna Niequist lifts up the ongoing ways we are called to practice new life in the face of the deaths of this world. For Shauna death is a thing experienced not just one big time at the end, but rather is that seemingly ever-present reality of loss and grief that sometimes binds our lives.

In the City sometimes this death surrounds you. While living in Grosse Point Park, we heard fairly regular episodes of gunfire from across the moat and the fence - over on the Detroit side. Even there in the 'burbs, the 8 ft. privacy fence erected by our neighbors felt like a loss, a death of neighborliness of sorts. Now in Corktown the empty buildings that dot the skyline are reminders of Detroit's deaths that have continued over the years. I was interested in the idea that some of these deaths invite us to grow, and other deaths simply invite us to mourn. Think of the countless architecture students who've virtually remodeled the Michigan Central Station into a vibrant center of urban activity. Counter that with the remembrance of children losing their lives to gun violence on the first days of school. One death through which to grow, the other simply to mourn, and to mourn hard.

So Fall comes and the leaves die. But they are inevitably to be met by Spring's new growth. Where, however, may God be calling us to find those who've lost and are mourning and who don't need to hear about how this death may help them grow? Where are we called to live despite death, not because of it? I pray God will help us know that.

Carl