March 2010
“Avowed Hedonist”
I read an article about the tragic death of a man who lived in Potomac in a recent Washington Post. The headline of the article first caught my attention as the article screamed “Dirk Smiler was the Toastmaster. The Gourmand. The Poet. The Goth King”. (Washington Post, Thursday, February 18, 2010). As I read the article I read about a 37 year old man who was a sommelier in Potomac, a voracious party goer who loved dancing, drinking, chasing women and hosting countless after-parties after last call. One of his friends described him as an “eccentric hedonist”.
In the 24 hours after his death, a tribute Web site said it had visitors from 39 states and 12 countries. There were many “comments” posted in the on line version of the Post that caught my attention. They were about evenly divided between those who wondered what made this man’s life noteworthy of such a lengthy article and those who were deeply hurt and in pain over his loss. The thing that most impressed me was the level of love and friendship from those who knew him. The other thing I notice was the level of insensitivity and unkindness from those who took exception to his Goth lifestyle or the lengthy article in the Post.
I don’t want to use the tragic death of someone who had a different view of life from my own as a platform but I was deeply impressed by the number of passionate friends Dirk Smiler had who mourned his loss. Yet, I have a fundamentally different point of view about what the good life is and I too wondered why such extensive coverage. I posted my comments and felt good that my comments received more positive “thumbs up” reviews than those from anyone else.
I hope that all of us have friends who love us as much and who are as passionate about us as Mr. Smiler did. While his was a life that seems very different from mine I can only hope all my friends and church members (both past and present) will remember me so fondly and will say such nice things about who I was and what I stood for after I am gone.
We do touch each other’s lives. We do matter. We do have a chance to impact the world; if not the whole world then the little piece of the world in which we live. I don’t think we stop to reflect enough on how we matter to one another. When someone isn’t in church their absence impacts those who are here. When we say mean or inappropriate things we hurt each other. When we are here we have the chance to share life together. When absent we lose that chance. I guess the only difference between Dirk Smiler and myself is that for him “the party” was the big thing and for me “the church” is the big thing.
So what is the big thing in your life? What is the priority in your life? What should come ahead of church on Sunday morning in our lives? (You already know my answer to that one don’t you?) How are you touching the lives of the people who matter? Does your life matter?