What follows is a meditation/eulogy that I wrote after my best friend, Craig Simmons, was tragically killed in a bus accident in Korea in June of 2010. The meditation moves between a tribute to his life and a meditation on the problem of evil, pushing back the trite answers of others around me as I grieved. Reader should not that the courtyard above is the one mentioned in the reflection below.

Much of Craig and I’s friendship was built on the basis of our love of sharing deep thoughts about life, faith, culture, justice and everything in between. In the spirit of such meaningful conversations, (which often took place late at night over a cup of coffee while procrastinating from writing papers due), I would like to share some thoughts and reflections.

I have been reading a theologian that has made an acute observation about the nature of humanity. We are, what he calls, “exo-centric” beings. See, to be an “exo-centric” being means that we find our meaning in something outside of ourselves, in those around us. This quality is exemplified by our belief in God as a triune being who exists as he is love and is loved by Son and Spirit and is reflected in us as God’s children. This term reflects the meaning of Craig’s friendship on me, and the reason why Craig was such a cherished individual for so many. There are very few people that can seriously be considered life-long friends, much less ones that you can say have formed you, given your life meaning, and thus, have become apart of you. Craig was one such friend.

I first met Craig at Heritage College. He and I were taking a class on spiritual disciplines where both of us, without the other knowing, had given up meat for 40 days. Apparently, Craig had gotten wind of this fact and strolled into my dorm room one evening giving his customary greeting, “How the heck are ya?” (the equivalent of Spock’s “live long and prosper” greeting), which was followed by a trip to Crabby Joe’s all-you-can-eat pasta event. “Since we cannot eat meat and it is almost the end of the 40 days, let us celebrate by eating like vegetarian kings!” he announced. I don’t remember the conversation that night (I remember it being memorable, I just can’t remember what!), but I do remember him packing down nearly five plates of food as I sat there in awe. I don’t think either of us truly understood or applied the meaning of Lent that night. Nevertheless, this occasion was one of many great outings in which we sampled the many flavors Cambridge had to offer, and what was sure to become a great friendship.

The next year we were room mates, one of about three years that I had the privilege of living with Craig, leading up to both of us getting married last summer, both of us in each others’ wedding parties. That was a summer I will not forget, a summer spent enjoying life to the fullest.

Being around Craig was like being in a sit com sometimes. The goofy uncanny situations and adventures he would get into was simply a spectacle to behold. Everyone who knew Craig knows that he was fashionably late for everything because of the bizarre jams that he would get into. The tales were often so well told that people were rarely angry at him for being late. One time we were late for church as the door to his old Chevy Cavalier would not shut. Insistent on hearing Pastor Ian Campbell’s sermon that week, and to generally overcome adversity anyhow, we drove to church in the winter weather, down the icy 401 at some deadly speed. Craig driving with one hand on the wheel, one hand holding the door shut. I would have held the door also, but I was too busy praying. We got there just in time for the sermon. I must admit, I have never been so proud to be thirty minutes late for church. Of course, Craig strolled in like he always did, as if he owed the place.

Craig was also notoriously bad for getting into situations that involved him putting his foot in his mouth. One time at future shop he walked up to a person trying to lift a box and said, “Can I give you a hand?” only to realize that the person only had one arm. Another time, we were at a student conference in St. Louis, and we sat at a table with other random students. One guy turned to Craig and asked, “where do you go to school?” Craig replied, “Oh, I go to Harvard…no just kidding, I go to a school that has more to it than just prestige. Where do you go?” Can you guess where? Lo and behold, at the table, as we went around asking where everyone was studying, we found that the entire table was composed of students from Harvard, Chicago, Cornell, and Princeton. What are the odds? Obviously not that high for a guy like Craig.

He was also late for everything because he was irresistibly friendly. Yet the strange thing was that, unlike most social butterflies, Craig was not a people-pleaser nor was he a conformist to every new fad or trend, in fact, quite the opposite. He was bold-headed in the extreme. However, it was that kind of transparency and honesty that made Craig so gregarious. When you spoke to Craig, you got Craig, uncut and commercial-free. From his work boots and torn-up Faulk football jersey to his car that sported the proud “Farmers Feed Cities” sticker in its window, Craig was who he was, no apologies. And if you were daring enough to be as authentic as he was, there was virtually no limit to the energy he was willing to pour into that relationship. Now when I say “authenticity” and “energy” I don’t mean writing “hey bff” on each other’s facebook walls. I mean debates over coffee that would last well into the night; I mean dorm-room wrestling matches; I mean spontaneous “Whopper Wednesday” Burger King runs after watching Smallville; I mean road trips across the continent and back; I mean campfire night conversations over Cuban cigars talking about ways to change the world; I mean all-you-can-eat rib fests that involved the purchasing of over-the counter-edemas the next day. That is the kind of one-of-a-kind friendship, I had with Craig, a friendship that has constituted who I am as a person.

Of course, now, he is gone. Without cause or warning, rhyme or reason, Craig walked across the street at a crosswalk and was hit by a careless bus driver. Just as his friendship was a significant presence when he was alive, so also is his death a ineffable absence. It is a strange thing to feel the loss of a friend. When I feel this sad absence, I am reminded of all the joyful memories I had with him. When I think of all the good times I had, I am reminded of the tragic absence. It is the absence that my future has been deprived of this one unique influence that has been the root of so many of my past experiences of happiness and meaning. In such a way that our futures are apart of our being, now, I feel incomplete now, in need of healing.

Craig was planning on attending the same college in the University of Toronto I am now at for my doctorate. In fact, on the day before his accident, he spoke on the phone, as he wished me a happy birthday, we shared each others mutual excitement about next year. Every time next semester when I sit and read a deep book as I sip a coffee in one of the beautiful courtyards of the university, I will miss Craig. I will recognize that that moment will not have been as good without him.

What encouragement is there that can comfort the loss of a friend that you anticipated growing old with, a friend that one day you thought you would be playing chess with in a park somewhere, sharing stories about each others’ grandchildren, reminiscing about the good old days? While I appreciate the efforts of some to give encouragements, observing the “good that has come out of this situation,” I think in order to truly miss someone, to love them and remember them for all that they were and still are, to do the work of mourning well for someone who has impacted your life in this way, is to say that there is no good that has come out of this situation, only despite this situation. No future will ever be as good of a future as it could have been with Craig alive. In the end, there was no good reason for him to have died. An inexplicable tragedy as such, is beyond explanation; it defies explanation; the answer to the question “why?” escapes us. It cannot be answered. It should not have one. It should not even exist to have an answer.

I for one see a deep incompatibility with the tragedy of this age and the existence of a loving God. I say this as a Christian, like Craig was. As this present reality is marred with inexplicable evil, I say that, in so much as he is perfect love that heals all pain, God has yet to fully “exist.” He has yet to arrive in our existence in the way he promised. He is yet to be “all in all.” We know that he is there, that he has shown his goodness before, and that he promises to again. But, where is he here, now? Up in heaven, far off, aloof? No. If we take serious our claims that the Holy Spirit is within us, as he was in Christ, the death of one of God’s children, for God, is nothing less than what he bore on the cross: death. Death but not defeat. God feels death with us, as there is nothing we experience that he does not know perfectly. God was with Craig in his darkest moments. Christ bore those dark moments. That is our God Immanuel. God did not forsake him.  God longs for healing of this broken world with us.

And so, perhaps the most appropriate, the most biblical response is not “God is good, all the time” (although that is true), but is “How long O Lord?” with the expectation that as the God that died on the cross, that suffered but later was restored in resurrection, will restore all things by the power of a love stronger than death, and so also, our friend.

What answer is there to this question to an event that should not have an answer, an event that should not have been? The only appropriate answer is Craig’s own answer. One time, during one of our many discussions, Craig voiced his displeasure with the corporate prayers during church for healing in one instance. He pointed out that often we become obsessed with wanting everything to be okay now. We pray for comfort now, happiness now, and healing now. He remarked that we often become so fixated on having comfort now, that we forget that to truly need God is to realize the emptiness and frailness of the present life that does not have God fully in it now. Instead of praying for the delaying of death, that this “cup would pass,” the most appropriate response is trust in the promise of a future beyond death, faith in a future that causes one to live in radical contradiction to the present, and loving people beyond and despite what the present deems possible.

In asking God “How long?” is the bold faith that Craig was speaking about, a faith that demands God’s answering, but does not permit an answer yet, a faith that mourns, remembers, trusts, and ultimately, waits. As we asked God to heal Craig when he was hit by that careless bus, we expected God to heal him as the only answer that is appropriate to God being a God that is powerful and good. There was even a blog entitled “Fortune Favors the Bold” set up in expectation of his healing. What was the boldness that Craig stood for? The boldness that fortune will favour him by? What healing is there that we should expect? It is in the bold trust of a future that offers healing that is more than physical, greater than the physical. This is in the strict sense impossible, but is the only possibility that God’s perfect love for it to be such is possible. As we ask God, “How Long?” God responds, “Wait and see.” The impossible will be made possible.

And so, I mourn the loss of a friend, feeling an absence of a future that will not be the same without the life of my friend. However, as I wait, I also feel a new presence. It is the presence of a future breaking into the present, manifested in the promise. The presence of a new future, an impossible made possible future, promised by what God did despite the tragedy of Christ’s death, a future where God died yet rose again, who appears absent now but will one day be “all in all.”

There I will see Craig again. There I will reminisce with him about adventures past and, perhaps, play chess with him in the gardens of the heavenly city. There the wounds of a friendship lost will be no more. There God’s love, God himself, will be fully manifested. In this future, there I will stand with him, with my friend and with Christ also (resurrected but with the scars of the cross), all of us will stand there on that day together, healed.