Our host Rob texted to say that his friend, a beloved Anglican pastor here in Nashville, perished in an auto accident along with his daughter.
They were on their way to St. John’s College, Santa Fe campus, on Monday.
One of his closest friends, Pete Peterson, wrote a fitting and moving eulogy for him here.
Fr. McKenzie had just begun a sabbatical. His final Instagram story reveals a proud, expectant, if not slightly anxious father on the verge of a memorable adventure.
Words don’t make sense of such a tragedy. Tears, maybe.
Though I’d never met him, I felt shaken for our mutual friends who lost him and the family who must now move on with two souls, gone.
The 1928 Book of Common Prayer boldly petitions God:
It’s sobering enough to pray this prayer when life is going along smoothly.
But what if that deliverance is lifted slightly at the edges?
I suppose some could take it as “God doesn’t care, he didn’t prevent this accident, and I’m through with pretending he’s real.”
The community of faith surrounding the McKenzies, however, are not taking this approach. They’re grieving and taking their grief to “the God of all comfort,” the one who’s plenty aquainted with grief.1
Not a day before, I was excited about landing on a topic for a talk on Sept. 4th for Friends of L’Abri Nashville:
What Is A Car? A Theological And Cultural Reflection On What Drives Us2
One one hand, I’m happy to bow out of this topic since it feels untimely and calloused. Why would I want to talk about cars at a time like this?
On the other hand, maybe this is a good time to reflect on a technology that has imprpved human life astronomically yet can’t escape the bent nature of our stewardship nor the common denominator of death.
If I do give the talk, I’ll be sure to pass it along, in parts, in these dispatches. I’d love your thoughts.
And I’d appreciate your prayers for the McKenzie household, their friends, and their church family.
The Apostle Paul called God this in his first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 1. The “suffering servant” portrayed in Isaiah 53, according to the New Testament apostolic community, came to earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth who died on the cross to overcome death.
The blurb: As a nerdy automobile enthusiast, Tom will weave together a picture of human transit from the Bible. Then he’ll attempt to show how we’ve become dependent on auto transit and if it’s desirable (or even possible) to seek better ways to spend our time.