Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 36b:
"What you sow does not come to life unless it dies."
When I was at Duke the great luminary Reynolds Price was still teaching at the university, and I would occasionally see him in his chair wheeling down the stone paths around the Quad. In 1984 he began experiencing difficulty walking, and subsequent tests revealed that a 10-inch-long cancerous tumor had attached itself to his spine. Though doctors were able to remove the tumor with surgery and radiation, enough damage had done been done to leave Price a paraplegic.
Late in life, Price wrote his memoir "A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing" in which he reflected upon his life before and after cancer. Remembering that fateful day he first discovered he had a tumor he wrote that the best someone could have said to him at that time was, "Reynolds Price is dead. Who will you be now?"
Sometimes the best thing and only thing we can do for one another is to tell the truth about the end. A seed must die before it can be reborn, Paul says. But before all this, it must be buried; and someone must have the faith to bury it. Someone must have the courage to take the spade in hand and lay the dirt down.
Reynolds Price's most brilliant writing came only after the cancer. His deepest insights into what it means to be human were written from the chair.
A whole new life awaits us all; but first we must accept the passing of the old.
The seed must die before it can be born again.
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