Becoming the Father through a Spirit-Empowered Cruciformity: Part I

[I have been working on a rather lengthy paper and I will be posting it, as a series, over the next little while. I find the topic intriguing, and hope that others do as well.]
Becoming the Father through a Spirit-Empowered Cruciformity: Prolegomena to a Narrative Spirituality of Mission
Abstract
Premised upon the resurrection of Jesus and the biblical story of the missio Dei (which moves from the Father’s mission of creation and covenant, to the godforsakenness of exile, to the Son’s mission of ending exile and establishing a new covenant, to the Spirit’s mission of new creation, to the trinity’s mission of perichoresis and theosis), the mission of the Church’s members, as parts of the body of Christ possessing the eschatological Spirit, is to become subversive gospel-bearers living cruciform lives directed towards places of godforsakenness, so that they can not only become agents of God’s new creation, revealing the Father, but also, through the community of faith, reveal the trinitarian fullness of God.
1. Introduction
Christian Missiology as Biblical Theology and as Spirituality
Given the ways in which the church in the West has largely capitulated to mainstream cultural influences, and given the fracturing and compartmentalization of life that occurred, and continues to occur, with the rise of modernity’s secularity and postmodernity’s neo-paganism, it should come as little surprise to discover that the various disciplines of Christian study have also become deeply fractured. Today it is rare to discover a systematic theologian, who is also a committed missiologist, or a missiologist, who is a committed biblical scholar, or a biblical scholar who is a systematic theologian, or a person, who rigorously combines all three of those disciplines. Each one of these disciplines –- systematic theology, biblical studies, and missiology –- spirals into an increasingly specific, introspective solitude, and it is increasingly difficult to grasp even the basics of all three of these fields and hold them together in a stimulating and coherent manner. Indeed, within the halls of Christian higher education one can either pursue a degree in systematic theology, or biblical studies, or missiology – and each of these degrees come with their own separate chairs and faculty. Even those who desire to unite these disciplines will encounter a great deal of resistance in their efforts. Theologians, biblical scholars, and missiologists are playing increasingly divergent language games, and, despite their best intentions, they find that they have less and less to say to one another –- in a large part because the language of one is increasingly incomprehensible to the language of another.
However, such a fracturing is not only disastrous for each of these individual disciplines; it is also disastrous for Christianity as a whole. Christianity must reject the fracturing of life, and asserts that life, as a whole, belongs to God, is lived before God, and finds its unity in God. Therefore, any complete missiology, to be truly Christian, must also reflect a sustained engagement with both systematic theology and biblical studies. A Christian missiology will be an exercise in biblical theology. Unfortunately, what follows is not such a complete missiology. Rather, it is an attempt to sketch a missiology that is moving in that direction. By formulating a missiology through engagement with some significant theologians and biblical scholars, whose missional reflections have been largely neglected, this paper hopes to provide a challenging, provocative, and stimulating prolegomena to a complete missiology. In this regard I hope to highlight three scholars in particular: Jurgen Moltmann, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and N. T. (Tom) Wright. Engaging with these biblical and theological voices not only fills out our missiology, it also prevents missiologies from falling into two rather tempting, but erroneous mentalities. I am speaking hear of the hyper-pragmatism, and the closely related grand reductionism that can otherwise so easily overwhelm Christian missional efforts. Biblical and theological voices refuse to allow us to make the gospel too appealing or efficient, and they certainly deny us the right to presume that the gospel can be reduced to four “spiritual laws” or any such thing.
Furthermore, this paper does not only engage with particular scholars, it is also written from a place of missional engagement with the inner-city ghettos of Vancouver and Toronto. Indeed, all missiologies are written from within particular contexts and so a Christian missiology will also be a spirituality –- it will be a map to a particular way of following Jesus within a particular time and place. Therefore, all Christian missiologies will have contextual, experiential and contemplative elements. Indeed, there is no such thing as a purely objective, general missiology or theology. All theological endeavors always contain an element of subjectivity and are always shaped by the time and place in which they are written. For this reason there will always be an ongoing plurality of Christian missiologies rooted in various contexts. However, far from seeing this as a weakness in our theologizing, this must be seen as a part of bringing together the experiential and intellectual elements of life, elements that are wrongfully played against each other.
Yet, one must be quick to add that there are better and worse places to root a Christian missiology. Too often missiologists and theologians have been rooted in places of power, wealth, privilege, influence and compromise, and, in their attempts to formulate general principles of Christian faith and action from those places, they have often ended up condoning and engaging in decidedly unchristian activities (the ways in which Christian missionary efforts aided European colonialism is perhaps the best known, and most widely accepted, example of this). Therefore, although not being in a place completely free from corrupting influences, I believe that being rooted in a spirituality that emerges on the margins of society, actually provides a much better place for the development of a Christian missiology. Missional spiritualities that arise from the margins should be given a place of privilege within the Christian context – after all, Christ himself is rooted on the margins of society, and although God often rejects the prayers of the wealthy, he always remembers the poor. Consequently, I hope to write this prolegomena, first and foremost as a member of Vancouver’s downtown eastside, and only secondarily as a student at a Christian graduate school.

Prayer-Shaped Reflections

Because I have been carrying a rosary for some time now, and because of the liturgy I have developed to use around the rosary, I find myself praying the Lord's Prayer and praying through the Beatitudes at least once a day. A few thoughts came to my mind today while I was praying.
First of all, I was struck by how a people who pray the Lord's prayer should be incapable of singing any national anthem. This thought struck me while I was meditating upon the phrase, “deliver us from the evil one.” I prefer this translation because it is more concrete. It suggests that evil is not just an abstract force “out there somewhere,” but is something embodied — not that this means that certain people are pure evil, but this suggests that evil always has a concrete expression in actions or structures.
As I was praying I was trying to think about how the Lord's Prayer would sound if prayed by a liberation theologian today. This is an interesting exercise, by the way. Try praying the Lord's prayer in the language of a third-world liberation theologian, then try praying it as someone longing for liberation within your own country. Can't think of much to pray? Then maybe there's a problem.
Anyway, as I was praying in this manner, I was struck by the fact that for so many people in the world “the evil one” refers to Canada, the United States, Germany, Britain, and much of the Western world. Maybe people today are praying that God would free them from our nations. “Odd,” I thought. “How can I — as a person committed to the kingdom of God and as a person who has brothers and sisters defined by their citizenship in that kingdom and not by their citizenship in contemporary nation-states which have been created arbitrarily through violence — pray that God would deliver us (yes, that really means us and not just me) from evil, while simultaneously singing a song that commits me to aligning myself with, and supporting, evil?” Well, simply put, I can't. It really does come down to aligning ourselves with one or the other.
The national anthem is part of a liturgy that is an anti-liturgy to the Christian liturgy. We sing songs of worship to God so that we can be formed into the sort of people who are capable of developing habits that resist structures evil. Over against this form of Christian worship, the nation-state attempts to gather a people who will sing songs that support structures of evil. (Jord, if you happen to read this, I really hope you decided to continue to refuse to fly the flag at the Christian camp where you work. Gathering at a barren flagpole is a highly symbolic act of Christian commitment to the Lordship of Jesus. Gathering at a flagpole that flies the flag of any nation is an act that reveals capitulation to lords who attempt to be what only Jesus is.)
The second thought that I had while praying today is that the Beatitudes are beginning to make sense in a new way. I mean, if you really stop to think about it, praying the Beatitudes feels really strange (try it sometime, you'll see what I mean). When I pray the Beatitudes I first pray that I would be characterised by the trait described in the first half of the verse (i.e. that I would be poor in spirit, that I would mourn, etc.) and then I pray that I would receive the blessing promised in the second half of the verse (i.e. that I would have the kingdom of heaven, that I would be comforted, etc.). Of course, it should be noted that the Beatitudes should be prayed not only for oneself. One should pray that the Beatitudes become the identity markers of the people of God so that the world can be made new. Thus, my becoming shaped by the Beatitudes must fit into this larger narrative.
Anyway, praying some parts of the Beatitudes felt exceedingly odd. Lord, let me inherit the earth?! Lord, let me be persecuted for the sake of righteousness?! Yikes. Asking for the earth sounds horribly triumphalistic and vain; asking to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness sounds masochistic and, well, insane. However, I've been forcing myself not to leave anything out and it's been interesting how this has begun to impact my life. To begin with I'm realising a thing or two about the blessings God promises his people. There really is a power, a joy, a strength found in following Jesus. Yet I'm also beginning to realise how much ongoing suffering should be a part of the experience of God's people. Suddenly I'm finding myself able to persevere more easily, I'm finding myself not afraid to move into places of hurt, of stress, and of sorrow — going there just makes sense. Somehow through praying the Beatitudes I'm discovering a new-found strength in my daily life. Furthermore, I'm realising how much the two of these things go together. Those with the kingdom of heaven are those who suffer; those who inherit the earth are those who's experiences are like the prophets before us. The embrace of suffering prevents our embrace of God's blessings to turn into triumphalism or hubris, and the embrace of God's blessings prevents our embrace of suffering from turning into masochism or insanity.
What is also intriguing about all this is that it's not as though I've realised this and now I'm going to implement it. This reflection comes after prayer had already begun to change my life in these ways. This seems to add further weight to the thesis proposed by liberation theology that argues that theology is reflection upon ecclesial (and, therefore, prayer-ful) praxis.

Communities of Discipline

I do not want to be “accepted” or “understood.” I want to be part of a community with the habits and practices that will make me do what I would otherwise not choose to do and then to learn to like what I have been forced to do.
~ Stanley Hauerwas, “Whose Church? Which Future? Whither the Anabaptist Vision?”
Not only should the Church be a community that practices the sort of discipline that Hauerwas describes, but this is the sort of discipline that should be present in family relationships, in friendships, and in any relationship involving any real commitment. Not that this is a movement away from loving others or anything like that. Nor is this any sort of act of condescension. Rather, this is simply recognising that it takes a community of discipline to create people who are made in the image of Christ. And sometimes the church functions as that community of discipline. And sometimes family members function that way. Really, if we have any sort of sense of true commitment in our relationships, there should be an element of this in every relationship that we are in.
Of course, it is ultimately the Spirit of God that creates new life and transforms us and so we should not use this quote from Hauerwas to support some sort of dictatorial or hyper-pragmatic regime. All that this quote is saying is that some sort of communal discipline is necessary for the formation of Christian virtues.

Hard Words From Hauerwas

Mainstream Protestantism in America is dying. Actually I prefer to put the matter in more positive terms: God is killing Protestantism and perhaps Christianity in America and we deserve it.
~ Stanley Hauerwas, from a sermon preached on August 8, 1993.
Hauerwas definitely has a way of saying things that catch our attention. My question for you, dear readers, is this: Why is it more positive to think that God is killing Christianity than it is to think that Christianity is dying? Isn't the notion of God killing the American church more negative, tragic, and hopeless than the notion that the American church is simply dying? Despite his polemical nature, Hauerwas has chosen his words carefully here. Obviously he doesn't find this notion more negative, tragic, or hopeless. So why is that?
Naturally, I have my own opinions about all of this, but I am curious to hear what others may think about this quotation.

Driven by Calling not Driven to Succeed

Success may be the fruit of our commitment, but can never be the basis for our commitment. Instead, commitments are made because we believe that we are called to give ourselves to certain persons, causes, and situations.
~ Charles Ringma, finding naasicaa: letters of hope in an age of anxiety
It is this experience of being “called” that distances the Christian approach to vocation from the secular approach. While secular professionalism is driven by a fundamental pragmatism — that makes success the basis of commitment — Christians are only motivated by success secondarily, it at all. The basic question of Christian living is not: “how can I succeed?” but rather: “how can I be faithful to God's call?” There are two key points in this that I want to draw out in a little more detail.
First of all, the vocation that one fulfills, as a Christian, is not simply a vocation that one chooses for oneself. It is not as if we can simply choose any job that we want to choose. The language of calling reminds us that God calls us to certain specific vocations — and the implication of this is that God does not call us to certain other vocations. Certainly I can be a Christian and work any job under the sun, but working certain jobs contradicts my Christian identity and causes me to live in some sort of fractured schizophrenic realm. For example, I can be a Christian, and I can be a pimp, but the two things are radically opposed to each other. Or, to choose another example, I can be a Christian and work for the Royal Bank of Canada but, once again, the two things are in radical opposition. This is so because, despite our particular and individual vocational callings, there is a general call that God places upon all Christians. We are all called to be Spirit-filled members of the body of Christ (the Church, the Christian faith-community) and, as a part of that body, we are all to be agents of God's new creation amidst the groanings of the world. Because we are agents of God's new creation, we cannot be agents of anything or anybody that stands in opposition to new life. That is why I cannot be a pimp, or work for the Royal Bank of Canada; I cannot be a crack dealer or work for the GAP; I cannot be a member of the Hells Angels or be a soldier for the State. All of these jobs and institutions are death-dealing, not life-giving, and agents of God's new creation should have nothing to do with them.
Secondly, the language of calling reminds us that our approach to life should be governed by faithfulness, not by pragmatism. Unfortunately, Christians have largely adopted a secular approach to life, and so all the activities in which we engage (even charity!) are governed by secular notions of success. This notion of success is foreign to Christian thinking because it has little patience for such things as suffering love, solidarity, and the embrace of weakness. Tragically, Christians have confused this success with faithfulness — and when this occurs we don't even need to hear God's call because we already know what to do.
However, if we do listen to God's call, we discover a very different starting place, because God calls us to truly odd, unexpected, and painful things. Embracing suffering, including sufferings that seem to never end, makes no sense from a pragmatic perspective. Yet, from the perspective of God's call, it is the only thing we can do. And so we do embrace suffering, not in order to succeed, but in order to be faithful.
Of course, in all of this we are motivated by a hope that transcends all other notions of success — the hope that God will bring new life out of death, joy out of sorrow, wholeness out of brokenness, something out of nothingness, and light out of darkness. Consequently, faithfulness is defined by a hope that ventures into the depths of utter hopelessness. Faithfulness chooses to remain in the dark and wait for God's light to come because it believes that we don't know what light is, or what light does, until God brings it. It admits that we are blind and unable to recognise light until we have been granted vision. Faithfulness recognises that, in our pragmatic attempts to bring light, we only end up burning our loved ones and ourselves. Of course, this is not to suggest that faithfulness requires us to do nothing. What it does suggest is that faithfulness requires us to do things that made make sense to nobody else. Like Abraham called away from his homeland, like the Hebrews called into the wilderness, and like Jesus called to take up a cross, our callings will also seem like complete folly to those who are only motivated by success and operate with a pragmatism that knows little of a crucified God, and little of resurrection life.

Hard words from Chrysostom

I do not believe in the salvation of anyone who does not try to save others.
~ St. John Chrysostom
I have spent some time writing various reflections about this quotation but, at the end of the day, I think that it speaks better when left to itself. And so, I will leave the reader to contemplate these words. Coming from a Father like Chrysostom they should be carefully considered and not easily discarded.
I would love to hear what sort of thoughts this quotation brings to the mind of any of the readers of this blog. Don't be shy.

Hopeful Critiques From Within

If we really hope for the kingdom of God, then we can also endure the Church in its pettiness.
~ Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline
Many Christians impose wrong limitations upon hope. Hoping for the kingdom of God, yet having had negative experiences within the Church, they tend to continue to affirm the kingdom even as they abandon the Church. Barth is right to realise that such an attitude merely reveals how little we know of hope. Our reliance upon the God of hope — who fills us with all joy and peace in believing so that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Ro 16) — should lead us to become more deeply committed to the Church.
Yet this must be a critical commitment to the Church. This commitment has nothing to do with a fierce, but blind, loyalty. Alas, many other Christians refuse to see errors within the Church, and refuse to listen to any voices from the margins that ask critical questions. Perhaps it could be said that these Christians also impose wrong limitations upon hope. Unlike the first group of Christians mentioned, these Christians place too much hope in the Church, and not enough in the kingdom of God.
Therefore, there is an important balance to maintain here, a balance between criticism and commitment. Our critiques of the Church, just like Jesus' and Paul's critiques of Second Temple Judaism, must be critiques from within. And these critiques from within must be marked by hope, and the assurance that this hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Ro 5).

Allowing God to Abandon Us

“Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'”
~John 20.17
God's only Son is not so dear to him that he cannot give him up for the sake of the world. So also we should not think that we are so dear to God that he will not also give us up for the sake of others. Whether or not this giving-up has its intended consequences strictly depends on our willingness to be given-up. Let us not cling so tightly to a God who desires to abandon us so that his lost sheep can be saved. Let us not cling so tightly to God that we do not end up going to our brothers and sisters with the proclamation that God's new creation is breaking into the world. Let us release our grip from God so that we too can be left in the solitude and the darkness of the empty tomb. Yet let us be confident that our descent into this hell is a victory; let us act with the confidence that our current godforsakenness is the very proof of our future vindication.
We may name this time which broke in with Jesus Christ's Ascension into heaven, 'the time of the Word', perhaps also the time of the abandonment and, in a certain respect, of the loneliness of the Church on earth. It is the time in which the Church is united with Christ only in faith and by the Holy Spirit; it is the interim time between His earthly existence and His return in glory; it is the time of the great opportunity, of the task of the Church towards the world; it is the time of mission.
~ Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline

Theotokoi

For Mary, just as for Jesus, the crucifixion represents the culmination of a theme which had been growing within her experience for some while, the complete statement of a tragic melody heard up until now only in fragments… For three years now, not just for three days,* she has sought him sorrowing: and now she finds him at last… He is the prodigal son, off in the far country, wasting his spiritual treasure with harlots, feeding his pearls to the swine, to the unclean rabble, to murderers and thieves… Gabriel had never warned her about this — never let her in on the secret that to carry God in your womb was to court disaster.**
~ N.T. Wright, The Crown and the Fire: Meditations on the Cross and the Life of the Spirit
Within the early Church, Mary was often referred to as the Theotokos, which means “God-bearer.” Mary quite literally bore God within her womb. In her body she carried the God-man, Jesus the Christ. Yet little did she know how disastrous it is to carry God. Gabriel the angel appeared to her and called her God's “Favoured-One,” but she never realised the extent of the sufferings that accompany God's favour. Yet, as this poignant reflection from Tom Wright demonstrates so well, to carry God is to court disaster. Twice Mary goes to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, and twice she loses her son there — first in the crowds, and second on a cross. This son, who was supposed to set Israel free, associated with sinners, he partied with traitors of the Israeli nation, and he delighted in the company of whores. She tried to warn him, to stop him, to bring her homeless son back home, but he would not listen. So she stood one day at the foot of the cross and watched as her firstborn child, naked and bloody as the day he was born, cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And then he died. How hollows the angel's words must have sounded then. “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favour with God”? No, such words would no longer make sense. Perhaps the only words that made sense to her at that moment were those stated by the prophet Simeon, “And a sword will pierce your heart also.”
Carrying God does not mean merely courting disaster, it makes disaster inevitable. It leads us to places where our hearts get pierced in a manner that cannot be expressed in words. For we too, filled with the Spirit of Jesus, are Theotokoi, we are “God-bearers” because we have the Spirit of God within us. This means that our road will also be a road of suffering — the suffering that inevitably comes with love. We too must “court disaster” by celebrating with sinners, feasting with the outcasts, and delighting in the company of prostitutes. If we will not be homeless with the homeless (as Jesus was) then we must, at the very least, invite the homeless into our homes. This will also lead us to a place of abandonment. Just as Mary felt abandoned by her son, just as Jesus felt abandoned by God, so we also will feel abandoned — both by the Church, and by God.
I know something of this feeling. When I see my beloved ones — the homeless, the poor, the abandoned, and the exploited — trampled, despised, or ignored with fatal apathy by those who claim to be the people of God, it pierces my heart, and makes me cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?” Yet, even in the midst of all this, I will not abandon the Church or any of those who claim to be the people of God. For, as Hans Urs von Balthasar once asked rhetorically, “Jesus died for and in Israel; why should not the saints do that for the Church?” Yes, I fear that it is the Church that is teaching me what it is like to be crucified. Not, alas, because it embodies the crucified Christ, but because it crucifies me by abandoning me to suffer with those that God loves so dearly.
Yet, even here, there is hope. For Jesus is God with us, even in the midst of our godforsakenness. Balthasar argues that the cross is that which brings together all those who have been abandoned. From the cross Jesus brings together his abandoned mother with his abandoned beloved disciple. To that disciple, John, he says, “Behold, your mother” and to Mary he says, “Behold, your son.” Thus, Balthasar concludes:
the community of the lonely that has been brought together here — Mary and John — is the assembly of two acutely abandoned people gathered together around the Abandoned One.
Therefore, even though we face abandonment, swords, suffering, disaster, and godforsakenness, we may yet gather together at the foot of the cross and affirm the words of St. Paul in the crashing conclusion to Romans 8. As abandoned people gathered around the Abandoned One, we read these words with wonder, with puzzlement, and with a longing that burns us like fire.
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
________
* This reference to “three days” is a reference to the three days that Mary & Co. spent looking for Jesus in Jerusalem when he was a child of twelve.
** Emphasis added.

Integrity: When to Speak and When to Stay Silent

In a recent seminar on preaching Tom Wright argued that it is absolutely essential for preachers to speak with integrity. Integrity, Wright argued, means only speaking of things that have become a part of of you, the speaker. As he emphasised:
Do not try to say things that haven't become a part of you.
Of course, he went on to say, if applying this means that the material on which you can preach is drastically narrowed, then you probably need to be spending more time working on yourself than on instructing others.
Alas, Christians far too often speak about things that have not become a part of who they are. What is particularly tragic is that this is just as true of the key concepts of Christianity as it is of the various details.
I think back to when I was 17 and kicked out by my parents. That was a pretty rough time in my life, sleeping at friends' houses, homeless, depressed, and just messed up in general. I mean, I used to go out late at night looking to find fights that I would lose because I felt like I deserved that — that's pretty messed up. Throughout that time, I appealed for help, or guidance (or anything really) from my various Christian friends and mentors. And so, God forgive them, they tried to comfort me. They essentially told me that, “hey, it sucks that your father seems to hate you but, ummm, God loves you.” Not surprisingly that didn't do a whole lot of good. Looking back on that situation now, I have come to realise that the reason why the words struck me as hollow was because most (perhaps all) of the people I spoke with had never really had a life transforming encounter with God's love. And so they spoke of something that had not become a part of them — and it only furthered my sense of isolation at that time. The shockingly tragic thing is that when I speak to Christian audiences about my life transforming encounter with God's love, I am usually met with a sea of blank faces. It seems that we have churches full of people who have been told that God loves them, yet who have never experienced that love personally.
When this is the case, the best Christian comforters can do is remain silent lest they become like Job's friends — false comforters who only aggravate the sufferings of others. Sometimes silence is the only way in which we can maintain our integrity as faithful witnesses to both the love of God and the sufferings of others.
Indeed, on the cross even Jesus, the very Word of God, is reduced to silence. In death there are no words spoken. Jesus' cry of forsakenness fades into inarticulate groanings and then the Wordlessness of death. Thus, as we journey with the crucified people of today — the marginalised, the oppressed, the abandoned, and the broken — most of us would do well to maintain that silence. Only those who have experienced both the cross of godforsakenness and the transforming Spirit of resurrection life should dare to address the suffering ones — for those who know both cross and resurrection know how to speak with hesitation, with tenderness, and with patience.
It is those who, abiding in the resurrection Spirit and bearing on their own bodies the brandmarks of Jesus Christ, can say to those with fearful hearts:
“Be strong. Be still. Your God will come. He will come with vengeance. He will come with divine retribution. He will come and save you.
And on that day your wounds will be healed. Your tears will be dried. You, too, will be made new.
Hold on, Beautiful One, your God, the God of creation who is also your Lover, will come for you. And until your God comes, I will abide with you. I will weep with you. I will play with you. I will wait with you. I will be a foretaste of the love that is coming to you.”
Maranatha. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, we are dying here without you.