The Invisible Woman

Tue 12 Jul 2011 Filed in: Hmmm...
Though it happened on the other side of the world and is far removed from my life, it is one the most troubling news stories I have read for some time. The story, carried in the Australian press, was of an old woman found dead in her home. Old people dying is not news; it happens every day. What was unusual was that Natalie Wood’s 87 year old dead body had lain in her bedroom for eight years before her skeletal remains were discovered.

How could such a thing be? Her home was not in the outback, far removed from civilization; it was in Sydney. It boggles my mind that anyone could be so invisible that for eight years no relative, neighbor, or pension-paying government could notice that she was dead. I could take comfort that it happened on the other side of the world were it not for my suspicion that it could happen here, too.

One of the tragic results of the kind of me-ism that is epidemic in our culture is that everyone else becomes unimportant because I am too busy with me. I think it flies in the face of God’s intent; it seems to me that we have been created and called to community, like it or not. In the independent Northwest (and I suppose in independent Australia) some people don’t like it. And if I’m honest, I have to admit that sometimes I am one of them. Which leaves me wondering if there is anyone in my world who is so invisible that I would not notice his death. The thought gives fresh perspective to the psalmist’s observation that to God, the death of his loved ones is precious.
Gasp
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