Part I: The Bitter Solution [barry]

“It sounds like something has to die so that something else can live,” she said. And there I unwittingly found myself yet again – in the midst of this powerful, ridiculous, yet unavoidable cliché – standing on the precipice, peering over the abyss of this excruciating paradox that I have been avoiding for three years. Faced with a decision of death that to an outsider exhibits none of the conflict that crashes, and claws, and eats at my soul, I know that I have to act.

“Something has to die so that something else can live.” I know this. I've heard it repeatedly. This death concept has been a constant (despite my best efforts at avoidance), unwelcome, and unfriendly companion for these three years. I have never before feared death, or killing, for that matter. I have seen killing, faced death, have even been trained to bring about both, and have never been cowered by the prospects. But this death – this killing that I am called to commit – is different; for I so do not want to commit suicide. There is a time for killing, as there is a time for everything under the sun, but as every child knows, suicide is simply wrong. But here it is, this paradox: I am told that I must kill, but if I kill what I am told needs to be killed, I know that I will certainly also die.

It seems quite logical to walk away from suicide. The choice to live is an easy choice to make. What dictates the difficulty of this otherwise simple decision is that I know my God, in his typical, predictable paradoxical way that simply enrages me, requires this self-killing. Compounding infuriating paradox upon infuriating paradox, however, this God does not really even want me to actually die – at least not in the material sense. No, He would have me go on living corporeally, though otherwise completely dead. Call this spiritual suicide a sentimental “metaphor” if you want, but being confronted with the reality of this call to die without really dying is far more terrifying for me than any requirement to actually be broken, bleeding, and breathing my last gasp.

Although I intellectually “get” it (I grasp the story of Jesus and Paul's letters), I am not “okay” with it. Indeed, I hate it. If you want me to sacrifice my life – to physically die – for my family, for my country, for a friend, for a stranger in a foreign land, or even for an abused ethereal concept such as “freedom” or “liberty,” fine. Sign me up. I am easily inspired and readily brought to tears by stories and memories of Silver Stars and Medals of Honor, and would probably embrace those opportunities if presented. But to require me to die without really dying just reeks of cruelty. Finality without finality is one unknown that I just do not care to face. My mind and gut dread a paralysis of going on living without being able to actually live.

But that’s the deal, as I comprehend it. If I kill this thing that I am told I must kill, everything that I am, everything that I see myself as, will also die – but in the course of doing so, I have to be conscious of the whole process, of the pain and agony both before, during, and forever after the killing. I have to do the killing, feel the death, and still live with the aftermath and mourning when it’s done.

So here I am in this cliché, standing at the precipice. I am told that I must throw myself off, but am riveted by the fear of this suicidal death (that is not even as good as death). If I make this decision, if I take action and bring about this death, I will be no more. I am terrified of what lies beyond the execution – because "something" clearly lies beyond. Inevitably, I will continue. I know that I am held back only by my inability to believe that what I am hearing is actually true – that there will be life after this death. I fear that this "something" beyond is really nothing; that this promise of life may really be a myth, or worse, a lie. I fear that my continuance will simply be as a dead man. Surely I can buy just a few more days? A brief reprieve? Clemency from this non-death death? I desperately do not want to die.

No. I hear the bell of this painful cliché tolling, and know for what (and for whom) it is intended. Something has to die so that something else can live. I have to go with it.