Life and Death

Andre le Roux died yesterday, sooner than anyone expected. His last “10 Minutes on a Tuesday” arrived this afternoon, replete with the flair and imagination that have marked these weekly offerings for worship leaders in congregations like ours.
Bev and I met Andre only once. We were at the School of Theology in Queenstown. We were to do our Murder Mystery Dinner and Andre was taking sessions on leadership. I don’t know that I made much of a contribution to the event. But to sense Andre’s vigorous, enthusiastic and spirited leadership was to be reminded of something of my own exciting first years in ministry in the 1960s.
I think we had only one private conversation at Queenstown but I know that my hopes for ongoing remission of my prostate cancer were discussed and found warm support.
Barely weeks later I heard that Andre had been diagnosed with terminal cancer himself and within a short time he had to retire from parish ministry. Now, suddenly, he, a young man with a young family and decades of life and ministry before him is gone and, I, feeling a little old if not quite decrepit at 75, am still here....
We watched “The Proposition” tonight and a closing speech was memorable:
“Although the paths of our lives may turn unexpectedly and end all too soon, I can only believe that the journey is never in vain, and perhaps it is this very journey which gives life hope and meaning.”
Andre, we salute your short journey. We, who, by a strange and mysterious providence, survive you, will try to live out our journeys in your spirit.