Fred Shuttlesworth, Derrick Bell and Steve Jobs all died this week. So did my friend Sue Stephens. Although it is Steve Job’s death that has captured the headlines, I suspect that the deaths of both Bell and Shuttlesworth are more fundamental cultural losses to what I hold most dear. And it is the death of Sue that touches my heart most dearly.
As the news of the day shifts to Job’s legacy, I am left to wonder about captures our attention and why.
For all that is wrong with Facebook, and I know the laundry list, what I do cherish is that in the Facebook world the otherwise small details of life have a chance of surfacing if at least for a moment. It is the leveling of the playing field for our media saturated attentions. Each post has the same type font, concerns and joys mingle together, and smart political irony sits side by side with bawdy. We are connected and grounded with those whom we have gathered in our circle. As we drifted off to sleep, we were still laughing aloud at the defiant posture of little Lia and her momma’s caption, “Seriously. Do. Not. Mess. With. Her.“ As I sat down to write this morning, I was buoyed by the ridiculously funny dilemma that Erik faced as he opened his office door and found himself facing a wall of boxes. And where but Facebook would this decidedly NOT athletic pastor learn that squirrels are more than a nightmare in the walls of old houses, squirrels are the new (albeit incognito) mascots for the Cardinals?
And it is on Facebook that Derrick Bell, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Steve Jobs all come down to size as friends reminisce and ponder the significance that each of these men have had on our wider communal expression. Each of them giants. 
Behind MLK’s face in Birmingham, Shuttlesworth was the vision. Despite Gate’s brilliant marketing of personal computers, it was Job’s who had the ideas. And though obituaries are the platforms to name appointments, Bell “was perhaps better known for resigning from prestigious jobs than for accepting them (New York Times).” Each of these men labored in different fields, each of them dared to follow the still small voice within, each of them changed our lives in ways that we may or may not yet be aware. And at the end of an era, each of them died.
Because here’s the thing – we all do. “Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.” (Robert Fulgham)
If we are lucky, before we die we have a chance to live. And if we use our lives well, we look deep and wide into this amazing place called life. If we dare to look we might, like Bell, see the systemic injustices. If we dare to live with open hearts we might, like Shuttlesworth, demand a redress for the injustice. If we dare to allow the creative expression to blossom we might, like Jobs, begin to tinker with new kinds of creations.
In the newspaper world, one makes the headlines and the others sit on subsequent pages or in the margins. On Facebook, each is named by those who knew their influence. As each is remembered, we have a chance to also be inspired.
As I bear witness to my friend Sue this week, I am grateful for the twinkle of her eye as she talked of Colorado and the Great Spirit Lake. I am grateful for her witness to me and countless others that life is more than we can see and the spirit so much bigger than our imagination. Without pretense of perfection, Sue quietly loved each child and vulnerable being that came into her presence and made her corner of the world a much more beautiful place. I am so very grateful for her touch in my life.
And too, on this utterly breathtakingly beautiful autumn morning, I pause to give thanks for the lives of Derrick Bell, Steve Jobs, and Fred Shuttlesworth… and even more for the community of saints alive today who bear witness to their visions. On Facebook today, I’m adding the memory of a doula and speech pathologist named Sue Stephens. May we take what they have offered and make this world ever more worthy of our children.