a prayer for the fallen

"...the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
-Genesis 2.7

we are dust (Ps 90.3, 103.14; Job 10.9, 34.14-15; Eccl 12.6-7). it is a humbling fact. whenever it is brought up in the bible, it is within the topic of our mortality, the focus of His immortality. we and our influence are likened to grass (Is 40.6-8, 51.12; Ps 103.15), while His kingdom and those in it are as established trees (Ps 1.3, 92.12-15; Jer 17.8; Lk 13.19). but we are not only dust. we are also breath, the same word for wind or spirit (Jn 3.8).
in the Genesis account, the land produced plants (1.11) and animals (1.24, 2.19a), but man's body is specifically breathed into. this is not only so for Adam, but for all those after him. the woman who was formed from his body shared, as an example, in his flesh. asexual budding aside, so, too, a man's wife does not share in his spirit, only his flesh (I Cor 6.16-17). she has her own, unique spirit (I Pt 3.4, I Cor 7.34c).

"At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

"'Did You not pour me out like milk/ and curdle me like cheese,/ clothe me with skin and flesh/ and knit me together with bones and sinews?/ You gave me life and showed me kindness,/ and in Your providence watched over my spirit.'"
-Job 10.10-12

"Then He said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones and say to them, "Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD."'"
-Ezekiel 37.4-6

we are cheese; another insult, you may think. but unlike the pouring out of water (Ps 22.14a) or of drink offerings (II Tim 4.6), which are more obvious in their implications, the act of curdling milk is beneficial. perhaps it is the thought of dairy which reminds me of how our DNA makes proteins, but it may be meant to represent something even less physical than that (I Cor 5.3a).
in Scripture, our bodies bear connection with what we know as the physical church (I Cor 12.27), the line of priests and the nation of Israel itself (I Pt 2.4-5, 9-10; Eze 37.11). we are even compared to the holy temple (I Cor 6.19). and "...He did not create it to be empty,/ but formed it to be inhabited..." (Is 45.18c). our physical nature is made to house our human spirits, as none of these bodies are said to have life unless they are breathed into by God (Ja 2.26).

"These [animals] look to You/ to give them their food at the proper time./ When You give it to them,/ they gather it up;/ when You open Your hand,/ they are satisfied with good things./ When You hide Your face,/ they are terrified;/ when You take away their breath,/ they die and return to the dust./ When You send Your Spirit,/ they are created,/ and You renew the face of the earth."
-Psalm 104.27-30

"Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so does the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return."
-Ecclesiastes 3.19-20

we are animals--mammals, to be precise. oh, we stand apart in Genesis and in Revelation, but for every mention of animals in the Psalms, there is an unquestioned faith expressed by them, one which, you could say, became tainted in man (Gen 3.6). in the 2011 NIV, false teachers are compared to the "unreasoning animals" (II Pt 2.12); and yet, God has used a stubborn creature to verbally rebuke a reasoning man (II Pt 2.16, Num 22.27-31). after the flood, a raven sent from the ark feasts on the dead daily (Gen 8.7), yet during a famine, God uses these unclean scavengers to feed His prophet (I K 17.1-6). in Job 39, God glorifies Himself by calling to mind the qualities He has manifest in various creatures; from the lowly ant (Prov 6.6-8) to the magnificent leviathan (Job 41), His aim is to teach a man humility (Prov 21.30-31) and therefore wisdom (Prov 9.10-11, Job 42.17).
wisdom does not belong to any animal (Job 28.20-21), and it certainly did not come from a tree; wisdom is the reward for fulfilling our purpose (Job 28.28, Prov 8.13, Eccl 12.13). a man without wisdom worships the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1.22-23). the craftsman, the tool, the material and the fuel, the plan and the product--all are praised in vain (Is 44.9-20). yet, the taint of our disobedience has not only affected us (Gen 3.17-19) but also the fabric of the world itself (Rom 8.22, Mk 13.8). therefore, by the most humbling of Solomon's words, the greatest thing a man can do by himself is to accept his lot and enjoy life (Eccl 8.15), for in death, "there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" (Eccl 9.10).

"'Why then did You bring me out of the womb?/ I wish I had died before any eye saw me./ If only I had never come into being,/ or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!/ Are not my few days almost over?/ Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy/ before I go to the place of no return,/ to the land of gloom and deep shadow,/ to the land of deepest night,/ of deep shadow and disorder,/ where even light is like darkness.'"
-Job 10.18-22

"A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man--even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity. Do not all go to the same place?"
-Ecclesiastes 6.3-6

Job 3 records his first lament, and it has some of the bleakest words in all Scripture. he curses his own birthday, that it be removed from the calendar (v. 6b-c). he praises death as a place (or time) of peace and rest, where "the slave is freed from his master" (v. 19b). and though he makes no mention of going there to be with his children who had died, if you have known a grieving parent, that may be one's only joyful thought. Job, here, is in turmoil (vs. 17, 26), more than David in any of his psalms, but comparable at least to Christ in Gethsemane (Mt 26.37-38, Lk 22.44). but unlike Christ, there is no reason for Job's suffering. and so, his wish to have been stillborn directly connects with Solomon's words.
a stillborn child is just that: motionless [or dead] at birth. the same word is used for miscarried or fallen: it is a life aborted before its time. abortion was a common tactic used by Israel's enemies (II K 8.12, Amos 1.13), and it was adopted by an evil king in Israel (Hos 13.16, II K 15.16). even God prescribed a method of abortion as payment for a sin (Num 5.27-31). to lose children--whether still developing in the womb or already outside of it (Hos 9.11-12, II Sam 12.14)--often came as a curse, and to not experience such was an obvious blessing (Ex 23.25-26). but, of course, this is not always true, as in Job's case. even a child born blind could find someone else to blame (Ex 21.22-25) or not (Jn 9.2-3).
so then, why do these words seem to glorify a life that never was? contrary to popular belief, it is not "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" (sorry, Tennyson). Solomon is being as down-to-earth as he possibly can be in the book of Ecclesiastes, and Job, too, has just experienced the worst that this world has to offer. so, from such a perspective, there is more joy to never receive a purpose than to fail in achieving the only one you've set for yourself.

"'"On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised./ Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, 'Live!'"'"
-Ezekiel 16.4-6

"But now, this is what the LORD says--/ He who created you, O Jacob,/ He who formed you, O Israel:/ 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you;/ I have summoned you by name; you are Mine.'"
-Isaiah 43.1

as Jesus told Nicodemus, it is not God's desire that you only have your own spirit (Jn 3.3; I Cor 15.42, 49-50). indeed, the whole of Scripture is in agreement: of all mankind's greatest heroes, not one was ever perfect of his or her own accord (Eccl 7.20). even David, who was commended for following God's own heart (I Sam 13.14, Acts 13.22), proved himself to be just as human as the rest (Jer 17.9, I Cor 2.10b-11, Jer 17.10).
this is truly why the dry bones of Israel are said to be dead. the nature of a body explains why they require breath, but the nature of that Breath explains why [it] gives them life (Jn 4.24). if the reason we were made is to praise God (Is 43.21), then you can be certain God can enable us to do just that. for, it's the very qualities He has designed into us with which we can glorify Him (Eph 2.10).

"The word of the LORD came to me, saying,/ 'Before I formed you in the womb I [considered] you,/ before you were born I set you apart;/ I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.'"
-Jeremiah 1.4-5

"For You created my inmost being;/... My frame was not hidden from You/ when I was made in the secret place./ When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,/ Your eyes saw my unformed body./ All the days ordained for me/ were written in Your book/ before one of them came to be."
-Psalm 139.13a, 15-16

before creation, or perhaps at the moment of its conception, we're told the earth is without form (Gen 1.2): like a thought, a plan, a concept. its existence came not from the onset of the material; rather, like a work of art, the tangible was made to represent the invisible qualities already owned by it (Rom 1.20)--like how there are days taking place before there is a means to measure such days (Gen 1.14).
the formless body, the inmost being, of Psalm 139 is like the curdled milk of Job 10, not yet clothed in flesh, the perishable skin destined to return to its core dust. i believe that is a person's immortal soul; that is the spirit. and our individual spirits are not replaced by God's, else we would be perfect beings upon receiving Him: no, we are every bit ourselves after the fact, only He begins to guide us spiritually (Rom 8.16, II Cor 3.17-18). His Spirit is a deposit in us (II Cor 5.5), immutable power expressed in our fragile bodies (II Cor 4.6-7, 11) until we die.

but death is not as final as it was in Solomon's time, B.C. (Isaiah 26.19; Daniel 12.2; Ezekiel 37.9, 12; Is 43.5-7; Jn 5.21). you may rest assured that the spirits not given the chance to be born of flesh are yet watched over by God, and that one day, the whole earth will be full of His knowledge, His wisdom, His Spirit, and there will be peace (Is 11).