Last night, while watching a horrifying (un)presidential debate, Ben and I received the even more horrifying news that our much beloved friend and colleague, Bishop Jim White died after battling an infection having undergone a stem cell transplant to try to save him from cancer.  (I f***ing hate cancer.)

To say I am heartbroken doesn’t even cover it. I am devastated beyond measure. Jim was one of the good guys. One of the best of men. That he should be taken from us, that such a gaping hole should be left in this world right now, when such saints of God seem so hard to find, to say it is unfair doesn’t even come close.

Last night, Ben said, “‘Like flies to wanton boys are we to the gods’ – that is deeply depressing but sometimes accurate.” And, these days, it seems to me that it is more than just “sometimes” accurate. It feels very often the case to me right now.

Jim was one of my real blessings in this awful wilderness I have been in for the past six months, a wilderness caused not just by the global, public events we’ve all been traumatized by but also much more personal – but no less brutal – ones. But Jim, with his optimism twinned with an understanding of the realities we all face, Jim with his boundless compassion, was a physical embodiment of God’s grace, an incarnation of God’s love in the world. I know he lives on in our love for him, in his love for us, in God’s Love always and forever. But to have lost the tangible embodiment of that… Well, it’s going to be a long, long time before I’ll get my breath back from this one.