Kirby Puckett’s death at age 45 has got me to thinking about Sting’s beautiful song How Fragile We Are…

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow’s rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime’s argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

I remember Sting singing this song on a TV special a few days after 9/11 when it was incredibly appropriate. Puckett’s death wasn’t from violence but it still reminds us of how fragile life is and how quickly and easily we can lose it. As it says in Ecclesiastes 8:8:

No man has power over the wind to contain it;
so no one has power over the day of his death.

The next line in Ecclesiastes says:

As no one is discharged in time of war,
so wickedness will not release those who practice it.

I’m not trying to apply this last line to Kirby Puckett, understand. I simply find in it a reminder to live well each day and avoid getting trapped in the tempter’s snare.

How fragile we are.