View
Life Worth Giving
Amanda Witt on the Immeasurable Value of Wasted Lives
Today I and five other women served a funeral meal for a hundred mourners. The proceedings didn’t move me—the deceased was full of years, and besides, I’d never met her, though I did have to walk past her open casket to get to the church kitchen, hurrying my children, not because I was worried about their fragile little psyches but because I simply didn’t feel like coping with whatever questions or emotions a dead body might raise. I’d rearranged our complicated schedules and driven across town in icy weather to help serve the funeral meal; that was enough.
Having settled the kids in an empty classroom with their schoolbooks, I rolled up my sleeves and set to work preparing lunch. The other women in the kitchen had known the dead woman, and while we pulled pork and cut cake and stocked relish trays, they talked about her.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Amanda Witt discusses Christianity, culture, and life as a homeschooling mother at the weblog Wittingshire (www.wittingshire.blogspot.com). She lives with her husband and three children in Port Orchard, Washington.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
31.1—January/February 2018
on Ragnarök, an Extreme Weather Event & the Paths to Conversion by Timothy J. Burbery
32.4—July/August 2019
Will Islamicization Become Its New Future by Peter Riddell
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
