What Jeremiah A. Disney Taught Me About the Light of Christ
"We must be grateful for the good precisely because of the bad."
My only acquaintance with Jeremiah Disney came through a Jay Evensen column in the Deseret News on March 21, 2019, and what I was able to find by googling his name and death date. He seems to have been one of those who pass through life almost unknown beyond a small circle of people. Until his death. Yet through him I learned a profound lesson. But first, a quick discussion of value.
There are a number of terms we use to describe value. Four of the most common are: exchange value, something used as a medium of exchange, such as money; utilitarian value, or value based on need. When you have a flat tire, a shovel has no utilitarian value. A lug wrench has a great deal; sentimental value, or value because of emotional attachment to a thing. And finally, intrinsic value. The word comes from Latin, intrinsecus, meaning inward, and refers to value springing from the real nature of a thing; not dependent on externals; inherent. Ths is the value spoken of by Jesus when He said that we are worth more than many sparrows. We are children of God, His sons and daughters, and this status establishes our value independent of any earthly standard.
Now, Jeremiah's story.
On Tuesday evening March 12, 2019 George Hollingsworth of Marion, Indiana noticed that someone had evidently been on rummaging through his garage, which like many of ours, was highly cluttered. The next day he decided to clean it up and see if anything was missing. That's when he discovered that a 900-pound antique floor safe, which had been elevated by a floor jack, had fallen over.
And the body of a man was underneath.
Mr. Hollingsworth commented, "I would have rather seen him steal stuff and get out than die like that. What a horrible way to die." The dead man was 28-year-old Jeremiah Disney.
Deseret News columnist Jay Evensen picked up the story and used it as the centerpiece of his column. What struck him most, beyond Jeremiah's tragic death, were the comments placed on Jeremiah's Facebook page. It was soon filled with cruel and derogatory posts, some highly profane, particularly toward those few who dared to urge greater respect for Jeremiah and his family. And yes, he had a family. He was evidently divorced, but had three children; Jeremiah, Aria, and Jacob. He had parents and four siblings.
Coming to know more of Jeremiah's history revealed that he had a complicated life, one filled with challenges. He had a minor criminal history that included some short-term jail time. There was a domestic violence charge. However, he had re-posted moving songs that had touched him, songs about Jesus, and he had written on his Facebook page, "God is on my side and he has a plan for me." Whatever challenges Jeremiah had faced, he was redeemable. He had intrinsic value. He had - even if only dimly - the light of Christ still in him.
A second tragedy in this incident was in the failure of so many to recognize this. To react to anyone in the way of many online respondents to Jeremiah is not just to deny that value or light in others, but to injure our own personal status as members of the same family in the process, to dim our own light a little. A boomerang effect. We can't reflect the light of Christ outward without having something of that same spirit return and leave an indelible mark upon us, a mark of goodness and positiveness. The opposite is also true.
As I thought about this story, I realized that variations of Jeremiah Disney pass through our lives almost daily. They might be neighbors, acquaintances, or even members of our families. They might be the person next to us in a checkout line, the clerk at the register, or someone we pass. Wherever we encounter them, they have remarkable value, intrinsic value, something to be acknowledged, protected, and magnified. As C.S. Lewis reminded us so powerfully,
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal (The weight of Glory, emphasis added).
Not even a man like Jeremiah A. Disney. Watch for him.
