A grain of wheat

Many stories arrive at a punctuation point, or at least a reflective pause, by year’s end. But in reality all our stories find their fulfillment, their final punctuation, in heaven.

Here, the end of a story can draw out and be hard to decipher, or it can be abrupt and severe. Headlines may look abstract and distant, or may turn in close and personal, with names and faces that are meaningful, familiar. When we glimpse eternity in them, we should pause and take note.

In 2012 one American was killed in Iraq: Jeremiah Small, a 33-year-old teacher from Washington state gunned down by a student in a classroom on a Thursday morning last March. For a country claiming over 4,400 American war dead, Small’s death at the hand of an Iraqi 11th grader—and in a school where Small had taught successfully through six years of war—was a sober, sudden denouement.

The shooting made headlines around the world, and photos of his father embracing in forgiveness the father of the killer (the family chose to inter Small in Iraq) also went global.

Yet so often we in the news media move on, failing to follow the legacy that unwinds after tragedy. And we Christians develop a sort of selective cynicism, holding to Scripture in theory but forgetting by year’s end that ours is a living God who promises better things to come: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

For Dan Small, the indefatigable father of Jeremiah, much fruit started showing up soon after his son’s death when students emailed the family. “Then something changed,” said the elder Small: “They started writing emails saying, ‘We’ve been so caught up in our own grief that we didn’t think you might be grieving too.’ They started to comfort me. They’d been taught how to turn from themselves, so that in their grieving and sorrow they weren’t just saying his legacy would live on, they were walking it out.”

Dan and Rebecca Small and their family (Jeremiah was the oldest of seven) have done a lot of public grieving this year. They traveled to Iraq together for Small’s burial and then held memorial services around the country—three in Alaska alone—to celebrate Small’s life among scattered friends and family. Those services multiplied the fruit, as mourners heard Small’s testimony and saw firsthand the family’s faith.

From attending one of the memorial services, in Nashville, I in turn (like others) have shared abroad six “couplets” Dan Small devised to explain his son’s passion for serving in Iraq: Live loved, live called, love life, find mentors, invest eternally, trust providence.

Whether I spoke to high-school students, to a group of workers in Afghanistan, or to a women’s conference—in many parts of the country since Small’s March 1 death—I’ve been surprised how often someone has approached me afterward to say, “I was a friend of Jeremiah too.”

With those couplets as guiding principles, Dan Small has worked with friends, family, and his son’s former students in Iraq to organize formally in November a nonprofit called Vision2020. Launched with funds from the teacher’s own savings and donations to his work, the group hopes to make investments in civic life in Iraqi Kurdistan, the northern region where Small taught. When Small was killed, he was in the midst of organizing the area’s first public library.

Already some of his former students are civic leaders. Two launched Awat, a local newspaper. Others have launched an organization to support startup companies, and are starting businesses.

None of this is without struggle and sorrow. The school where Small taught has faced some local opposition as a result of the negative publicity generated by Small’s death. Relatives of the student-murderer, who also took his own life, have lashed out. A birthday has come and gone, and the Small family gathers this Christmas without its eldest son. Last year at year’s end, Small picked one word he hoped would define his life in 2012: increase. Headlines may count the story a loss, but the rest of Small’s legacy shows he defined 2012 just right.

Insights from the journey

From Dan Small, Jeremiah’s father:

From Rebecca Small, Jeremiah’s mother:

Joy takes Sorrow By the hand, Unlikely pair, Yet dearest friends. The One does not Negate the Other, Nor scorn to lift In rev’rence high Acknowledged need, One for The Other.

Email mbelz@worldmag.com