CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
SAM’S FUNERAL
I’m trying to figure out how to say everything at Sam’s funeral that needs to be said without crying as I say it.
I pass the peace with Sam’s daughter at church each Sunday, but I’ve never met Sam. I don’t do funerals anymore. Or weddings, or anything else I did for 50 years as a pastor. I’m retired. But Pastor Thomas has already moved to her new appointment, and Pastor Mallory isn’t here yet, so when Sam died, Sue had the funeral home call me.
I’m glad to help. The problem is that I can’t read the service in the Book of Worship or think about what I’m going to say about Sam without crying.
I used to cry at the sad times of life. I still do. There is nothing sad, though, about the death of a man of 95, full of years and memories. In the winter of my years, however, I cry whenever I experience fullness, wholeness, beauty. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, I think on these things [Philippians 4:8], and I am filled to the brim with joy, so that my cup overflows, and the overflow comes out through my eyes.
That’s okay. I’m glad to be filled with the wholeness of life, so much so that I can’t find words to express what joy that is, and so all I can do is weep. That’s not a very good way to do a funeral, though.
So I sit here and try to figure out ways I can say what needs to be said without those trigger words that cause me to overflow. Maybe I’ll think about stuff that makes me mad. I don’t cry at stuff that makes me mad, like the Reds’ starting pitchers. Maybe that’s why old people are grumpy so much of the time; we’re trying to keep from crying. I hope Sam will forgive me for doing the funeral with a mental image of him on the mound in a Reds uniform, giving up home runs…
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
Dave Nash says that the links to my blogs and my email, which I post below, do not work. I apologize for any inconvenience. I have redone them, and so now I hope they work. If they don’t, you can type them in yourself as they are, because they are accurate, even if not workable.
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{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
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