Transformation

I was walking down a hallway at school between classes. It was late in the week, I was pooped. The only thing I was thinking about was getting home, shucking my shoes and slipping into a novel as a prelude to dreams. Few students were around. Most were in classrooms, trying to pay attention.

Coming toward me was a girl, long dark hair framing her face. She was looking down, carrying some weight of sadness or fatigue or worry. She looked like I felt. She looked like a large percentage of our culture felt. ‘The world is too much with us, late and soon.’ Some instinct, perhaps empathy, perhaps lowly duty pushed me to smile at her as we came closer through the dimness. Glancing up she, noticed me coming, smiling. She responded her face breaking into a shy grin, showing her teeth, responding to the bit of brightness walking toward her.

It was an amazing thing to see. She became beautiful, transformed. It lit her. A window opened on some bright place in her and let an internal light shine through. As she passed me her head tilted up as she looked ahead down the hall.

It occurred to me that I carried the same weight she did, or a similar one. It also occurred to me that though I could never be as beautiful as she, I could do a lot toward improving the scenery. I’ve heard, when we smile, we literally improve our mood. It releases pheromones. We become happier from the evidence of happiness we display. Talk about acting our way into feeling!

Too often we’d rather display our misery, wearing the burdens we carry like badges of honor. Do we want others to share our pain? Or are we simply proud of it? Or is it simply a habit, like a slouch? Standing up straight is better for our back, more attractive, lets us breathe better, allows us more energy, and still we slouch. Maybe frowning’s simply lazy.

But perhaps there’s a darker basis for this. Imbedded in the choices we make everyday are the options of energy and entropy. Alfred North Whitehead posited that when we make such a choice toward energy we allow the nature of God to become more real. And when we choose the other… Perhaps that is the true nature of Evil, allowing our potential to slide into chaotic entropy.

So, our mothers were right, “Stand up straight!” “Smile, frowny-pants!” The rule is, listen to your mother.

How to Write a Eulogy III

When you’re speaking at a funeral, it’s not important to make any sort of list of the accomplishments of the person who has died. Such lists are part of the articles recorded in the newspaper. Other than being redundant, any such list is almost useless in allowing the person’s person to live in the memories of the people there. People remember small bits and pieces of a person, not what they’ve accomplished. Rather than the job, we remember how they worked. Rather than their leadership, we remember their smile, their forgiveness, their faithfulness, the way they played the piano with their eyes closed.

If I knew the person well, I try to remember something specific about them, the way they laughed, the way they loved to dig in the garden, they way they loved to go to flea markets. I call that a hook. I describe that specificity let it live in the midst of the people and let them remember the person digging in the dirt or bringing home an old chair, and I speak about how that was part of their persona. They loved to nurture things, to help things grow. They loved to see in things that were discarded, the possibility of treasure. Each person’s life is a story. Our job in that moment is to remind people of a moment in that story so the person’s tears and laughter can be heard and shared.

I try to not repeat what others are going to bring up, or at least if it is the Yankees or the beach, I try to take in toward another tangent. I try to get folks who are planning to speak to talk to each other before they do so. Editing can go a long way toward helping the occasion to work.

If I didn’t know the person, I talk to the family ahead of time. I ask them what was the person’s favorite season and why. What was their favorite room in the house? What kind of music did they like? Did they like to travel and where? I ask them to name one moment that comes to mind when they think of them. By that time they are usually crying or laughing or both. They are talking to each other about their lost loved one. It’s a good place to begin building a eulogy.

One Day

It’s April. It’s cold. Easter was early this year. It’s supposed to be warm after Easter. But the tilt of the planet has something else to say about the chill in the air.

Yesterday we drove to a concert in western Jersey. On the way out there the woods were winter gray. While we heard young talented students play Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Ravel, and List the sun shone, the temperature lifted and stuck around sixty blessed degrees. As we drove home, the woods had a deep red cast. Buds had pushed out, invited by the sun its warmth. There was no longer a tracery of stark grey lines, there was lace. After we got home, we went over to see my mother in law. And there stood a crab tree, exploding with a color somewhere between lavender and pink. One day, one single day of warmth had created a new environment. There is no going back now.

There are moments in all our lives, no matter how deep our winters, no matter how long we’ve waited for some sort of thaw, moments when warmth from far beyond our efforts offers possibilities of growth and bloom. Too often our frustration and fear demand that we remain bundled in the winters that have defined our exhausting days and sleepless nights. Too often the inertia of our dark normality freezes us in spite of glowing moments that offer another possibility.

We were not meant to survive, we were meant to live. I guess that’s what Easter’s about.

How to Write a Eulogy II

There’s one basic difference between a funeral and a Christian funeral. The best you can hope for in a funeral without a Christian witness is a memorial and a lifting of the heritage left to us by the one who has died. In my humble opinion, if a funeral can climb up to the point of lifting up of heritage, it’s better than a canned set of prayers and scriptures. The name Jesus may be stated but there’s not much Holy Spirit blowing through there.

But a Christian funeral that focuses on the presence of a living Lord, imminent, and powerful plants a blooming flower in the midst of the dim twilight of this moment of loss and grief. I take that as my job. But anyone who is a person of faith can witness to the power of the resurrection. You don’t do this by horning in, or by denying the weight of grief. The presence of faith, and the healing love that comes with it can make a world of difference with the simple words, “I’m sorry for your loss. You’re in our prayers.”

I taught my boys to say that when they went to a funeral, to shake hands with the grieving family, to speak simply and directly, then to stand and listen. Presence means everything.

But what I try to offer in a funeral service is to remind people of the truth that even in this darkness there is the presence of something more than a life that has ended. That’s Christian hope. I don’t like funerals that don’t have hymns in them. We need to sing. It’s good to have the symbols of the holy around us. We need to be surrounded by the colors and reminders of the moments of inspiration that have lifted our lives beyond the ordinary and usual. As we see the one who’s died and ourselves in the context of Christmas and baptism and communion and Easter we share this moment with the journey of our Lord. That’s a funeral that offers us an opportunity for hope.

So now, you’ve heard what I think of funerals. Next time we’ll talk about Eulogies.

How to Give a Eulogy

   Last week we had a funeral of a church member, a deacon, a nice guy.  It was a good service.  I always ask the family to participate and a nephew stepped up to give a wonderful eulogy.  He told me that he really didn’t know how to do what he’d volunteered for.  He looked it up and found no basic guidelines for lifting up the memories of a loved one.  He did a fine job, but his comment started me thinking.  I’ve done this for more people than I would know how to count.  I know how.  Sooooo…  I figured I’d share some of this expertise with those of you who happen to read my ‘Back Pages.’  I’ll serialize it.  If any of you have questions, just drop them into the comment section and I’ll do my best to answer them.  As I tell my students, ‘The only dumb question is the one that doesn’t get asked.’  Share your questions and help the others that are trying to learn.

  

I.                    What is the purpose of a funeral?

   This is a very common question that doesn’t get asked and most folks don’t have a clue why we go through this whole thing.  ‘It’s what should be done.’  That’s means nothing.  That’s another way to say, ‘I’m following the mob.’  Lemmings use that for population control, but we ought to have better reasons for what we do. 

   A funeral is for the living, not for the dead.  They don’t need this, they’ve moved on.  We have this structured moment to give us a chance to gather together and grieve together.  Grief is a process.  Grief that is shared works better.  The structure of a funeral gives us a chance to share our grief, to speak about the one who has died.  To cry.  To laugh.  To remember.  To celebrate their life.  And to validate the relationships that we have, family, friends, community, so that we can realize this person’s death is not something to be bourn alone.  We celebrate birth by getting the bunch together.  We celebrate weddings by getting the bunch together.  We celebrate death by getting the bunch together.  Death is weird.  It’s creepy.  It’s scary.  It’s sad.  A funeral can, and I emphasize can, help with all of that. 

   We need to be honest and down to earth about the person who has died, and share as much as we can, rather than be a spectator to some sort of set piece.  We also need some structure to keep the whole thing from wallowing in all of the above issues. 

Next time we’ll get into a funeral based in a faith structure.

The Day After

We walked into a foggy sunrise this morning. The moon watched the sun coming up through the trees. A cardinal’s call hammered down from the old apple tree, surrounded by clouds of others, yelling “I’m here!” We plodded, tired to the bone. Even Sam was tired, sniffing here and there half heartedly.

It had been a glorious week, Hosannas, the cross, Easter’s triumph. With the music and drama, iconic shadows and light, every moment too full to breathe, too real to go through the motions. It is the core of who and what we are. It demanded everything we could give. And now, empty, hollowed out by the fires of sacrifice, we’re here, gliding through the fog.

There is a clarity and goodness in this fatigue. I’ve run races and felt like this at the finish line. Woven with the aches and need for rest are memories that bring small smiles. Snatches of power and song run in harmony with the sunrise through the mist.

I wonder if they felt like this then. I wonder if they smiled a bit thinking of small memories that we now call scripture. Holy moments are consecrated, set aside. They weave into our daily lives threads of glory. They go with us as we wander on our way.