The Spirituality of Advent, Day 5, Week 1

This week of focusing on hope has also been focused on mortality.  This is a very interesting pair.  Although in the church, it is not a pair that is surely an oxymoron.  Mortality brings hope for resurrection for those who believe in such things.  

The experience of mortality can take multiple formats.  Mortality can be experienced as just knowing that someone passed away.  Mortality can also be experienced as a funeral with all the emotions that brings.  

Listening to the readings and the music on Monday made me ponder--if I had a choice, which readings and songs would I want to be chosen to represent me.

The readings are somewhat easy.  I would go with the reading from Ecclesiastes that Sherry and I had at our wedding.  Not because I associate the wedding with death, of course.  But because it is timeless and it matches well with one of the songs that was sung at the funeral mass on Monday: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.  

The Psalm, also easy.  Psalm 23--the Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.  In any of its many forms either spoken or musical.  

The second reading--focusing on hope, as well as faith, and most importantly love--1 Corinthians, 13:1-13.  This ends with the verse that started me writing my personal blog.

Finally, the Gospel would be an interesting choice.  I'd actually go with Luke 23:33-43.  Not because I think that the focus on death would be the right thing.  But because of Jesus's forgiveness no matter what the soldiers did and because of the criminal who asked Jesus, "remember me, when you come into your kingdom."  I like the focus on God's kingdom.  And I like Jesus's response.  As Father Sam once pointed out, the criminal is the only one Jesus actually told he would be brought into heaven.

Songs: Amazing Grace, Be Not Afraid, something with Psalm 23, Take My Hand Precious Lord, Take Me Home.  All easy.  All typical.  I'd really have nothing to add on this one.

If there were a communion meditation song that was potentially non-religious, also a theme from Sherry's and my wedding--"Don't Know Much."    Maybe most would see it as a throw back to a "sappy" 1980's love song.  However, I would see it as a song of hope.  There may be many things I don't know.  But I would hope that everyone who showed up at the funeral would be someone to whom I had shown love.  I would hope that everyone who showed up at the funeral would be someone who felt love for me.  Love in a broad, general, friendly sense, of course.  

The key is that it is a song of hope and simplicity.  I only need to know that there is love.  Once I know that, everything else will follow in some way, shape, or form.  And that is a message that I hope others will have seen in my actions.

Comes back to the question of "if I were on trial for being Christian would there be enough evidence to convict me?" I hope that my actions of love and acceptance would be part of that evidence.

The opportunity to have so many messages that are dear to me so clearly communicated by word and music would be wonderful.  Of course, I hope that the opportunity to share these lessons does not come too soon.  While one of the readings on Monday was about the joy of marriage, I find the links to the same readings we used at our wedding to be a way to point out the importance of marriage.  The same fundamental ideas that have guided me for the last 22 1/2 years continue to guide me.  And I suspect they always will.

If those who come to my funeral some day can take with them the lessons that have guided me, I will be understood.  And while Saint Francis's prayer says I should not seek so much to be understood as to understand, at that point, I can't do any more understanding and the best I can hope for is that being understood will inspire others.  

The Spirituality of Advent--Day 2, Week 1

Hope, choice, and a celebration of life.

None of these are small topics.

Today's message of hope will involve writing about a funeral, and some of the thoughts that it inspires.  I am sure that I will focus on this for some (or even much) of the rest of the week.

The funeral I will attend today will be for a gentleman from the parish of which I have been a member for the past 17 years.  He passed away at age 48.  He had four kids.  I don't believe the oldest is out of college, and I think that youngest is a middle schooler.  Married 23 years.  While this is not the person who has passed away to whom I have been closest (that was Gerry Paradiso back in 2010, whose passing started my personal blogging), this is the person to whom I am closest in age.  And he lived in a nearby neighborhood.  And he went to the same church.  And he did everything a person is supposed to do.  And yet, at an age just a little over four years older than me, he is no longer with his family.  I have to admit, that while I have achieved much in life and I trust that things could carry on without me and I am satisfied with my accomplishment, the loss is scary.

It is offset by hope--for resurrection.

The choice--this morning, with Sherry away on her "fall break" for the second of five nights, I chose to take the dog for an extra long walk rather than run.  This was my celebration of life.

How?

Well, most mornings, I consider my running to be a clear celebration of life.  My life.  Although there are at least some mornings (like Thursday, Friday, and Saturday over Thanksgiving weekend), when I have the opportunity to run with others and celebrate life in an even bigger way.  All of this through gifts from God.  But most mornings, especially during the week, it is about celebrating only my life.  And with Sherry having been away for two nights, leaving me to sleep alone (not even the cat or the dog come to sleep with me through the night at this point) and manage the kids alone, I didn't want to focus just on my own life this morning.

So, I chose to walk the dog.

Walking the dog is always a celebration of life.  Two beings enjoying each other's company for a period of time.  Maybe conversation or maybe not.  Even if there is conversation, it is one way--although the dog can react.  Maybe silence and just enjoying the outside.  But celebrating the chance to do what people and dogs are supposed to do--be social and be together.

I will be playing my bass at the funeral today.  Even though there will be hundreds of people at the funeral mass, and I will know many of them through the years at the parish, I really only knew the family tangentially.  So, while I will be surrounded by many people, I fear that I will be mostly alone in an important way during this celebration of the life of an exceptional parishioner and process of hoping for the joy and peace and serenity of the resurrection.

That is why I chose to celebrate life by walking with my dog rather than running alone.  This helps me to remember that I am constantly on a walk with God.  And that is the source of much hope.