Journeys 8-6-06

I was doing O.K. on this death thing until I did a funeral this last week. It was nothing earth shattering; an 87 year old man who’d lived in a nursing home his last few years. He was a relative of a church member. I’ve done hundreds of funerals. At one time I figured I’d done at least 20 a year for my 22 years of full time ministry. I have no fear about life after death. I trust God’s influence to extend way beyond what’s here on earth.

It’s more personal than that. Seeing those pictures of the U-Haul truck I was driving on May 10th, with the area where I was sitting crushed like a coke can, makes me consider death as a current personal reality. Up until now it’s been about responding to other people’s deaths; my grandparents, my aunt, my uncles, my cousin, my child, my parishoners. Just coping with the grief has at times been overwhelming. Living without them, living with loss, living with this hole in my soul I know as grief. It’s been about how to keep my head above water as I swim through the dark waters of grief.

This is not about my grief. It’s about beginnings and endings. This is about being 47 years old before I have to really think about my own end. Up to now, I’ve been living my life as if it would never end. Since May 10th, I’m thinking about living my life backwards.

How about knowing, with every part of my heart and mind that my life on earth will not go on forever, and going backwards from there? It might make me less likely to just skate through life, just trying to dodge the bumps and holes along the way. It might make me more likely to make each day count.

So today, do my children know I love them? Do they know I think they’re beautiful and smart and great to be around? Does my wife know I adore her and love to see her smile? Do my parents know how much I appreciate them? Do my brothers know how much they mean to me? Do my friends know what a blessing they are to me?

See, at that funeral, more than ever before, I wanted them to know this thing about death; I wanted them to know, that you just never know. Your last conscious moment could be a call on your cell phone as you drive onto an interstate highway in the rain. You just never know.

What I do know now, is that there is an end.

“God, help me be who you made me to be in the time I have left on this earth.”

Grace & Peace,