Reading:
We need one another when we mourn and
would be comforted.
We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.
We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation,
and need to be recalled to our best selves again.
We need one another when we would accomplish some great
purpose, and cannot do it alone.
We need one another in the hour of success, when we look
for someone to share our triumphs.
We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with
encouragement we might endure, and stand again.
We need one another when we come to die, and would have
gentle hands prepare us for the journey.
All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of
us.
[by George Odell, #468 in UU hymn
book SINGING THE LIVING TRADITION]
Preparing for Life’s Epilogue.
Seasons come and go, and so do we. As the
teacher Ecclesiastes puts it "For everything there is a
season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be
born, and a time to die." [Ecclesiastes 3:1-2] When we
are given the gift of life, we are also given a death
sentence. That’s blunt, that’s stark, but it’s the
truth. Birth and death are book end stages of life. What
happens in between is what we call Life. In the liberal
religious tradition, our child dedications, our weddings and
our memorial services are all ways of celebrating life. Even
those who assume that we are part and parcel of an eternal
cycle of life, even those who speak of our souls as
everlasting, all of us recognize that the life we live on this
earth as individual human beings is time limited. For some,
life is so brief that it ends before we are born, and for some
life goes on for a century or more. For some, the end comes
suddenly and without warning, and for some it is a long drawn
out process with much time for reflection and preparation. For
some death is violent and painful, for some it is gentle and
peaceful. We all know that death is inevitable, yet many of us
avoid and put off making any preparations for that
inevitability. The Caring Committee of this congregation
worked on a booklet during the past year which was given the
title Preparing for Life’s Epilogue. Our hope
was that this would serve as a helpful resource for members
and friends of this congregation, and perhaps for their
friends and relatives as well.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent in
the Christian calendar. It signifies a time of preparation.
Not simply "are you ready for Christmas?" as the
shopkeepers ask, but are you ready for the judgment day? If
you were attending a church which follows the common
lectionary, the readings you would hear today are not about
the coming birth of Jesus, they are about the second coming,
the day of judgment. The Gospel reading for today says,
"Watch, therefore, for you do not know the hour or the
day." [Matthew, 24:42] We are not talking about
preparation in that sense. Still, for most of us, the phrase
"you do not know the hour or the day" does apply to
our time of death. We are suggesting in the booklet that
preparation for the final stage of life, and our inevitable
death, is a good and wise thing to do. Most of us recognize
the emotional and spiritual value of a ceremony of remembrance
for loved ones. Do you want to have any say in how you are
honoured after you are gone? Do you have any preferences about
the decisions your family may need to make, when you are still
alive but unable to speak for yourself? Do you have any
preferences about what will happen to your body after you have
taken your last breath? Does it matter to you whether your
survivors have to make guesses about your wishes, and have to
make all the decisions at a time of great stress and grief,
when some pre-planning would ease that burden a bit? We hope
this booklet will be helpful to you and to your loved ones,
helping us to talk about a subject most of us want to avoid
most of the time.
I was attending a meeting with fellow
Unitarian Universalist ministers the other day. In passing
conversation one of them spoke of the Chaplains in his
congregation. These are lay persons who are trained and
licensed to perform rites of passage such as weddings, but
also do child dedications and funerals. My colleague said the
Chaplains had gone to put their names in to the local funeral
homes. One of the funeral directors was delighted to hear of
persons who were willing to create personalized
non-traditional ceremonies for those who were unconnected with
a church. He said that in over a third of deaths (was it in
Canada? or in Ontario?), there is no ceremony.
I know some people state a preference for
no funeral. My belief is that often this preference is based
on bad experiences with traditional services, and no awareness
of alternatives. The theological messages that they have
heard, or other trappings of funerals they have been to, lead
them to say "don’t do that for me." It could be
that such a person simply finds the collective grief at such
events too painful, and believes they will save their friends
and family from a lot of tears if they say "no funeral
for me." I have heard people say "don’t have a
funeral, have a party. No weepin’ over me, thank you very
much. I have had a good life." Whenever I get the
opportunity, I try to remind people in the strongest way, that
to leave such a directive with your family is not doing
them any favours. When someone is loved, they will be
grieved on death. There is no way of protecting your survivors
from grief. In fact, having a ceremony of remembrance is one
of the most important steps in beginning the healing process.
In our liberal tradition, of the three
rites of passage which collectively I would call celebrations
of life, i.e. ceremonies connected with birth, marriage and
death, it is only the wedding which is really for the persons
at the centre (and sometimes I’m not even so sure about that
one). A child dedication, especially if done for an infant, is
not really for the baby so much as it is for the parents and
the community. It is not really the baby who is being
dedicated. The ceremony is a recognition that the parents are
dedicated to, and the community is dedicated to the care and
nurture and formation of this new young life. A funeral or
memorial service, also, is not for the person who has died, it
is for those who loved him or her. Again, it is a way of
celebrating life, for it is our way of honouring the cycle of
life, of recognizing and remembering the influence of this
life now ended, on our own. And, especially it is a way to say
that grief is normal, it is more bearable when it is shared,
and the pain of loss is eased some when we lift up and recount
with both laughter and tears how this person’s life has
influenced us, and how his or her spirit lives on in us.
Two Stories
One of the most profound experiences I
had when I was studying for the ministry came without any
study on my part, and without warning. It demonstrated to me
the power of ministry when one simply opens up to and listens
to another person’s grief. Also it unexpectedly showed me in
a very simple and unplanned happening the power of ritual. It
was during my "clinical pastoral education," an
intensive 9 week training in hospital chaplaincy. My placement
was on a renal unit of a general hospital. During my last
week, I was doing my rounds and came to Millie’s chair.
Millie was an elderly out patient, who came to the hospital
three days a week for several hours of dialysis. She was a shy
person with a simple faith who lived alone. Her life time
companion had died, she had one son who visited her
occasionally ....and then there was Buddy. Buddy was her dog,
but more than that her best friend and he had died a few weeks
earlier. Each time I stopped to visit I asked "How are
you Millie?" and each time she would say "Oh, not
too bad, but I still miss Buddy." She would tell me the
stories again, of what they did together and how he always met
her at the door when she came home. I would always say
"It must be lonely for you. You are going to miss him for
a very long time," and she would always add "I will never
forget him." One day she told me she had written a
tribute to Buddy and I said I would like to read it some time.
I had forgotten that, but on this our last day together, she
pulled out a piece of folded lined paper and handed it to me.
At the top was a heading "Tribute to Buddy." I asked
if she wanted to read it to me, but no, she wanted me to read
it to her. I should have known.
It was written so simply and beautifully,
her memories of what her pet had meant to her, some regrets
she had, and then her hopes that Buddy was in heaven with her
mother and her lifetime companion. As I read her words, Millie
nodded in agreement, sometimes saying "yes, that’s
right" or "that’s true." I only realised well
into the reading that we were having a memorial service for
Buddy. Sometimes I am a bit slow. She had handed me the
information and the stories about the deceased (as the family
does when meeting with their minister) and I was delivering
the eulogy. When I came to the words about her regrets she
began to cry. Although she had shared with me earlier her
doubts about going on with life, this was the only time in all
those weeks she had shared her tears with me. The final
sentence in her tribute to Buddy was truly a benediction, and
it was a sacred moment. I took Millie’s hand and she cried
some more.
Just then the doctor and nurse came by on
their rounds, to check the various readings on the machine and
to ask "and how are you today?" Most of the
nephrologists were very warm and gentle people but Millie’s
doctor was generally rather brusque. In response to his
question, Millie gave her usual answer "not too
bad." But then, bless him, he noticed the tears running
down her cheeks, and did a double take. "What’s the
matter?" he asked, as he had never seen her cry. She
seemed unable to answer, so I told him we had just been
talking about her dog who had died not long ago. "Oh I am
sorry" he said, and began to ask her questions. How old
was he? What was his name? What kind of dog was he? And then
he told her about how he had cried for three weeks when his
dog had died. It was the nurse’s turn to do a double take.
"You!?" she asked. "Yes, I did" he said,
giving affirmation to the depth of Millie’s grief. The nurse
patted Millie’s hand and expressed her sympathy.
Here was another revelation for me. At
first I had been a bit irritated at the interruption. But no,
on reflection, the timing was just right. It soon became
apparent to me that we were having the reception after the
memorial service. It was another sacred moment, and one I’ll
never forget. I have often recalled this experience, how much
Millie needed to share her stories and her grief, how blessed
I was with the opportunity to read the eulogy of her best
friend, and how supportive the medical staff was at such a
tender moment. Whether the death is a treasured pet, or a
human member of the family, and no matter what one’s
theology or philosophy of life, it is my belief that when we
lose loved ones, simple rituals can be profoundly healing. And
most of all what we need at those times is others who care,
being there for us, listening to us, holding our hand,
whatever may be a comfort.
One of my colleagues, the Rev. Gretchen
Thomas, spoke to us a few years ago. She shared her own
experience of the power of our Unitarian Universalist memorial
services. She said she had had a difficult relationship with
her father, and so, in the week after he died she dreaded
coming to the point in our services where we say "decide
now what you want to remember and hold with you forever about
your father," because she really had so few positive
memories that she was afraid she would be left with nothing.
But during the service as others told wonderful, touching
stories about her father, she began to recall his strengths
and began to understand him better--and to understand herself
better as well. She says,
I’ve conducted a good many Unitarian
Universalist memorial services. But it was only at my father’s
service that I finally understood what these services are
fundamentally about..... Many people spoke. During the last
verse of the closing hymn, I realized that a miracle had taken
place. I ‘got’ what our memorial services are all about.
My memories had come flooding back. And they came back vastly
expanded. They held a deeply transformed understanding of who
my father was--an understanding that I am content and grateful
to live with now and into the future....I truly feel that
during that service they gave me back my father.
This rings so true for me. Although my
experience with my parents was very positive, in both cases I
recall that during their memorial services, I learned things
about them I had not known, and saw them through the eyes of
friends as well as family. A memorial service is a celebration
of a life that has ended, but more than that. It is a time for
reflection about our own lives, and a time for demonstrating
the power of love, and celebrating the interconnected web of
life. That was especially brought home to me when I conducted
a memorial service for a stillborn infant. There is not always
a life to remember, but there is always grief to be shared,
and the power of love to celebrate. It is my view that there
is no more important function of a religious community than to
be there for each other, through laughter and tears,
celebrating life... for as the reading has it, "we need
one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands
prepare us for the journey."
Seasons come and go, and so do we. In
this season of Advent, and in all seasons, may we be a
community of support for each other. May we celebrate life
together. So be it.
A. Orfald 2001/12/02
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