Yesterday I attended the funeral of my father's life-long best friend. His funeral was exactly one year from my own mother's funeral.
This past Monday we had a small family gathering on the one year anniversary of my mother's passing. We met at the columbarium where my mother and my niece are interred and memorialized. I decided to mark the occasion by sharing an experience and a statement about my beliefs concerning the nature of our existence. My thoughts on this subject are always changing and my mind and heart are open to new perspectives and possibilities. I structured my thoughts for this occasion in theological
terms. I could have easily substituted secular language and used words like psyche or consciousness instead of soul. The infinite instead of God. But all of the possible uses of language fall short when attempting to describe the reality that remains hidden from us. Our brain is encased in bone. We only have five measly senses to make sense of everything. Think about how the tiny slits in our eyes let in just enough light to build our entire vision of the universe right in our own heads. It's one miracle in a host of miracles that give rise to our very existence. Here are the words that I read at the memorial:
God gave us five senses. Five
senses that allow us to witness the magic of a sunset, to be moved by the
beauty of a single note on a violin as a bow makes its way across a perfectly
tuned string, to taste the lingering sweetness of ice cream as it melts on our
tongue, to breathe in the smell of Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad’s house, and to
feel the embrace of those we love.
And as wondrous as those five
senses are, they are woefully inadequate to interpret the nature of life and
God.
Our mother connected in a
special way with Myers Park Baptist’s covenant which says that we are a people
on a journey of faith. These words buoyed our mother when the ocean, called
cancer, insisted that she swim in its perilous waves. Her steadfast belief in
her journey of faith lead her to moments of calm and tranquility in the midst
of the crashing waves of chemo treatment and the rip currents of recurring
cancer. In those moments of calm, I like to believe that Mom tapped into a
transcendent power that lies within each of us. A power to tap into a sixth
sense. A sense that allows us to catch fleeting glimpses of God’s world. God’s
world is eternal and brings us comfort in the face of our own mortality.
Ten years ago I stood only a
few yards from where we are right now. The family had gathered on the grass,
beneath the shade of the large oaks that surround us now. The occasion was Anna’s
funeral. I can remember the scene as Dr. Shoemaker calmly talked us through the
planned order of the celebration of Anna’s life. The breezes that were blowing
around us were unusual. Shifting direction and intensity. The sun was breaking
in and out through the boughs of the oaks as the winds parted them here, and
then there. I could feel the shifting wind on my skin and I closed my eyes to
soak up the feeling of the breezy sensation and I tuned all my attention to
that feeling of the air on my skin. It was at that moment that I felt myself
tap into that sixth sense of transcendent perception.
For a fleeting moment, time
stood still and I was instantly connected to everything. The true nature of God
and the universe touched me in a way that I had not expected. The divine
embrace I felt gave me an awareness of our connectedness to everything and
therefore to God and then swirled off with the breeze. The brief experience was
a milestone in my own journey of faith. It marked the moment that doubt about
the eternal nature of our soul was erased from my worldview. I was overcome
with gratitude to God for allowing this to happen at just the time when I
needed it most. All this happened as all of you stood around me. I wondered if
you felt it too.
I take comfort in the knowledge
that Mom is still with us. And I don’t mean as a memory, although those are
sweet to have. And certainly we miss seeing her eyes light up when she talks
about the Moravian Love Feast. We miss her lovely singing voice, but even more
we miss the voice of insistence and persistence imploring us that being part of
a family was the most important of all things. We miss the smell of her smoke
alarm style cooking of green beans. But mostly we miss her touch, her embrace,
and the warmth of her hugs.
Yet the warmth of her spirit
is alive and well and within us all. The true essence of who she is never dies.
Her true essence is love. Love permeates all things. Love surrounds us and
dwells within us. The loving soul that we call Margaret, Mom, and Nana has
never gone anywhere. She would never leave us and she never has. Love never
dies.
