OPENING READING: "Life is worth the living..."
Life is worth the living. It is good and it is beautiful, in spite of the tragedy with which it is beset. We glory in life, sustained by the faith that its goodness is not the glittering shimmer of the surface alone, but that its goodness is pervasive - that it is of the essence of the nature of thing...And so we go on, those who have known sorrow and those who have not, strong in the faith that life is somehow good, even though we do not understand it. We go on, no matter what befalls...
-- Duncan Howlett
MEDITATION READING: "Life comes to us unsought..."
Life comes to us unsought, and is taken from us with little concern for our consent. Yet we are more than leaves or flowers which wither and die; we live and move, we think and feel and remember. We learn joy and sorrow. We give and share happiness and pain. We are capable of helping or hindering our neighbors...As days grow into weeks, and weeks add up to years, we weave our lives together in families, friendships and communities. Then, when one of us dies, something of all of us dies. Bonds are cut. Relationships are severed. Experiences we have shared in the past occur no more. And yet, even in death, we continue to share, through memory's eye, the cherished lives of those who have crossed life's horizon before us...So, let us cherish the memory of those we have lost. No longer need we measure their lives in days or weeks. Rather, we measure them in terms of memories which have no bounds.
-- Anonymous
SERMON: "They Live On"
The live on? Really? But how? What is death's meaning? What is the point of living if we all are going to die?
These are questions that all of us ask at some time. But some of us ask them more frequently than others.
I am of the latter category.
I believe it was a major reason why I studied for the ministry.
Let me tell you a bit of my quest.
Believing in my early life that the "Bible" was the literal word of God, I struggled with dilemmas like:
Who would be taken up to heaven on Judgment Day? What would the chosen look like, e.g. would they throw off their skeletal appearance before they were robed in garments as white as snow? And if one were a "heathen" in deepest, darkest Africa (oh how very small-brained we were in those days to use such language), would such an individual be saved since s/he never had had the experience of knowing Jesus as a personal savior?
Then, there were the family tales of amazing events beyond-or-nearly-to-the-grave which only the Irish side of my family experienced.
For instance, when Grandma Bennett was on her deathbed and was talking to her long-departed husband, as if they were having supper and discussing the day's events. "I see you, Tom," I remember her saying, as I held her hand as she lay dying, and me, all of sixteen-years-of age. Hearing a lecture about such experiences from a leading oncology nurse some 30 years later, I learned that this kind of experience shortly before one's death - this "in-between" time - is not so bizarre or rare.
Of course, there were all kinds of in-between times in my family. Someone was always "sensing" a "presence" from beyond the grave. And someone was always having a dream in which a dead person "spoke" to them. I grew up in a world peopled with as many ghosts as so-called "real people," and for me sometimes the former were more desirable than the latter.
I must admit that even today, I like to roam cemeteries. Perhaps I am like the poet Keats in the sense that we are both "half in love with easeful death." Not that I want to die any time soon, but that the subject clings to me like a romantic talisman. I just love to speculate on where all those people resting under all those headstones have gone off to - if anywhere at all.
I have ministered to people who have had near-death experiences, too. Not all see the bright light at the end of the tunnel. Not all hear a voice calling them back to life. One man, whose heart had stopped for a number of moments, spoke to me later of a profound peace beyond anything he had experienced before. Actually, it was so peaceful that it was beyond peace, more like numbness. "Not like what anyone else has described," the man told me. "No bright light, that's for sure." The man was a consummate scientist, a pure rationalist, a "I have to see it to believe it" type. And, an ad infinitum conversationalist. So I egged him on a little bit by asking: "Doug, have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe you weren't headed for the same heavenly place those others were headed?" It was the first time I ever knew the man to remain speechless.
But then there has been that other kind of experience. Take the young woman who did have the light at the end of the tunnel. What is so amazing to me about her experience is that she had never read a book on the subject, had never heard it described on a talk show, had never discussed it with anyone.
And yet, she told me the story of her having "died" and its consequences as if she were reciting a textbook case. She was floating above her own body and saw the doctors and nurses trying to bring her back. But she felt this incredible serenity enveloping her, beseeching her to travel through the tunnel until she reached its source, the light. "Come with me," it was saying to her. It was very difficult for her to resist, but resist she did, because she knew she had to go back: back to her husband and newborn who relied upon her. The next thing she knew she was back in her body. Whatever happened to her had happened. Who is to say if she met eternity for a short span of time? But what can be said is that the experience was healing for her, because when her premature, less than a pound in weight baby died a couple days later, she just knew he had gone on to a better place, and she felt relatively at peace.
Well I guess I would like to believe what this woman believed. I crave some literal sign that such a place of serenity beyond death is a reality.
But do I KNOW this as a fact for me? Or do I merely HOPE that it might be? Well, reason wins out on this one for me and l guess for many UU's (but by no means ALL UU's). For there is a difference between "knowledge" and "hope."
*****
But today as we celebrate Memorial Day in the year 2010, let us not forget the reason for this time: to honor those in the military who served our country, and who died and were wounded in the struggle to maintain our free republic. And let us remember the families and loved ones. Truly, whatever feelings about wartime we may have, let us gratefully acknowledge the lives sacrificed by brave men and women, and the suffering of the ones they left behind.
Yes, let us never forget that lives were given for us, but let us bid the dead their peace. As that Native American reading says:
Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep: I am the diamond glint on snow...the sunlight on ripened grain...the gentle autumn rain...quiet birds in circling flight...soft starlight at night...
No, they are not there - in the Fields of Flanders, the Cemetery at Arlington, the beaches of Corregidor, the waters of Pearl Harbor, the gentle hills of Gettysburg, the harsh deserts of Iraq. They are now part of that all-in-all that is beyond our understanding. Still, they are with us in memory - and may it always be so, for to forget them is to dishonor them.
Memorial Day, too, is a time when we remember others in our lives who have left us. It is a time, indeed, to touch a deeper sense of who we are - in effect, of how fragile and tentative life is, of how brief our existence is, and of how life is all so wondrous!
*****
So at a time like this, in addition to the many memories we might have, we can find solace in those signs that give us a sense of hope and purpose.
Yes, I believe there are occasional symbols of visible amazement in an oft-times chaotic world. They are the antidotes to life when life is viewed in terms of merely muddling through sameness and melancholia. These symbols of a deeper, more abiding astonishment allow us humans to sparkle despite the ennui of existence and the enveloping humdrum of the day-to-day routine.
Perhaps this is what some people mean by having a "spiritual" experience.
Such a sign of spirituality for me was that ugly, stunted growth in front of my former house in Palos Verdes, CA. It was a tree, whose genre I do not know. Just a tiny, nondescript tree at the edge of the road.
The fact that there were trees of the same genetic strain who had flourished into full-bodied, plush and luxuriant specimens up and down the street stood in marked contrast to our little embarrassment.
Why this arboreal nightmare should be what it was rather than a beautiful giant like its siblings is a mystery of the universe. Certainly, it received the same amount of rain and sunlight. Perhaps it was the soil which was non-productive of loveliness. Perhaps it was the smog created from a maddening, urbanized pace. The poet's "I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree" was an ironic comment on our stick-like oddity.
For years I would see the thing languishing and wonder how much longer it would continue with the pretense of sharing in a prosperous southern California lifestyle.
Then one early morning I woke to the sound of birds. Not to just a mellifluous, tiny reverberation from a few frolicking winged creatures, but to nature's orchestral arrangement set to musical markings which can only be labeled "presto" and "vivace."
I got up and followed the sound, discovering that our wisp of a roadside forest had transmogrified into a veritable Christmas tree hung with hundreds of green, feathery ornaments of the parrot variety! What a wonder of nature! Avian choristers clustered on that old stick, vying for position as if those desiccated branches were the choicest seats in the neighborhood. For surely, no parrot sat on any other tree on our block! How wondrous, that suddenly, without expectation, the tree in front of 5510 Bayridge Rd. had become an auditory and visual jewel instead of a pitiable, skeletal twig.
Green parrots in the city? Indeed, we had transformed from an abode in the midst of urban sprawl to a grass hut on a tropical island. As I stood in my front yard I wondered if I were yet awake.
And then I thought of immortality. That out of seeming death comes life renewed. That we never know about this persona called reality; that so much is hidden to our machinations and attempts to control how life is supposed to be.
The parrots certainly fooled me. From where did they come? And why had they chosen our dying, reed-like representative to alight? Was there conscious intent on nature's part to festoon drabness and inferiority; to cloak arborous terminal illness with heroic measures?
Curiosity upon curiosity inhabits this world. Symbols of beauty when you least expect it. Signs of visible amazement in an oft-times chaotic world.
So many signs, so many signs that tell us life is more than just toil, sorrow, and demise. That moments of incredibility are ever there to take wing - but that we must be open to receiving them. That despite the death of those we love, they are forever with us as long as we are here to remember them; that we can never lose them.
This affirmation by an anonymous poet sums it up well:
Let us be honest with death.
Let us not pretend that it is less than it is.
It is separation.
It is sorrow.
It is grief.
But let us neither pretend that death is more than it is.
It is not annihilation - as long as memory endures (our) influence will be felt.
It is not an end to love - humankind's need for love from each of us is boundless/
*****
This Memorial Day, too, is a time to think about our own lives - and how we might be remembered.
For some of you this might be more important a question than for others. Perhaps a more inclusive question is: How are you thought of by others today? Again, this might not be such an important question for some of you, but let me proceed.
The Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus, living more than 2,000 years ago can help us out. Says he:
What would you wish to be doing when you are found by death? I for my part would wish to be found doing something that... (is) beneficent, suitable to the general interest. If death surprises me when I am busy about these things, it is good enough for me if I can stretch out my hands and say: the means which I have received for helping the world I have not neglected; I have not dishonored the world with my acts. That I have been given life, I am thankful. If I have used well the powers which are mine, I am content and give them back to the great life from which I came.
I have my own list. My so-called "bucket list" (things I wish we might do before we die). This list includes:
Living a good, productive, creative, and wholesome life, rather than worrying about how we will be remembered or worrying about what happens to us after we die.
Living with humility of spirit - one that stretches beyond our ego needs, and urges us to cooperate with others.
Living with the understanding that we are part of nature and as such, are subject to the rules of the natural order.
Living for a purpose beyond materialistic acquisition; one that includes gaining knowledge, experience - and hopefully, wisdom.
Living with the understanding that we must pass on to others the lessons that we have learned; that we must safeguard the future for the generations to come.
I guess by living this way, we can be immortal - through our thoughts, feelings, and acts. And we can be immortal through full acceptance that as one aspect of nature while living, we are fashioned into a different form upon our death. So why should we fear? Feel sorrow, yes, for the loss of the ones we have known - indeed, for the loss of our "Self" as we have known this life - but feel joy, too, that we lived in the first place, and have experienced the untold wonder at the miracle of it all!
*****
So it is Memorial Day once again. It is a time to remember. To bring to mind those we have loved and lost.
Therefore, for a brief moment, let us be in a spirit of meditation. Please close your eyes if you would like and relax into your breathing.
Together let us weave a tapestry of remembrance...
So let them come to you - the loved ones who have left you.
Let them rise up within you and let them call forth their names through you.
And let their memory come alive, as you say their names.
Say part of the name, or all of it. Say it loudly or softly. Say as many names as you would like. Say the names of those who died long ago or recently.
But feel their presence and let them speak to you and through you as they come to you.
Together let us share this experience of love and memory.
So, let us be silent for a moment and then let us begin to weave our tapestry.
(Names are called forth.)
So may we, along with Dag Hammarskjold, affirm:
To say Yes to life is at one and the same time, to say Yes to oneself.
To be free - to be able to stand up and leave everything behind - without looking back; to say Yes-
Night is drawing high - For all that has been -thanks: To all that shall be - Yes!
CLOSING WORDS: "Always there is something..."
Always there is something, something beyond all time.
The sorrows, the fears, dissolve into the healing night.
The darkness is no longer darkness, but a comforting presence.
And it comes, a great peace, flooding the heart.
-- Robert T. Weston