Friends, this is not easy. It’s been over 40 years. We
have a multitude of faiths, traditions and beliefs. Some
of us just discovered for the first time about a friend
who died. This causes us to remember other losses in our
lives. This is much more difficult for some. Some have
lost loved ones in the last few years or even the last few
months and the loss is fresh. Yet, we are here together in
love and respect for those who no longer have the choice
to be with us.
Margaret Wheatly said, in her presentation, Dancing in
the Dark—Coming Back Together In Difficult Times, “I
believe that the single most important act and gesture of
our times given the weight of loss is coming back
together.” That is us this morning. We chose to come back
together. Back together in difficult times.
My particular belief structure believes in the goodness of
people as articulated in Genesis where we were described
as being created in the image of the divine. However, we
are not here to “heroize” our departed friends. Some of us
know their weaknesses, but it is their goodness that
prevails. Each one touched us. The influence of each human
being in this life is a kind of immortality. They even
influenced us to be here together this morning. What we do
with our lives matters! The influence of our lives ripples
through each other.
However, we can’t ignore the pain of loss or the profound
learning that comes with it. A poignant moment in C.S.
Lewis’ Narnia chronicles a fable about the young
boy, Digory. He is heartbroken by the realization that his
mother is dying, and that he can do nothing to save
her. He raises his despairing face to the great lion,
Aslan, and is startled to see “great shining tears” in
Aslan’s eyes.
They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s
own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really
be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself. “My son,
my son,” said Aslan, “I know. Grief is great. Only you and
I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one
another.” Today the message to us, dear friends, is let
us be good to one another.
In our denomination, we are going through an
organizational redesign of our International
Headquarters. One of my colleagues commented that until he
was shaken and off balance, he was not able to view the
familiar with new eyes. During a great tragedy in our
family, I was shaken off balance. I was reminded what was
important very rapidly. I had cluttered my life with less
important things. It was clear that relationships and love
is everything. One author said, why would we expect to
embrace things and expect a hug back? What we embrace
today is memory and love.
In your program, Wordsworth said, “Our birth is but a
sleep and forgetting.” But you and I affirm that death in
a friend and loved one is all about remembering. We
remember them today. Memory is a great gift. Amnesia and
Alzheimer’s are tragic because it puts one adrift without
an anchor. But memory is our strength, our connection, our
comforter.
Death ends a life but not a relationship because of
memory. Time changes all things except that which we
choose to recall. We choose to recall our friends. Memory
is a gateway and a connection with eternity. Our
relationship continues. People live on in us. That’s
eternity. Our inter-dependence is a form of
immortality. Memory and love is how we stay alive after we
are gone. Even after their deaths, they still are
influencing us.
Mother Teresa reminds us: “There is more hunger for love
and appreciation in this world than for bread." We hunger
for, and have been nourished by, love. No life is a
waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend
thinking we are alone. However, to truly love is
inevitably to experience loss.
"Lost love is still love. It takes a different form,
that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food
or tousle their hair or move them around a dance
floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens.
Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You
hold it. You dance with it. Life has to end. Love
doesn’t.” (from The Five People You Meet in Heaven)
Henry David Thoreau wrote: “There is no remedy for love
but to love more.” Death makes us aware of the importance
of the people we love and the sustaining force of love in
our lives. When someone close to us has died, we can use
love to burn through our grief and come to a place of
gratitude for each other. We are reminded in the book,
Tuesday’s with Morrie: “The only rational act is
love.”
Just as the song shared earlier, “We Can Only Imagine,” we
can only imagine a love that remains. Pain and loss is
transformed. Revelations remind us that everything is made
new and every tear is wiped from our eyes. In the movie,
Shawshank Redemption, Timothy Robbins says: “Hope
is a good thing and a good thing never dies.”
We say today: Memory is a good thing and a good thing
never dies. Love is a good thing; good things never
die. We have come together full of our memory and love for
our friends. We need to be good to one another. What we do
with our lives matters now and forever.
