Scripture:
2 Corinthians 5: 1-5
For
we know that when this tent we live in now is taken down—when we die and leave
these bodies—we will have wonderful new bodies in heaven, homes that will
be ours forevermore, made for us by God himself, and not by human hands.
How
weary we grow of our present bodies. That is why we look forward eagerly
to the day when we shall have heavenly bodies which we shall put on like new
clothes. For we shall not be merely spirits without bodies. These
earthly bodies make us groan and sigh, but we wouldn’t like to think of dying
and having no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that
these dying bodies will, as it were, be swallowed up by everlasting life.
This is what God has prepared for us and, as a guarantee, he has given us
his Holy Spirit.
Message
Dear ____,
I never had a chance to meet you personally,
but I feel quite close to you
since I read the autobiography you left to your
family and friends -
The Streams of Life Run Fast.
You wrote,
“I am sharing this story of my life, my memoirs, if
you will,
not because it is an exceptional story to anyone
else
but because it is exceptional to me and my family.”
I imagine you wove
these treasured stories
with concentration, finding the threads of memory
and feeling,
binding them with words
clear and reminiscent.
When you were writing them,
your weary body was forgotten.
You describe those days of your youth
from a sure and certain perspective
as you were at four
or 15
in your twenties, or in your thirties.
The streams of life truly do run fast.
They wash us over us
with surprising force,
scouring us
deeply and intensively
just as much as we can handle.
They forbid us to forget
about the end;
what refreshes us wears us,
bearing us onward as we look back.
You have embraced your life
your joys and blessings,
your adversities and despairs.
Shining through all
through the years you have had,
the core of your heart,
your luminous inward part,
has not changed.
That light was the anchor
that held you in a stronger place
that kept you from defeat
in the hardest times, the darkest places.
I read the following reflection once
from a book I enjoyed, Falling Upward
“Your True Self is
who you objectively are from the beginning
in the mind and heart of God,
‘the face you had before you were born’
as the Zen master say.
It is your substantial self,
Your absolute identity, which can be neither gained
nor lost.”
Dear ____,
We grieve that your death is our loss,
But at the same time we also believe that we have not
lost you at all
We are not here to speculate on the location of your
soul.
We proclaim the hope that sustains us in the face of
life and death,
the core that was you as you were.
The radiant core of your being – the giving, the
determination, the pride, the strength which kept you moving through the
streams of your life. Your journey was never easy but it was splendidly
completed with dignity, beauty and strength. All of these qualities, plus your
compassion,
now rest in the breadth of the universe
that our God has created and has become.
In God’s embrace, every being living and dying in
our universe is metamorphosed, blessed and transformed to become part of a
whole, ever-changing but constant in praising the beauty of life.
Life is precarious, but God’s love is absolute.
God meets you in every corner of the universe
as you nurture the matrix of life
by which all beings are sustained.
And, just as the earthly Jean has passed away the
Jean of the universe, Spirit, freed, joins in God’s work to make everything new
–
new heaven and new earth.
We know this, we send our blessings with you.
Be glad and continue your journey.
Enter with joy the dynamic presence of God.
Amen.
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