Going to a Funeral

My friend Barry died tragically last week - aged 37. He set off for a morning’s exercise with his surfski, and was blown out to sea. I am going to Port Elizabeth today – for his funeral tomorrow morning.


I have discovered different reasons for being there:


I am going in support of those who mourn. While the presence of other people does not lessen the pain of sudden loss, no one should mourn alone. I too am mourning. So I am driving with three friends who loved Barry, and I need their company.

I am going because Barry’s death has reminded me of the fragility of life. I cope well enough with people dying who are older than me. But it is hard when people die who are younger than me. It reminds me of my own mortality. And of all the things I still want to do in life…. And of how often I defer them because I think the time is not yet right. Moments such as these remind me of the importance of living in the present.

I am going because I need ministry. I am normally the one who offers care when other people die. I visit the bereaved; I preside over funerals; I visit people in the lonely months when everyone else has got on with life. This seldom allows me to grieve, because I have to hold the show together for other people’s tears. But somehow the years have caught up with me – and I need space to grieve: I am in pain not just for Barry, but for the many other people I have loved and lost.

Dying

I am dying.
I think I have known this for some time.
I look in the mirror and see cells that are dying: my hair cells have given up trying to produce colour. My skin cells have slowed their regeneration. My knees ache when I run, my shoulders hurt when I play tennis. And my aging sinuses give me headaches when the weather changes.

I am reminded of dying when my beloved dog dies.
I am reminded of dying when I have one too many funerals for people I have loved.
I am reminded of dying when the Middle-East/Dafur/Iraq explodes once more into death and destruction.
I am reminded of dying when the Church I have worked for, and loved, for nearly 50 years shows (yet again) her capacity to squeeze the life out of me…
And I wonder what lies beyond death.

I choose to believe that the relationships of this life will reconnect after death.
I think that all of life is so sacred that death is not life’s grand destruction.
And so I believe in resurrection…..
….a resurrection of every life that has been lived – human, animal, plant, insect.
And I believe in redemption: that all of life is valuable and that no life is lost.
And that there will be things I still need to learn.
Some may have more to learn than others.
I imagine that Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe will have much more to learn about valuing life than say Desmond Tutu or Mahatma Gandhi.

This means that there are no harps and clouds, or 1000 virgins for every righteous man, or eternal rest, or thrones and golden crowns, or rewards for good behaviour. These are clearly projections of human longing. And heaven is not “above” and hell “below”. In fact there is no hell. Hell is probably meeting the one you called “enemy” and having to learn to be friends; or discovering that the one you condemned as an unbeliever is compassionately welcoming you to your next life.

I believe that God calls me to follow the way of Jesus as the most helpful way of learning my lessons, and living my life. And I will share the wonder and the passion I have found in the Jesus way of life with other searchers, in the hope that they too may grow in their spirits. And I will honour those who hear God calling them to follow a different spiritual path.

So this life extends beyond death. And the things I learn in this life will become useful in another life after my death. There is never a moment in this life that is wasted – because everything is useful. Both good and bad alike.
So bring it on.

Winter is Coming

The rain is falling against the window pane next to my computer. Rain driven by the North-Westerly wind. The television weather woman has told us about the cold front marching on Cape Town from the South Pole, bringing heavy rain and gale-force winds. She added that there was a good probability of snow on the mountains that ring our city. Winter is coming.

The leaves on the grape vines are changing colour. Golden yellow orange turning to brown. So too are the oak trees. But their leaves are falling to the ground. Great heaps of them. I recently walked through them, kicking my way forward with the exuberance of a young boy. Remembering leaves as a sign that winter is coming.

The tortoise in our garden has slowed up. We fetched him a year ago from a farm near Carnarvon, where he was called Bloukrans. The family have taken to calling him “Tortie-boy”. All summer he ate his way voraciously through lettuce, cabbage, cucumber, and the back lawn. He would make his journey down the long driveway to stand against the back gate with his head through the bars peering across the road while he absorbed the sun. But now he emerges reluctantly from his home in the dog kennel to lie in the sun for a while. After nibbling a bit at his breakfast, he returns to his kennel. Because winter is coming.

And Sheenah, our beloved Irish Setter, is lying on the kitchen floor. Her red coat is matted with sweat and her eyes are exhausted. She has suffered from epileptic seizures over the past 18 months. Which have curtailed her enthusiastic, madly hopeful barking at the squirrels in the garden. But the fits are increasing in severity - 10 seizures in the past 24 hours. And the medication is not helping. I fear that her winter is coming.

And I sit like a rock in the grass, waiting for winter to wash over me.