Stopping For Death

My father died on the first of December. It wasn’t expected, nor was it a surprise either. He was six weeks shy of his 90th birthday, and his days were filled with little else than putting together jigsaw puzzles. I share this with you because it is one of those crossroads I believe each of us comes to in life when a parent dies, and it begs the question how does one address this crossroad: does the death of a parent prompt you to change your course in life; does it draw you up short, wondering how you will go forward without that presence in your life, or do you cross over and deal with whatever grief and /or remembrances this death brings forth? I have known people whose lives went adrift when an elderly parent died, and they were like a ship which had lost its mooring. For me this has been a time of re-examining my feelings and attitudes towards death and dying.

Ever since my college days I have been periodically haunted by the Emily Dickinson poem “Death” where she writes:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves,
And Immortality.

Dickinson addresses the condition that afflicts most of us – avoidance of the matter of death, with a succinct countering that death is neither offended nor dissuaded by our busi-ness. So, I would like to cross this intersection where mortality and immortality meet, and share some thoughts which may help you to address this crossing in your own life.

My parents had done the pre-arrangements with a local funeral home and with their church to be interred in the church’s columbarium. So those issues were on record for my sister and I not to have to deal with. But what about the obituary? What about the funeral service – the scriptures, the hymns, the touchstones in life which made my father the man that he was or the man he became? Those were knee-jerk responses, mainly from my sister, but how much better for family and friends if both of these benchmarks of one’s life could have informed by the one whose life is being memorialized in each.

What is it about death which causes us to balk in our conversation about it? It is not option, like what kind of car we will buy. It seems as Christians many of us cannot embrace that final frontier of life; like Dickinson there are so many other things with which to concern ourselves.

Many of you have sent cards and emails expressing your sorrow for me and my family, and for those thoughts I am truly blessed and grateful; they have each helped me to cross over this crossroad with greater resolve and faithfulness. And that support is enabling me to “stop for death” and do some things I have been putting off. Pam and I have talked about some of these issues, but then the conversation becomes awkward, and we shift to other things. But today I make the following commitments:

• I will put into writing the blessings I have felt in this life, and anticipate the blessing still to come.
  
• I will detail the scriptures and the songs that have informed my life and my ministry, and why each was chosen.
  
• I will lay out the mistakes I believe I have made over a lifetime of choices, with the realization that I may never have asked for forgiveness due to my own human frailties, and with the understanding that I certainly won’t remember all of them!


• I will contact the person I wish to conduct the service and seek his counsel and consent to this request.

As a pastor for well over 30 years, I believe that there have been only two or three funerals or memorial services that I have conducted in which any or all of the above bullet points were available to me or to the family. But what a blessing when they were!

So as your friend and as a fellow, finite pilgrim on this journey through the life God in his grace has given each of us, let me encourage you to “stop for death” and give some thought to the issues brought forth today, and then take whatever action the Spirit leads you to take.
There is a prayer that comes out of the Ionian Community of Scotland which goes:
We have laid our burdens down / In the presence of the living God / We have been nourished for our journey / In the presence of the living God / We have taken on the armor of Christ / In the presence of the living God. / Now lead us, guide us, defend us, / As we go into yet another world / In the name and for your sake, / O loving, living God.