The Great Amen
Takes root in me.
Growing deep.
Shifting, changing
The landscape of my life.
As I let go of safe ground,
My insides quake.
The land beneath my feet
Rearranges itself,
Leaving me standing in
Uncharted territory.
Gingerly, I walk this new landscape,
Uncertain, uncomfortable with
the unfamiliar path ahead.
Deep and dark rumblings within me
Echo the Great Amen.
-KARE
4/21/11
Preparing for death may seem daunting.
Breathe into the places of your resistance,
then choose a section of the Lasting Gifts Manual and begin.
This is your remembrance;
your gift, to those you leave behind.
My father died in February.
This community held us with much tenderness and compassion.
The two month journey for our family was marked with much grace.
On Thanksgiving, I held Papa in my arms as he cried and was anguished over “Johnny who took the bullet for him in the back of the plane, and Sam who took the bullet for him in the fox hole.” He hadn’t shared about his former comrades much, but his distress came out of him as we shared thanksgiving for our lives. It was an anguish of prior parts of his life that still needed reconciling.
A week later Papa ended up in the hospital. Mom said to me, “This is sad.” And I asked her why. She said that Papa was wondering if he would get out of the hospital, and then answered himself, “its ok if I don’t.” I asked Mom how she was with that, and she said she was ok, since Papa was ok with it. Just like that something shifted for them. There was a surrendering so profound that it stayed with our family the two months he journeyed to the other side. It framed how he and we lived those days. It was like he chose a high bar to walk this walk, Mom joined him right away, and the six of us kids did the same. It was like he let himself fall into the loving arms of God.
I don’t want to make this sound easy and carefree. It is never easy to surrender, to take peace in the unknowing that lies ahead in our lives. We had the family dynamics to work through, hard medical decisions that would support Papa’s desires, our sadness and grief to express, and the final saying goodbye. But Papa modeled for us how to do that with much grace and dignity and truth. He called on the phone everyone he knew to say goodbye, to made amends where needed, give thanks all around, while continuously keeping his humor and wit. We prayed together as a family and gathered around his bed often for him to bless us and for us to bless him, and to thank him for being such a wonderful step-father. We were in it together and leaned on each other. We cried together and laughed together.
On this Trinity Sunday, it is similar. God’s grace and love permeates and is omnipresent in our entire universe. This is the glue that holds all together. Jesus’ incarnation brings God’s presence into our world in a way that we can see, understand at some level and model. The Holy Spirit, the breath of wisdom, blows through us. It is a weaving of life force within us and throughout the entire universe. We and all of creation are connected, woven together in a love that sustains us.
We can choose to be connected with God and with each other, or we can choose to be disconnected from God and from each other. We have free will to make this connection or not. And continuously throughout our days we go back and forth, of being connected and being disconnected. Our egos, busy lives, insecurities, our unawareness gets in our way of not being connected and thus being lonely, and alone. It takes much courage to lean into life, the pain, the unknowing, the heartache. But it is only in leaning into what comes up in our lives, of embracing all of what shows up each day, of trusting that each moment is presented to us for learning, growing and becoming closer to God. It takes faith to surrender to God’s promise, to surrender to what we don’t know what lies ahead. What if God doesn’t catch me when I take this step?! Am I going to let this fear paralyze me from entering into a life fully lived?
Surrender – it’s a big word to me. It seems like it would take a quantum leap to truly surrender. So how about if we break it down. How about if we look at it backwards? How about if we take it in smaller steps? Can I look at it as having less resistance? I can do small steps when a quantum leap feels like I am coming too close to the abyss, when it feels just too dangerous. God works with us in little and big steps, each is movement that’s keeping us going, that is moving us closer to God. It is in the movement that we have a chance of transformation, of possibility of new life, of growth and of joy.
So what comes out of surrender? If it has a potential of being difficult and scary why would we even approach the subject? In surrendering into the arms of God, being fully present with Jesus, of inviting the wisdom of the Holy Spirit into our lives there is a joy that bubbles up within. It transforms and molds us into joy-filled people. It is like nothing has changed, and everything has changed.
I am struck by the irony of this situation – God offers us to fall completely and fully into the love of God, to be surrounded by the peace and joy that comes with such an action. How do we do that? How do we take such a leap? Well God models that action for us because God has completely surrendered to us; God has scooped us up and loves us unconditionally and without any attachment. A love that is so deep that it penetrates our beings and all of the universe, and at the same time with such love that we are totally free to make our own decisions. Now that is non-attachment. That is true love.
One last point, back to Papa. Surrender wasn’t close to the top of the Lieutenant Colonel’s vocabulary. His job for 30 plus years of his life was to get his men out of three wars, alive. The military had been his identity and his life. For me, I had been in the Jesuit Volunteers and had walk 200 miles through Kansas with the Bethlehem Peace Pilgrimage and Fr. Jack Morris and Brother Fred Mercy. Papa and I came from two different perspectives on this, but we didn’t look at it as a right or wrong way. Our love and respect for each other was able to span the divide, our care of each other transcended our differences. A week before he died as I sat by his hospice bed at the house, he said – “Shanny, you have to tell people that war is not the way. You have to tell people war is not the way.” I was flabbergasted. This had been his identity for the vast majority of his 92 years. His total surrender to what lay ahead for him took my breath away.
He died in peace. He died in joy.
I end with a poem by the French poet, Guillaumen Apollinaire
Come to the edge.
We can’t. We’re afraid.
Come to the edge.
We can’t. We will fall!
Come to the edge.
And they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.
As I sit at my desk, I am struck by the chaos of my creative process. Piles cover my desk: a pile for each project waiting to be finished; a pile of things I hope to get around to reading some day; my pile of bills that need to be paid and a pile that needs my immediate attention.
I look at this and wonder, if something were to happen to me today and I was hospitalized or died, would my husband be able to navigate my system? Would he know which piles he could ignore and which piles needed to be tended to? Would he know where to find the bills that would soon need to be paid?
In a time of crisis, it is difficult enough to tend to the mundane chores of bill paying and responding to the mail. It could be overwhelming, and cause many additional difficulties, if our loved ones did not even know where to begin. The Lasting Gifts Manual will provide you with forms to guide you in recording this essential information.
I cannot pretend I am invincible. My family history reminds me that I will die. My father had a massive heart attack and died at age 54. My brother suffered a debilitating heart attack at 47. My mother had a massive stroke at age 54; her mother at age 48; and her mother at age 45. Seeing this history on paper helps me to stay conscious of my vulnerability to heart disease.
I made a promise to my son that I would do everything I can to keep my body healthy. If I am to be true to that promise, then I must take seriously my need to exercise regularly, eat heart-healthy foods, and maintain a heart-healthy weight.
Having a written family history is a gift to me. This history also gifts my son, so that he will know his genetic vulnerabilities.
Explore and record your own and your family’s medical history, then take some time to sit with it and see its messages. What does your personal and family medical history have to teach you? Recording your knowledge and observations can assist your children and their children in navigating their own health.
-Kim
Some have said that the funeral is for the living, not for the dead. I believe that the more the funeral or memorial service reflects the one who has died, the more healing and meaningful it is for those who are left to grieve..
A few years ago my husband, Niko, and I went on a date to plan our funerals. Though it may not sound like a very romantic date, we had a profoundly beautiful evening together. We went to a favorite, cozy tea house, armed with our favorite holy books and a hymnal from our church. After ordering tea and dessert, we each took some quiet time to think about the readings and music that had meaning for us. From those, we chose the ones we most love, or which most convey our feelings about our life, our death and our faith.
As I began to reflect on my funeral, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for my life and for each person I imagined gathered for my final celebration. I wanted my funeral to reflect that deep gratitude. I therefore chose readings and music that spoke of the wonders of living on this earth and the precious gifts of friendship and family.
As Niko and I shared our selections, I was surprised by the results. None of the readings Niko had chosen were readings I would have chosen for him. One of the passages I had never before read. I gained new insight into my husband that evening.
In addition to readings and music, we shared with each other who we would like involved in our service, who we would like to do our eulogy, whether we wanted to be cremated or buried, where and how we wanted our ashes scattered, and to what organizations we wanted memorials to be donated.
We wrote down our choices for one another as a guide to planning our service. We left room for creativity and for the needs of those who will be grieving. And yet, there was enough recorded to truly reflect our spirit in the service.
As you reflect on your final celebration, who would you like to have involved? What readings and music have meaning for you? What symbols, flowers or rituals best depict your spirit? Record those answers in a Lasting Gifts Manual, so that when the time comes, your loved ones will have a base in which to create your final celebration.
-Kim
“Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die.”
Death became my companion when I was 15 years old. My dad died suddenly of a massive heart attack. A year and a half later, my mother had a stroke and we were told that she would not live five years. Although she beat the odds and lived over 30 more years, death became a constant part of my life.
Every decision to travel or move brings the realization that Mom may die while I am gone. The gift of these experiences is that I have lived my life embracing the reality of death, allowing it to propel me forward.
The process if completing the Lasting Gifts manual is an opportunity to engage in the practice of the remembrance of death. I believe, if we really embrace that we are going to die one day, we will live our lives more fully. If we live knowing that each moment or each day may be our last, then we are less likely to get stuck in the small stuff of life and to savor that which is true and real.
When I sit with my own death, I think of my husband, Niko, and my son, Sam. If I die today, I want Niko to be able to focus on his own grief and to be there for our son. The best way I can help him with that is to have things in order to make the transition as easy as possible.
The many forms in this manual may seem daunting.
Breathe into the places of your resistance,
then choose a section and begin.
This is your remembrance;
your gift to those you leave behind.