The privilege of funerals...

In my second year of seminary, a professor said to me, "You might not want to consider going into the pastoral ministry, man. Maybe you should stick to the social justice work you do so well." I was heart broken. "What do you mean skip the pastoral ministry? That's where the Word has to become Flesh or all the rest is bullshit," I thought then - and almost 30 years later still do.

I tried going back to the life of an organizer - moving from campaign to campaign - and it drove me mad. No community. No accountability. Just issues and deadlines and intensity. I longed for the rhythm of life - spring bursting into summer vegetables as well as fall dying into the winter abyss - not the go, go, go of organizing and always fighting injustice. Too stern for my soul, too easy to become what I hated.

Besides, where does the organizer go for refreshment? Most the organizers I knew in those days were "lone wolves" who loved the solitary life while I need an embrace, a smile or a good argument from time to time to keep me grounded and focused. I needed people to laugh and cry with. Somebody who noticed when I was sick. Souls who wanted to share the feast.

That is perhaps why I still give thanks for the opportunity and privilege of funerals: they also keep me connected to the community and the sacred rhythm of God's grace. Tomorrow I will bury a woman of 97 years. What a pistol she was. And one of the things I have discerned about her is how she helped some in this congregation live into their best selves. They cared for her, and shopped for her and carried her from one place to another.

And in all the doings and goings of ordinary life had some of their sharp edges worn down in the process. They grew in gentleness and humility, too. Now, those things were always inside, but by sharing them over all these years they were also nourished and refined. It is a blessing to discover this quiet truth.

The poet, William Stafford, puts it like this:

Some time when the river is ice ask me

what mistakes I have made. Ask me whether

what I have done is my life. Others

have come in their slow way into

my thought, and some have tried to help

or to hurt - ask me what difference

their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.

You and I can turn and look

at the silent river and wait. We know

the current is there, hidden; and there

are comings and goings from miles away

that hold the stillness exactly before us.

What the river says, that is what I say.