Words of Remembrance Given at My Mother's Funeral Service - August 20, 2022

 

Two weeks ago tomorrow, while peering through the window above our kitchen sink that overlooks our firepit patio, I noticed for the first time this summer a hummingbird. The ruby throated hummingbird made his way from one cluster of flowers to the next, gathering nectar to fuel his activities.  I’ve often thought that a sighting of something unusual in nature to be a harbinger of something that lies ahead. Sometimes those sightings have included dark symbols such as black crows circling overhead that turned out later to be false signs.  Hummingbirds, however, are symbols of lightness and joy.  People who adopt the hummingbird as a totem or symbol are thought to be playful, adaptable, and can combat negativity with ease.  They also serve as good reminders to live life to the fullest and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. 

I visited mother that afternoon and shared every photo I had taken during our recent vacation with Tyler, Jennica and their children.  She savored each one and was enamored with them.  She told me how much she loved these little children and how much she enjoyed the times visiting with them and engaging them in conversation.  She said “I like to ask them questions to find out what they’re thinking about.”  That turned out to be the last time I or anyone would see her before she suffered the debilitating stroke that happened less than 24 hours later.  But what a special last memory that was.

Her last engagement with anyone here on earth was:

• not concerned about things bothering her

• not begging for attention

• not filled with worry; but

• Enjoying and giving thanks for members of her family.

As I started winding back the years of her life that I could recall, it revealed one instance after another of mother putting her family and their interests ahead of her own.  Once Bob and I left the nest, she tended to her own aging parents, and her young grandchildren.  Once her parents had passed, she spent more time with her grandchildren, and with Dad visited church members, friends and family and bringing comfort to those who were suffering.  When those contemporaries had passed on, she focused on her great grandchildren, who are gathered with us today. Holidays and birthday gatherings were always special events that she enjoyed and in her younger years performed much of the cooking for.  Even when she was unable to carry the load of entertaining family she always enjoyed each and every one.  We were all particularly blessed in 2021 to have gathered with mother and dad at our home on both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  All of you here can remember that she treasured even our recent family gatherings.

   

All of these memories beg the questions:

• What made it possible for mother to keep the focus on others?

•       What made it possible for mother to overcome the challenges of depression that she         faced earlier in life?

• What made it possible for her to live a life well-lived?

• Why did I see a hummingbird outside our window and not black crows?

All of the answers to those questions for mother can be summed up in having a vital relationship with God through the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

I don’t know all of her journey to faith - when it began and when it really took root in her but when I shared with her as an excited young teenager that I received Jesus as my savior and Lord, her response was “How can that happen for me?”  It happened, and not long from then, through the influence of godly pastors, church friends and her husband.  

Dad, the work that God had done in your life some 30 year earlier, and the example of your daily faithfulness to God and your family was probably the greatest consistent positive influence in her life.

Those of us who had the opportunity to visit mother in the Strong Hospice Care unit where she was eventually transferred to, were able to see her when she was in a state of peacefulness, although not fully conscious.  That experience was something unexpectedly rich.  She squeezed Dad’s hand while he held it.  She turned her head when Tim walked from one side of the bed to the other.  I believe she felt Bob’s kiss.  I believe she heard our prayers, our singing of hymns and our assurances she was in good hands.  She had recently been suffering more and more from the effects of dementia which had robbed her of some of the peace that she normally exhibited and that was concerning.  So, during those final visits we shared with her it was almost like God was beginning to roll back the human suffering that came with the dementia, even as her life on earth was diminishing and her eternal life beginning.

I ask that as we continue in conversations with each other today and the following days to share your remembrances of mother with one another and encourage each other in our time of grieving, and I leave you with the image of the hummingbird as an image of her life here on earth.  

Understanding The Dobbs Supreme Court Decision

 

This is a day for freedom loving and Christian people to be thankful for the Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case. There's so much in and behind this very clear ruling:

1. There's no implicit right in the US Constitution or Bill of Rights to end unborn life.
2. Therefore, the individual States get to decide how to address the issue of abortion.
3. There is a peaceful process in place to amend the US Constitution to include a right to abortion if those who support abortion wish to do so.
4. This decision overturns the legally convoluted and flawed Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.  The majority could have upheld Dobbs on a 6-3 vote, adding Chief Justice Roberts to the majority, but decided to go all the way and overturn Roe v. Wade. 
5. Unlike the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision that helped lead us into The Civil War, this decision, like Brown v. Board of Education, promotes liberty and life to a maligned and underserved class of people.  
6. It matters greatly who you vote for as President of the United States.  Donald Trump, by relying on The Federalist Society to advise him on selecting justices to serve on our federal courts, assured our nation that we would have originalists making important decisions.
7. The culture, with the help of science, has become increasingly pro-life, and this decision, rather than breaking new ground in our culture, affirms a gradual change in our culture that favors liberty and more protections for the unborn. 

To Christians and freedom-loving people of all political affiliations, can we use this opportunity to offer a better story to our friends, co-workers and neighbors?  There are many good articles already posted at www.thegospelcoalition.org and there will be many more on this subject, but the post by Winfree Brisley here www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/remember-overturned-roe/   focuses on giving thanks and allowing a true story to take place in our minds. We have the opportunity each day to tell that better story. 

The Inspiration of C. S. Lewis - The Inner Ring

 Speaking to college students in this address, Lewis provides advice and warning to young men concerning a temptation specific to the world, after a brief mention of the devil and the flesh. Although he does not refer to a specific scripture,1 John 2:15-17 aligns with his message.  He summarizes an exchange between two soldiers and their commanding officer from Tolstoy's War and Peace before launching into a discussion of the phenomenon of an "inner ring".  In that conversation, the two junior officers, instead of following the official system of conversation that would have respected the commanding general, followed their own system, and essentially ignored the general who had to wait for the junior officers to complete their conversation before he could speak. 

Have you ever noticed yourself being left out of conversations?  Do you know what it feels like to be excluded?  Who hasn't?  Lewis's address has a message for everyone because everyone has at one time or another, felt they've been left out of some inner ring.   He notes that these inner rings are constructed by "unwritten systems", and that the deep desire to be a part of an inner ring (and the terror of being excluded) can be a strong driver.  We hope to profit from inclusion in the inner ring "...power, money, liberty to break the rules, avoidance of routine duties, evasion of discipline."

His advice is brilliant and true:

1. Recognize that the desire and ambition to be part of an inner ring is a danger for two reasons:
• It can cause us to do some very bad things.
• Being governed by that urge for the inner ring is like attempting to fill a sieve with water - it is something that is impossible to do.    
2. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider to the inner circle, you'll remain outside the inner circle.
3. You can break that desire by becoming a "sound craftsman" in the work you do, which is the longer lasting goal of any profession.
4. Finding other people who like one another and enjoy meeting to do things they like to do is something that no inner ringer can ever have - friendship. 

Lewis's wisdom on this subject seems so timeless, and so true to human nature, it can be helpful to all of us at many points in our lives.  As I wind down my "official" duties as a full-time employee, my influence and power in the company has diminished and I am no longer in the official or unofficial inner ring.  In these times, I am finding joy in continuing to grow as a skilled craftsman and finding friends who have similar desires to help others that I have.  

You can read the entire essay here: the-inner-ring-by-c-s-lewis.pdf (wordpress.com) 

The Inspiration of C.S. Lewis: Learning in War-Time

People one generation younger than mine remark that C.S. Lewis was writing to their generation. Lewis wrote this essay during my father's generation, yet I am soaking up Learning in War-Time some 80 years later as if it was written last week.  There's something timeless about this Lewis address to students because I am reading this in an age of increased turmoil and totalitarianism in the world and in America.

Lewis, delivering his remarks to college students in 1939, first speaks to the reality that war, because it is a finite object, cannot absorb the entire attention of the human soul. Thus, no matter how badly things are going around us, we were not wired to be entirely absorbed in them.  Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put eternity into man's hearts, something far beyond the travails of the present world.

He moves on from there to emphasize that our work of learning (whether we are in school or college or engaged in a career or ministry) becomes a spiritual act if offered in humility to God.  He encourages them not to let their emotions and nerves make them think that their situation, mired in the suffering of WWII, is more abnormal than it is. Those same words need to be heard in my heart today.  Sure, there is much to grieve and much to be alarmed about, but Lewis encourages his students with three defensive mental exercises with which to combat the war (or the equivalents of war we experience today).  These enemies are:

1. Enemy #1 - Excitement - Don't wait for distraction to end to get to work.  He remarks that the people who work hard, including under unfavorable conditions, will achieve much. Sure, evil seems to be thriving and there's plenty of distractions but if we wait for the distractions to end, they won't, and we will have achieved nothing. Instead, we could have been about doing good in this world.
2. Enemy #2 - Frustration - Lewis encourages his listeners to instead of saying "No time for that" or "Too late now." or "Not for me" to put the future in God's hands.  He reminds us that working moment to moment "as to the Lord" since the present is the only time in which duty can be done or grace received.  Live for today.
3. Enemy #3 - Fear - Although the threat of death and pain was incredibly real for Lewis's listeners, he reminds them it's not a question of life or death for us but only one death or another.  Being aware of our mortality is useful and was considered a blessing by great Christians of the past.  Lewis reminds us that in this world we're on a pilgrimage, not trying to build of a utopian society on earth.

The idea of a life of learning that Lewis encourages for his war-time students is worthy of our attention today.  It is up to us subdue our enemies and to flourish in these times when many are held prisoners by enemies (excitement, frustration, fear).  Lewis's narration can be read here: https://bradleyggreen.com/attachments/Lewis.Learning%20in%20War-Time.pdf
 

   

The Christmas Gift Of My Helping Family

 

The family 2021 Christmas Day plans were all perfectly in place.  The rides to pick up Mother and Dad were all set, we had invited Corinne's hairdresser and son to join us, Matt had made the trek home from Philadelphia, and I was thinly slicing potatoes with a mandolin two hours before all our guests were set to arrive.  Then, in a blink of an eye my hand slipped off the handle, sliced the end of my finger off, and our Christmas plans were instantly jeopardized.  In the hours that followed, I who was to be putting out for everyone else, received the Christmas gift of my family helping me and working together to care for everyone. 

Just a few of the many blessings I received included:

1. Matthew finding a nearby Urgent Care facility, driving me there and being my caretaker through the painful medical procedure, that fortunately didn't require stitches. 
2. Corinne contacting everyone and pushing the schedule for dinner back 2 hours.
3. Bunny and Tim picking up Dad, which I was set to do, safety bringing him to our house and returning him to the Episcopal Church Home.
4. Bob and April picking up Mother, which Bunny and Tim were set to do, bringing her to our house and returning her to River Edge Manor.
5. Corinne, Bunny and April taking over all the food and other preparations and doing the kitchen cleanup afterwards.

It was a wonderful experience for me to see my family jumping in to help when the unexpected happened to me and to see them carrying on so graciously.  In all those events, I could see in action the words of the Christmas song O Little Town of Bethlehem that say:

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given,

So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.

No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.

I felt that I received some of the blessings of God's heaven through my family members on Christmas Day 2021.