Tag: funeral

Carried Away

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For a long time I was sure
it should be “Jumping Jack Flash,” then
the adagio from Schubert’s C major Quintet,
but right now I want Oscar Peterson’s

“You Look Good to Me.” That’s my request.
Play it at the end of the service,
after my friends have spoken.
I don’t believe I’ll be listening in,

but sitting here I’m imagining
you could be feeling what I’d like to feel—
defiance from the Stones, grief
and resignation with Schubert, but now

Peterson and Ray Brown are making
the moment sound like some kind
of release. Sad enough
at first, but doesn’t it slide into

tapping your feet, then clapping
your hands, maybe standing up
in that shadowy hall in Paris
in the late sixties when this was recorded,

getting up and dancing
as I would not have done,
and being dead, cannot, but might
wish for you, who would then

understand what a poem—or perhaps only
the making of a poem, just that moment
when it starts, when so much
is still possible—

has allowed me to feel.
Happy to be there. Carried away.
~Lawrence Raab “Request” from Visible Signs

The point of a funeral is to be carried away – by words and songs and tears and yes, flowers.

Not just for the soul who has been released from this earth,
but for the rest of us left behind…

We are reminded how short our days are, just as flowers wither;
we do our best cherishing their beauty, then let them pass.

Sometimes acceptance, sometimes sorrow, sometimes anger –
yet on the cusp of something filled with hope and possibility.

It’s enough to carry us away.
It is well with my soul.
And it’s all right now.

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Nature’s Funeral Month

barnstormingblog6 Comments

picturelakestump1

 

sunrise1026

 

 

octoberdogwood

 

sunrise10262

October is nature’s funeral month.
Nature glories in death more than in life.
The month of departure is more beautiful
than the month of coming – October than May.
Every green thing
loves to die in bright colors.
~Henry Ward Beecher
heathermeadowfoliage4
appleoctober
I don’t know…
I myself feel pretty drab these days, gray and fading,
with ripples and wrinkles, more fluff than firm.I’m reminded to hang on to an October state of mind:
more raucous color than somber funereal attire
so when it is time to take my leave,
I go brightly, in joyous celebration of what has been~~
and knowing, without any doubt,
where I’m heading as I wander down the road a piece.
oaklane10118

October Funeral

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

sunrise1026

sunrise10262

October is nature’s funeral month.
Nature glories in death more than in life.
The month of departure is more beautiful
than the month of coming – October than May.
Every green thing
loves to die in bright colors.
~Henry Ward Beecher

fallingleaf

frontyard0

 

chestnutmaple

pondyard

Before the Face of God

barnstormingblog8 Comments

photo by Josh Scholten

“To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God. 
To live in the presence of God is to understand that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, we are acting under the gaze of God.
To live all of life coram Deo is to live a life of integrity.
It is a life of wholeness that finds its unity and coherency in the majesty of God.
It is a life that is open before God.
It is a life in which all that is done is done as to the Lord.
It is a life lived by principle, not expediency; by humility before God, not defiance.
It is a life lived under the tutelage of conscience that is held captive by the Word of God.”
R.C. Sproul

We buried and bid goodbye to my husband’s mother Emma yesterday.  In the past, too many family funerals have taken place in mid-winter, with snow and ice and north wind blowing chill at the graveside.  This service was different, a full week after the first hay had been cut and baled in the fields around town, with pink dogwoods and rhododendrons moving past peak bloom, with summer moving in fast to push aside the promise of spring.

In a way, burying the dead in the midst of so much life and growth and beauty seems discordant and not at all fitting.  But life has never stopped the inevitable crush of death before–with one exception over two thousand years ago.

Her children wrote in her eulogy that she lived “coram Deo“–literally “in the face of God.”  Her pastor eloquently described her as the woman of Proverbs 31:30: “a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised.”

Emma lived under the gaze of God, under the authority of God, open before God, captivated by the Word of God.  Her life was long and fruitful, loved and loving.   It was right and fitting to bury her surrounded by so much lush life, growth and beauty, as she left her gifts to surround the open grave in the form of her children, her grandchildren — some who had traveled many miles, her greatgrandchildren and the many people, like myself, who had been touched directly by her conviction and devotion.

And we walked away from that gaping grave knowing: whatever we do, wherever we do it, it is to be whole and holy before Him.

Coram Deo.