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THEME The Letting Go and the Nurturing Waters
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
PRAYERS
HYMNS
Must death appear as always stealing life. (BL)
All our dying shares a process. (BL)
When the shadow of death.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
Everything has its own season.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/resources/hymns/the_mystery_telling
May our friend. (STS1)
Though the earthly life. (STS2)
Through the love of God our Father. (STS2)
Singing the Sacred Vol 1 2011, Vol 2 2014 World Library Publications
POEMS / REFLECTIONS
BURIAL
As the mourners’ tears
mingled
with the watery sky
freshly blossomed trees
guarding mounded earth
whispered
“Though she is dead
her life-space
inhabits your heart.”
THE GRAVE
The ground
lies fallow
on my father’s grave
but soon
grass will grow
as nature rehabilitates
the bare soil ‑
and so it shall be
with my grieving heart.
PRELUDE?
Is autumn the prelude to death ‑
The penultimate bar in life’s symphony
Or is there another movement
Playfully awaiting
Our eager participation?
Who knows? Who can tell?
For beyond all our phantom certainties
There lies the mystery
A mystery which,
Thank God,
We do not have
To wait till death
To joyfully
Experience!
I SHALL NOT DIE
I shall not die
for though my body
be returned to the earth
it shall become part
of the ever-living
ever-dying
cycle of nature.
I shall not die
for though my thoughts
disperse
and my emotions wither
I shall live on in word
and enterprise.
I shall not die
for as my ancestors live on in me
so shall I live on
in life’s genetic pool
and randomly
re-emerge
in them.
And if,
in God’s mercy,
my spirit
is given new life,
then only the worn cage
of my living
shall be stripped
from me
And I shall never die.
WHAT LIVES WITHIN?
What lives within my body?
Is it only a multitude of living cells,
tissues, muscles, fat, chemicals, water, air,
or is there some fire
that death cannot extinguish?
WHY DID WE WAIT UNTIL YOU DIED?
Why did we wait until you died
before we affirmed the value
of what you did?
That word picture of you which the parson painted
made the funeral service come to life,
made it a real celebration,
a celebration of you.
But how much better it would have been
if we could have addressed
even a fraction of it to your face
rather than to your corpse.
How different your life might have been
if in the process of
“telling you what we thought of you”
we had reminded you of
your strengths as well as your weaknesses,
your potential as well as your failures
and increased your faith in yourself
instead of adding to the burden
of your guilt and insecurity.
God, may we turn our values upside down
so that
affirming each other while we are still alive,
celebrating what is imperfect and
enjoying what is still in process,
we may create the soil
in which the human spirit grows.
1 Corinthians 1:4
LIFE
Listening to the man in the cubicle next to me in hospital I became aware that despite the nurse encouraging him to live he was in fact expressing a will to die. The word ‘Hospice’ emerged. Neither the nurse, the patient or myself knew where the hospices were located. Such is what seems to me to be an obsession with the metaphysical idea of life that we have given life an absolute status, independent of the processes of the Cosmos. Surely, it would be more humane to let each individual listen to what the processes of the Cosmos are saying to them about the right time to die, rather than to try to impose on them a humanly crafted idea of the right of other people to determine what is right or wrong for a particular individual. My hope is that when it comes to an appropriate time for me to die society will be compassionate enough to allow me to terminate my life, regardless of the desires of others to impose their wishes upon me assuming some God-like superiority.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
LOGO NOTE: At the heart of the mystery all the separate boxes disappear and all is one, all is love.
Text and graphic © William Livingstone Wallace but available for free use.
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