Today, I officiated my first memorial service. 

To this point, all of the services that I've done have been weddings.  A wedding is a happy occasion.  Everyone is eager, excited, and for the most part full of good feelings.  If you can keep that mood going in your ceremony, all goes well, even if you screw up.  And you will.  But you laugh, hope everyone laughs with you, and keep going.  I think that you'd have to screw up pretty badly to do a wedding badly.

A memorial is a different thing entirely.  Paul was a man who was very much loved and respected, by everyone who knew him.  A teacher, a mentor, a husband and father.  I wanted very much to do this well, but at a memorial you don't have the buffer of happy feelings.  You have memories of someone who touched many, many lives, and now lives on only in their memories.  Memorial services are ways for people to connect with those memories and feeling, and share them.  The sharing somehow eases the pain of loss, by dilutes it with other memories.  When you know that other people are sharing your feelings, it is easier for you to feel them.

This was one of the most difficult things that I've done as a clergy person, but I'm glad that I did it.  Weddings are a transition into a new life.  Death is another transition entirely, but the transition is for the people who are left behind.  Rather than joining two lives together, death is separating one life from many, many other lives.   It's as much a part of life as birth is, and it needs to be respected, and acknowledged.  The best way, I think, to do that, is to keep the memory of the one who's passed fresh, and the best way for that is to share those memories.  Too often in our clean, sterile, technological culture, death is seen as something to be avoided, and hidden away, and hidden from.  We've lost the intimacy with death that our ancestors and other cultures who live and lived closer to the bone have.  Sharing the memories, and speaking of the life of the person who's died is the best way to keep them with us.  The Roman philosopher Seneca wrote "Let us not be gripped by the fear of death.  If another day be added to our lives, let us joyfully receive it, but let us not anxiously depend on our tomorrows.  Though we grieve the deaths of our loved ones, we accept them and hold on to our memories as precious gifts."  Paul's greatest legacy was the gift of love that he shared with everyone around him.  That love will remain as long as his memory does.  This is a lesson that I should know, but it's too easy to forget in the rumble and noise of life.

So live well, and love the people who share your life.  They are precious gifts, and the gift of tomorrows will not always come.  Life is too short for anger, and resentment, and scorekeeping.  Memories are all that you will leave, so leave good ones.  And when you remember someone, remember them with love, too.

Peace,