Dealing with Death...Sorta

photo by christina ritz / flickr

Years ago I remember the day someone knocked on our door at home. My father opened it. A man stood on the other side. “I have come to see you because I thought you would like a funeral policy. I can come in right now and sign you up for a policy so that after you are gone your family won’t have to deal with all of this…” The door slammed. My father turned and stalked away. He did not want to talk about dying and funeral arrangements. He shoved it back into he corner and turned to something else.

I can understand now what I did not know then. Wayne Oates, Pastoral counselor used to call this finitude anxiety. This was a fancy title for people whose blood pressure goes up when they think of their own deaths. Most days, I think most of us would like to do what my father did that day years ago. We would like to slam the door on this death talk and forget it. 

Some of us who have lost someone say that they can’t wait to leave here and be united with their loved ones. Some, weary of suffering wish it would all end. Others in desperation end it all for many reasons. 

Yet none of us can really slam that hard door. It won’t go away because one of these days sooner or later we will have to walk through what the Psalmist called:  “the valley of the shadows.” Often it isn’t our death that we fear was much as the loss of a loved one. A mate, a child—a friend. It was unthinkable to think that one day they are here and the next their chair is empty and the loss is incalculable. When Mark Twain lost his little daughter he said it was like the burning down of your house. It would years and years to deal with reckon with all you lost. 

Last week my wife and I sat down at the funeral home and talked about funeral planning. It is much worse than any trip to the dentist. To sit around a table with someone you love deeply and begin to think about their death—your death really is a frightening thing. The director gently led us through the process. What kind of service?Where would it be? Casket—what kind. Visitation? What about the obituary? 

Outside the leaves were turning. The colors were spectacular. And the wind blew quietly. It was a beautiful day filled with life and beauty and wonder. I remember someone saying: “in the kingdom of God it is always October.” Who knows? I hope so—this is my favorite month.

But around that table we were forced to think of all the practicalities of what happens when we are not here. We listened to the man reeling out the possibilities. We finally took a deep breath, looked at each other and decided to choose cremation and as simple as the arrangements could be.

We left there mostly in silence. October was all around us. And life was everywhere we looked. College kids jogged down the road. The grocery store lot was full of cars. The radio played softly. And my flowers are still blooming. And there are hummingbirds and fat bumble bees and even some butterflies. And I know now what I did not know when my father slammed that door years ago. Who wants to stare death for ourselves and for those we love?

Once Arthur Godfrey, TV star of another day was in a plane one night as it passed over New York City. Down below the lights of the city were spectacular. It looked like Christmas. And Arthur Godfrey turned to a friend and said, “You know it makes me so damn mad. That one day all that will still be there and I won’t be around to enjoy it.”

I could end these words about life and how we ought to squeeze every last drop we have while we are here. And I will try to do that. And I hope you will too. Yet like Arthur Godfrey I understand how he felt that darkened night in that plane looking down on the glittering lights. 

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Birthday Musings

When you turn 84--what? 84. That's right. 8...4. Hmm. What do you say? You look back 
all the way.  To that Tuesday morning when I came into the world . Looking around I saw my Mama and Papa proud, after years of trying for a baby. And it was me. Lying there in that four-toom house across from the mill--with the train tracks in front of the house. I never did learn which side of the tracks we were on. Dirt poor. But not even knowing it--maybe that one one of the many gifts my parents gave to me. 

Out of their poverty they held and diapered me and did what they could. In my early years some days I wished I had other parents, another life. But one day I wisely woke up to know that other parents and another life was just some myth. I got all I needed and more. Later a brother whom we lost months ago. My parents also gave me a church.  And staring down from over the pulpit was the picture of the kneeling Jesus. He stayed with me all these years. Wherever I went and whatever I did--Jesus knelt in the garden and loved me and cared for me on good days and especially on the bad days--many self-inflicted. And all those Sunday school teachers and scout leaders and camp counselors and visiting preachers. They left their fingerprints all over my life. 

And there were friends. Like my parents, I think I just took my friends for granted. Not 

knowing that they would grace my life from then until now. Edward and Ronald--both dead. And teachers that opened the door to a bigger world that I did not even know was out there. Miss Beggs...first grade teacher I can see her to this very day. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was the first of so many. 

And the tiny world in that tiny house things kept getting bigger. There was a President named Roosevelt. And soldiers from Fort Benning. And Hitler, too over there somewhere. I had no idea how much damage he would do to so many. And even today the hate he taught is still with us at the margins. But there was

black Nancy our maid that taught me that folks that didn't look like us were just as important as we were. I remember Doug the adult shoe-shine man who stood at the corner scary and taught me even then that maybe

he had a heart and feelings and needs. And there was Tempie up the street that started working in the mill when she must have been eleven. And so they poured into my life a concern for the underdog whoever they were. And even now I look back at all the injustice I have seen and all the unfairness in the lives of so many. And I haven't done much to help or change this picture but I have tried every step of the way. Everybody counts.

College stretched me. And the friends I made and the teachers I had kept shaping me. And back home there was a Mama that would send me fifteen crumpled up dollars every week so that I could stay

in school. I learned about books and ideas and what was happening in the fifties in Montgomery would change the world and me, too.


There was Seminary and more books. But most important a girl. Beautiful and talented that slowly began to love me and one day marry me. How long ago? 58 years. And I have been blessed in ways I cannot even begin to describe. But simply 
t

this: she loved me and stood by me and believed in me especially on those days when I did not believe in myself. When I am gone if they opened me up there would be one name written large across my heart and that name would be Gayle. God knows, I have-not deserved her and I have dragged her all over--and yet she has stood by always. And so there came to us two children--red heads. A girl first and then a boy. And there is no way I can even begin to say how much I love them and how proud I am of them. How different life would have been without them and my two granddaughters.

Add to these all these the six churches I served. They were as different as any churches could be. And after my retirement I served eight other churches as preacher and interim pastor. And like my family and friends they stretched me and taught me about faith and hope and love. They opened up their arms and took me and my family in. And even if they did not listen some Sundays they accepted me and cheered me on. 
.

When Raymond Carver, very sick with cancer, he wrote this poem about: "Gravy." He wrote: "No other word will do. For that's what it was. Gravy."

I think Mr. Carver was right. Despite all the ups and downs and the old black dog of depression that has dogged so many of my days--it really has been gravy. And so at 84 I may be not be able to blow out all my candles--well, maybe I can. But this I know I lift up my heart with thanks. I am a lucky man.    

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

The Flag Is Still There...

America these days Is trying to decide what it means to be a patriot and an American. The country is eerily divided over who we are and what we are be. I don't have to name our divisions--we all know them.The pundits make sure that we know what's going on. Maybe what is not what is going on. 

The first picture here I took last week in Oregon. I almost stopped and knocked on the door behind this sign. For these folk capture the vision of a country for all. Like the Statue of Liberty they call us back to the "we...the people" that we have held up through the years as our promise to ourselves and to the world. But we all know that the struggle to live up to our dreams is an unending  challenge to define what America truly is.

These other pictures moved me as I saw them. Ponder their meanings as we really do try to ponder what truly makes America great.

These other pictures by artists have laid out how they feel about who and where we are. 

photo by Steve Baker / flickr

Bill Coffin once said "How do you love America? Don't say 'My country, right or wrong.' That's like saying,. 'My grandmother drunk or sober.' it doesn't get you anywhere. Don't just salute the flag, and don't burn it either. Wash it. Make it clean."

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com