WHEN IT COMES TIME TO TURN OFF THE LIGHTS

COMMEMERATION OF THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED  

All Souls Day

The souls of the just are in the hand of God,

and no torment shall touch them.

They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;

and their passing away was thought an affliction

and their going forth from us, utter destruction.

But they are in peace.

THE BOOK OF WISDOM 

3:1-3

I have given many funeral homilies in the the last 52 years. Looking back and looking forward, I am beginning to realize that probably much of what I said could have been at times a little too facile? Other people's deaths are much easier to talk about than talking about one's own death! Even at that, I am certainly not scared to either think about death, or write about it, or talk about it! 

My own death, while not something I obsess about, is something that crosses my mind a lot more than it used to. As I march toward my 78th birthday this coming April, I will have outlived my mother by 20 years and my father by 5 years. I will have outlived my maternal grandmother by 9 years and I will have outlived my maternal grandfather in just 4 years. I will have lived just as long as my paternal grandparents in just 3 years. Even though I hope to outlive all of them, I can hear the hounds of death barking over the horizon! 

I have 6 siblings. I am next to the oldest. I have an older sister. My next to the youngest sibling, a sister,  died 3 years ago. There were  35 in my ordination class of 1970. 9 of them have already died!  It is obvious that there are a lot more miles behind me than in front of me in the most optimistic of circumstances. I like the advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. who said that the awareness of death should make one want to live as consciously as possible before it overtakes you!  

I am not one to obsess about dying, even though it seems much more real than it did just ten years ago. I am certainly not like one of those saints from years ago who kept a skull on their writing desks with the words "Memento Mori," "Remember Death." No, instead, I have a pillow on my bed that says, "The Best is Yet to Come to remind me to "Carpe Diem," to "Seize the Day!" As I have said before, I try to have my end-of-life plans up to date, keep them filed away and try to forget them until it is time to update them again. Today, I want to focus my time and energy on making the most of the time I have left, not wasting it by dwelling on how little time I might have left! 

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may. 

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

You may forever tarry.

Robert Herrick 

                                                               

 

I have no children. I do not own a business. I have no monuments erected in my honor. Most of what I will leave behind will hopefully be a decent reputation, some good memories in the minds of those who have come across my path and maybe some of my printed, preached and hopefully remembered "encouraging words" to those hurting people who needed to hear them. That will have to be my legacy.