Living With Dying

You can’t miss Halloween. It’s second only to Christmas in the sale of decorations. It’s fun for the kids and God knows we can use a little bit of that right now! But with all the war, death, suffering, and destruction going on in our world today, it’s almost as if we are living in All Hallows Eve, the dark night when our ancestors believed the powers of evil were having a last fling before the celebration of the victory of life over death on All Saints’ Day. It’s a good time to think about the connection between the way we live and the way we die. To that end, I’m repeating a post I wrote last year. It’s as true now as it was then!

Final Arrangements

My best friend and his wife were making their funeral and burial plans. He emailed to let me know he had named me to deliver the eulogy in his service. I wrote back that I had done the same thing with his name several years ago. It looks like we’re in a race to see who gets to do it!

My wife and I made our plans (and paid for them!) several years ago. It’s something I recommend, not only for obviously practical reasons, but because thinking about how we want to end our lives can help us think about how want to live them.

Eulogy Virtues vs Resume Virtues

In The Road to Character, David Brooks defined “resume virtues” as “the ones you list on your resume, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to exernal success.” By contrast, “eulogy virtues” are “virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being.“

The “resume” virtues are important, but they are ultimately temporal; “eulogy” virtues last forever. They point to the core values by which we live; the stuff that makes us who we are. The writer of the 119th Psalm was talking about “eulogy” virtues in declaring:

Lord, you are righteous,
    and your rules are right.

Your word has been tried and tested;
    your servant loves your word!
Your righteousness lasts forever!
    
Stress and strain have caught up with me,
    but your commandments are my joy!
Your laws are righteous forever.
    Help me understand so I can live! (Ps 119:137-144)

When my father made his “final arrangements,” he instructed that his gravestone include words (perhaps from Charles Wesley or E. Stanley Jones), “May I commend my Jesus to you.”

The way he lived was the way he died and the way he died was the way he lived. So, what will they say at our funerals? What will folks remember about the way we lived?

The Way We Live & the Way We Die

The good news is that we get to determine now what they say about us then. And what we hope people will say about us then can help determine how we live now. The psalmist prayed, “Help me understand so I can live!”

I’m writing on the day the Anglican tradition remembers Alfred the Great (849-899 AD) who led in restoring learning, culture, and the Church after the Viking invasions in England. He is remembered for saying,

“He seems to me to be a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear.”

I don’t intend to make use of those “final arrangements” any time soon! But I would be “a very foolish man, a very wretched” if I didn’t use it as a reminder to “increase in understanding” even as I aim for “that endless life where all shall be made clear.”

Remembering the Saints

All Saints’ Day (November 1) is the great celebration of the victory of light and life over the powers of darkness and death. It’s the day we remember all those faithful people who died the way they lived and who live now in the new life of the resurrection.

The walls of the sanctuary in The Cathedral of Our Lady and the Angels in Los Angeles are lined with tapestries that portray saints from all races, times and places. (See Rev. 7:9.) Entering that space we walk with them and they walk with us toward the table where we share the bread and cup in “sure and certain hope of resurrection.”

Don’t miss the connection between “then” and “now” when we sing “For All the Saints.” (Hear it here at the funeral of George Herbert Walker Bush.)

For all the saints, who from their labors rest, 
who thee by faith before the world confessed, 
thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. 
Alleluia, Alleluia! 

O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold, 
fight as the saints who nobly fought of old, 
and win with them the victor’s crown of gold. 
Alleluia, Alleluia! 

O blest communion, fellowship divine! 
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; 
yet all are one in thee, for all are thine. 
Alleluia, Alleluia! 

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, 
steals on the ear the distant triumph song, 
and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. 
Alleluia, Alleluia! 

So, I plan to live as fully into my eulogy values as I can before I die. As our pastor often asks at the end of his sermons, How about you?

Grace and peace,

Jim