Meditational Thoughts for the Celebration of a Life

I thought I would share with you both the scripture that I refer to as well as this meditational thought as I reflected upon in response to being asked to officiate at a persons funeral who would consider themselves "unchurched". There are many in our country that do not have direct relationships with any denomination or particular church, yet they would consider themselves as being Spiritual. So what does or what can a pastor of the Christian religion say to those families that do not identify themselves as Christian, yet recognize that there is a power beyond how the church defines God? This I think is one of the biggest challenges of Christianity today, that of being able to relate to, comfort, and verbalize the love that God has for all of Creation without using "church language". A second challenge for todays ministers and congregations is to become more humble and throw off the chains of arrogance that organized religion in general presents itself with and examine the premise of life, both in this physical world and beyond. We are just starting to learn the inter-relatedness of atoms and sub-atomic life, is it not possible, then for us to start examining the traditional understanding of the relationship of spirit with that of God and entertain the possibility that God's wish of reconcilition goes far beyond and much deeper than what we have previously understood?
With these questions being raised, I now share with you a meditational thought that I presented yesterday at a "Celebration of Life" for a man who died suddenly and was not identified in the traditional sense as being a Christian, but was a spiritual individual and lived life by the qualities that Jesus the Christ would say were in line with our Creator God, our loving Parent!

Psalm 121:
I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from God, the Maker of heaven and earth. The Heavenly Creator will not let your foot slip – God watches over you and never slumbers; indeed, God watches over all humanity and never slumbers. Your Heavenly Parent watches over you. Your Eternal Parent will keep you from all harm- It is God who watches over your life; God will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

MEDITATIONAL THOUGHTS
In Psalm 121, we read the thoughts the Psalmist had as he reflects over his relationship with God. One of the lines reads, “Your Eternal Parent will keep you from all harm…” When we find ourselves dealing with the loss of a brother or father or friend that comes from death, especially when it is sudden and unexpected such as with (incert name), it is hard for us to believe in words that say, God will keep us from all harm. Yet, we read these Psalms as a way of giving us comfort and eventual healing of the broken hearts that come when someone we love has left us and moved on into the next plain of life.
Life is a curious thing. As human beings we have only a three dimensional perspective. We see life only as it is contained within what we call our bodies. Because of our finite abilities, we can only recognize and define life as seen through our eyes and experienced with these bodies. This is our reality: that life begins once we are born and that it ends once our body ceases to function. Therefore, when we hear phrases like, God will keep us from all harm, we find it hard, sometimes even impossible to reconcile the realities of a physical death when it doesn’t match up with our perceptions of what living means.
Living life is a paradox. We see it only as what we do between the time that we are born until the time that we say death has come. Yet there is so much more about life that we experience but cannot physically see or rationally explain. Things like emotions, of love and hate, of what motivates us, or not understanding things that hold us back. We cannot really understand the things that give us joy, or what can bring sadness. All of these things are a part of living life, as we experience events within the mechanical functions that we call our body.
There are aspects of living life that come in the way that we interact with other human beings. We too often judge a person as having been good or not so good by how they interact with those around them. [this portions deals with some specific examples of how this individual related to those that are called friends and/or family] (insert name) was the type of a person who looked after people. (He/she) would help friends out in small but meaningful ways, such as bringing in the mail for friends, or staying on the phone late at night, giving weather reports and road conditions to friends as they would leave work and make a late night drive home from Rock Springs to Superior. (insert name)was a blessing to family and friends! And in return, those of you how took (insert name) hunting with you, or arrowhead hunting, or fishing, or letting (insert name) drive on the back hills, you were a blessing to (insert name) life as well.
You see, life as we live it within these fragile bodies, really is about relationships. It is much less about the physical aspects that we see and can touch, but more about the invisible, non-tangible things about life. It is about the joys we share with one another, it is about the pain we fell when others are struggling. It is about the acts of kindness that we not only do toward others, but also in receiving acts of generosity. Living life is about being a part of a community, a community made up of family and of friends and of strangers.
Life goes beyond this physical world. It is made up of so much more than what our physical, finite bodies can understand. This is what the Psalmist is really trying to tell us, when he says that God will keep us from harm. God see’s each and every one of us as belonging to him, as God's children. It is the love of a parent that always keep the parent on watch of their child. Although we cannot prove the existence of this parent of ours, we see, God in many ways in this world. We see God through the majestic landscape, we see God in the birth of a new born child, we see God in the eyes of two people in love, we see God in the goodness that we as human beings can give to one another. We can see God, through having personal experiences with people like (insert name).
Life is not always easy to cope with. There are times that we feel anger, or hate, or wounded, especially by those that we love. But there are also times for joy, and love, times of appreciation, as well as times of just shear silliness. We know that physical life as we experience it in these bodies, at some point comes to an end. When that happens to a friend or one that we deeply love, the pain seems almost unbearable. We deeply greive when someone dies at an early age like (insert), but also, our pain comes from the hole that is left in our life with their passing. Sometimes when someone like (insert) dies, we become fearful about death itself and wonder if this life is all there is and that once we leave this body that we have occupied for so long, that there is nothing beyond and we truly cease to exist.
These are the intangible aspects of life that the Psalmist shares with us, about the everlasting love and care that comes from God for creation. This is what Jesus was talking about to Martha and Mary as he talked with them about their brother Lazarus’ death, that through Jesus’ love for all of God’s creation, nobody ultimately dies but lives. It is a life in another dimension that we are not able to comprehend, but deep down in our souls, believe exists. During this time of lose, hold fast to these words, That God watches over our lives; God watches over our coming and going both now and forevermore.