Dear Life Lovers:

On the office wall behind my chaplaincy supervisor’s desk was a large banner, a burlap and felt thing the design of which festooned many a 1970s worship space. Its proportions betrayed its purpose for a church sanctuary, not the cramped space of a chaplain’s office down an obscure corridor in an expanding research hospital complex.

Multicolored lettering was intertwined with jute cord glued to the burlap to convey growing vines with little felt leaves; the vines twisted through the lettering, giving it a festive quality, though the words themselves were quite somber. The banner read, “Life is a series of goodbyes preparing us for death.”

I was thinking about that banner the other day as I was reading this past Sunday’s text from John 14: “Let not your hearts be troubled, trust in God… many mansions… I am the way, the truth and the life.” My sermon was about the gift of our one and only precious life and how we need to be aware of God’s grace not only in the hour of our death but in every hour that precedes it. At least that’s what I think it was about; I’ve learned over the years that people sometimes hear different things from the same sermon. If you heard something else, that’s okay; it's far more important to follow where God was taking you while I happened to be talking.

Preparing for the sermon, I reacquainted myself with the writings of undertaker and poet Thomas Lynch. He was the principal contributor for a 2007 Frontline series on dying and funerals called The Undertaking; it is available online. Lynch wrote an essay about preparations for his own inevitable funeral, and in it he frequently recommends that the living do what they need to do, not what they think he would want. Though it will be called his funeral, in reality, it is theirs. On the subject of clergy, Lynch wrote, “Be wary of anyone who knows what to say.”

Which brings me to today’s musing. We have no idea whether this is the waning end of our battle against the hated virus, the middle skirmish or the tragic beginnings. Human negotiations with previous pandemics are reminders of our short attention span; second and third waves reoccur not for lack of information but for lack of patience. We should be done now; I know I am. In my impatience I find myself growing numb to the statistics, cynically aware that we are not preventing deaths, only postponing them. We should get back to normal...except protecting one another from unnecessary suffering and premature death is what normal should always be. 

Life is a series of goodbyes preparing us for death. I have thought of that quote many times in my more than three decades of pastoral ministry, including over 600 funerals or memorials and over 500 prayers at graveside. And with those memories, I wash may hands…again, put on my mask and figure out how to get through the day while looking for ways to make things safer and more graceful for others with whom I share mortality. I don’t have answers. I remain wary of those who think they know what to say.

In our series of goodbyes, death is not a metaphor; everything else is.  

Fully planning to see you later, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor