The Paterfamilias

One of my favorite Brad Paisley songs tells the story of a woman who isn’t anything special to most of the world, “To the teller down at the bank, you’re just another checking account, to the plumber who came today, you’re just another house…”  But to the person who is singing the song, the woman is something pretty special.  “To the world, you may be just another girl.  But to me, baby you are the world,”. 

My Poppa died this week.  To most of the world he was just another guy.  But to those of us who knew and loved him, he was our world.  He lived the American dream, rising from humble beginnings to be the first in his family to graduate college, persevered through a long career in the business world, which culminated in buying and building a successful company.  He then sold the company to live out the kind of retirement we all dream of: travel, living in beautiful places, investing time and money in the causes he believed in, and most of all, spending time with family and friends.  The life that he and his wife of sixty years built together has supported and inspired all of us who came from them, and although we knew his death was coming, it’s still jarring and surprising to be standing together in this place of loss.

Probably our first picture together, and first of him as a grandpa

I don’t feel like I knew my Poppa very well, and part of that is because he lived two-thirds of his life before I was even born.  I don't really know what he was like as a child, as a young man, as a young parent, in middle age.  I’m so grateful for the many, many trips they took across the country to visit us through the years as I was growing up.  I’m grateful for the interest he took in my hobbies and schooling and family.  Because of those efforts, I did know him and he knew me.  But what I do know for certain about my Poppa is that he was a man of faith, and the importance of faith is something he and I shared.

Poppa with the first two of nine grandchildren

Aside from great-grandparents (who I didn’t really know) passing away, this is my first experience with death.  I feel like I have been very sheltered, being able to say that after 31 years of life.  And since faith is so important to me, I am trying to come to grips with what has happened through the lens of faith.  There are all kinds of platitudes about death.  He’s in a better place, he’s not suffering anymore, he’s at peace, it was his time.  And while I don’t disagree with any of these comforting thoughts, I think there is much more to his death, which I am bold enough to say wasn’t really, or wasn't just, a death. 

This is the picture I went searching for right after I found out he was gone

My Christian faith tradition teaches that life on this earth is not all that there is.  Because Jesus came to earth, died, and rose again, we humans have been united with God in an eternal life.  And the end of this life is just the beginning of that eternal one.  And in that life, my Poppa’s body is whole again and stronger than he has been in years.  He is finally with his parents again.  He is enjoying the mountain views that he loved and having long conversations with God about all the questions about life that one inevitably accumulates during 82 years of life.  He is living in the fullness of God and waiting for all of us to be with him again one day.

 

Or at least that’s some of what I’m thinking to comfort myself.  I don’t know if his faith would have led him to agree with my personal platitudes of what happens after life on earth.  My mind keeps turning around lyrics from songs I know that speak of this time in life, which we can really only speculate about...

“With your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye, 

and go in peace and laugh on glory’s side, 

and fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus – 

and live” 

(Chris Rice, Untitled Hymn)

“Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel?

Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still?   

Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall?   

Will I sing alleluia, will I be able to speak at all?

...  

I can only imagine, what my eyes will see when your face is before me, I can only imagine” 

(MercyMe, I Can Only Imagine)

His funeral mass is next week, after which I have to quickly shift gears and be physically and mentally present at school for a few days.  So I’m writing this now knowing that my grieving and processing has barely begun.  I’m pretty sure my break down moment will come during the Mass, because while I don’t know much about death, I do have a sense that this is a sacred time.  Because God is powerfully with us, and so Poppa is with us too, and this incredible time, of linking this life to death to eternal life, is new and uncharted and sad and, for me, so full of hope.

"One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple."

Psalm 27: 4

Congratulations, Poppa, on living this life so well.  I can't wait to be with you again in the next, and will keep working to honor your legacy down here.  Love you always.

This little guy, partly named for Poppa - he is and will be the legacy of both of us

    

Transfigured

The sermon I heard this morning started with a question.  "Why do you come to church?"  It was an amazingly appropriate question, as I have been pondering church and the meaning of church for several months now.  It probably started last summer when Hubby T and I closed the doors on the season we spent at our first church and started looking for a new church near our new home.  We quickly realized that searching for a church as a family was going to be much harder than searching for a church as a couple had been.  So we put some serious thought into what features of a church were important for us and started looking.  Then my school semester started and my Old Testament professor showed us scripture after scripture that indicates that worship of God should really be about action and what we as God's people are doing to bring God's justice and love into being here on earth.  Now if you evaluate a church through that lens, almost all of them will miserably fail.  Most churches are incredibly inward focused, and I was left wondering whether a church even existed that met this standard, or what it meant to be part of a church that didn't meet this standard.  Then over Christmas I caught up with a friend who has chosen to leave a mainline Protestant church to "do" church in yet another completely different way.  My head has been spinning.  What does God want church to look like, and does it line up at all with the way most American churches look?  Have we all been getting it all wrong?

So back to this morning, which found Hubby T and I at the "Bagels with the Clergy" meeting for newcomers at the church we are considering settling in.  It hasn't been an easy journey to find a new church home here in our new place, and we're still not completely sure of our decision.  But it's where we are for now.  After an encouraging meeting with the church leaders we settled into the new rhythm of the Episcopalian service and sat back to listen to the sermon.  "Why do you come to church?"  There are lots of reasons that I could offer to this question: for friendship and fellowship, to worship, to learn, to be centered, to find opportunities to serve the community.  But the gospel reading for today led to yet another answer - to be transformed.  The transfiguration story finds the disciples on a mountain top with Jesus, who suddenly is transformed into an image of his fully divine self.  The disciples are dumb-struck, but they hear God clearly speaking, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"  The disciples may have seen Jesus transfigured, but you have to figure that they are the ones who walked away truly changed.  And that was the suggestion of the sermon - you come to church to be transformed by God.  And (this part comes from me) this is what allows us, as Christians, to do the work my Old Testament professor called for, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.  So maybe, just maybe, I was given some divine clarification today of what church should mean to me.  Thank you Lord.

Lent starts this week, the church season where we anticipate and prepare for Jesus' death, and then the resurrection.  I plan on taking Little B to the children's service on Wednesday to experience an Ash Wednesday service together.  I have an idea for a daily devotional action that we can do as a family to recognize this season.  And I'm thinking ahead, because for the past couple years, I have ordered a picture puzzle that the kids receive in their Easter eggs on Easter Sunday.  The picture is from the previous year and represents an experience or memory of what church has meant for our kids during that year.  And this year I have no picture.  We spent so much time away from any church this year and easing the boys into a new church has been slow and hard.  How do I want my kids to remember experiencing God this year?  A year when so much in their lives changed.  Quite possibly it will be a picture from outside church walls, which is yet another valid way to define church.  So here I go again, wondering what church means.  I have no doubt that God is working in this season of searching, and am cautiously hopeful for the next steps to be revealed...

"And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.  Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart..." 2 Corinthians 3:18-4:1