BACKGROUND:
Last week I gave a talk/sermon at my Mother's funeral. 3 other children spoke more specifically about memories and family I gave myself the assignment of giving the more religious talk on the subject of:
- death
- mourning
- hope
- eternity
GOAL OF TALK : Help all those there use hope process death in a more uplifting way.
WHY PUBLISH IT?
I'm publishing it here because
- I want to remember it
- I have been asked to share the text by a couple people that were there
- Maybe because someone out there is struggling through the mourning process and maybe someone will appreciate this message of hope.
For example in about 30 minutes I'm heading to the funeral of a friend I knew from my time living in Bolivia 20 years ago. Because of cancer he leaves behind a beautiful family way too soon and kids that really still needed him. While my mother was ready and itching to move on. It's two very different stories but some of these quotes still help.
Also because now you can perhaps get an understanding why I'm not a big fan of the phrase "Sorry for your loss" I understand why people say it ... however there's soooo much else to see in the story for my family. There is so much to celebrate in her life and so much to celebrate with the hope we have. Mourning has tears but must be tempered by hope otherwise it is a complete tragedy.
This is my family that were there at the funeral.
ACTUAL AUDIO
The talk is 15 minutes long... feel free to watch in 1.5x speed or something like that.
ORIGINAL TEXT
No one has any illusions that i'm short of words, but it's going to be good.
I'll start with a quote from a talk by Russel Nelson called Doors of death
Irrespective of age, we mourn for those loved and lost. Mourning is one of the deepest expressions of pure love. It is a natural response in complete accord with divine commandment: “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die.” (D&C 42:45.)
Moreover, we can’t fully appreciate joyful reunions later without tearful separations now. The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.
-- Russel Nelson... "Doors of Death"
My mother Kathy Jarvie has left us and your love for her has been separated by space and time, as has her love for you. You may still access the fealings with memories and stories like shared today. And the spirit of God may testify to these truths and you may be feeling them deeply today.
That separation that causes us to mourn is real we feel it deeply.
For me one of the most powerful Gospel teachers of my life has been Neal A Maxwell, a true disciple, and so I will share multiple quotes from his addresses.
Our tears are just as wet, but not because of despair. Rather, they are tears of heightened appreciation evoked by poignant separation.
-- Neal Maxwell "Hope through the Atonement of Jesus Christ"
I hope and pray that We know we will be reunited, after this seperation, we have had many promises to this effect. We know Christ sacrificed himself in order to bring about the gift of the resurrection. We know after death there will be a merciful and just judgement and that our bodies (then perfected) will be reunited with our spirits.
So WHY with all this knowledge would it still hurt... even if you feel strongly like many of us do that we WILL be reunited. Why the pain and sorrow?
In doors of death Nelson states.
Death separates “the spirit and the body [which] are the soul of man.” (D&C 88:15.) That separation evokes pangs of sorrow and shock among those left behind. The hurt is real. Only its intensity varies. Some doors are heavier than others. The sense of tragedy may be related to age. Generally the younger the victim, the greater the grief. Yet even when the elderly or infirm have been afforded merciful relief, their loved ones are rarely ready to let go. The only length of life that seems to satisfy the longings of the human heart is life everlasting.
-_ Russel Nelson... "Doors of Death"
I believe our heart and soul UNDERSTANDS the deepness of this truth. The deeply felt truth being: that we are eternal in nature, if death seem so wrong or unnatural and rub us the wrong way it's because deep down we are actually eternal beings. The clock of earthly time seems to be so foreign to the eternities. Time has made this worldly experience unique ... however the idea of 79 short years, seems to be strange to a soul that can grasp the validity of eternity.
A beautiful comparison by maxwell:
Therefore, on a clear night, though we see stars of incomprehensible longevity, they are not immortal. But, thankfully, we are!
-- Neal Maxwell, "Encircled in the Arms of His Love"
One of my favorite analogies goes something like this:
Imagine a seagull flying up from San Diego (Where we lived for 15 years) and landing on the top of Mt Shasta (which though about 100 miles away you can see from here, it's massive) the seagull grabs a grain of sand and then flies back across all of California landing on Coronado island (where my mother loved to visit the beautiful Christmas tree) and the seagull deposits that grain of sand. This abnormally hardy seagull then flies back to Mt Shasta and repeats the process. He does it again and again and again... until he has in fact moved all of Mt Shasta from northern california to southern. Every flight there and back for one grain of sand. Spending time to chisel out of a rock with his stupidly strong beak a grain from the mighty boulders and fly to Coronado. This entire grand undertaking is yet just a small fraction of eternity.
Do we believe God is eternal, do we believe his word that we can have eternal life? Do we grasp the meaning of eternity and eternal life? And now how does that change the way we see this life, how does it change how we view the promises of God's grand and eternal rewards and how does eternity change our view of death.
Nelson says:
We need not look upon death as an enemy. With full understanding and preparation, faith supplants fear. Hope displaces despair.
- Russel Nelson... "Doors of Death"
So what do we use to find a path through the mourning? What do we have at our disposal to temper the feelings of despair? It is HOPE, a hope of eternity, a hope of eternal progress and joy. On the otherhand You may of course choose to limit the amount you love and feel less pangs of separation. Or you can increase with your love, knowing love can cause us to feel things deeply and add to the equation a healthy dose of Hope via the path of faith.
Your fear can be supplanted by faith. Your despair healed by Hope.
Hope stands quietly with us at funerals.
Says maxwell...
And because I love this quote he then says
Our tears are just as wet, but not because of despair.
-- Neal Maxwell "Hope through the atonement"
Christ said:
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
-- (John 14:27.)
And why not be afraid, why not despair... because there are great and marvelous truths we sometimes just don't understand. God comprehends it all and he tries to impart a bit of that truth to us ... and this truth has the power to put things in perspective.
From my 30+ years communicating with my mother I know she was a worrier, she was anxious from time to time, her big big heart could not handle some things. To me it seemed pain and hurt were just so wrong to her. She was among many many people that probably asked herself "why God? Why do they have to suffer? Why did her body fail her? Why did her husband have to suffer pain during the last week of his life? Why do we have scriptures that talks of war and people doing bad things? I believe Her heart was not built to fully understand the reasonings behind pain, war and wickedness, she could not see how people could possibly perpetrate these things nor how God would allow them. This is a testament to how these things were so foreign to who she was. And I can understand that inner turmoil of living in a gospel that taught the greatest objective was pure love and kindness and yet also a gospel that also taught that man was free and that God (even though he does not cause it) not only allowed pain and death but used actually them. He cast out satan from the garden but not from the world. Why?
Maxwell teaches us:
Life turns out, however, to be just what one would expect of a deliberately constructed proving and tutoring experience which features opportunities, choices, and deprivations. Furthermore, there is no way around—the only way to go is through!
-- Neal Maxwell "The Great plan of happiness"
Acts 14:22 "That we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God"
Hebrews 12:6 "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."
1 Peter 4:12 "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you"
These trials, these pains, these broken hearts, this time of mourning and even death is NOT some strange thing. It is not some anomaly in the plan of God, this IS the plan of God. It's not about our never-ending comfort but our never-ending progression. Happiness because of who God is, WHO we are and our relationship with HIM ... not happiness dependent on circumstance. I understand that these realities put us sometimes at odds with God ...and lead us to asking "Why God". May the reality of Eternity help to placate this angst you may feel.
When you realize this is like a mother telling their child they have to eat their cooked spinach or disgusting olives at dinner and the child so deeply hurt not understanding why the mom would be so mean and vicious, not understanding the greater reasoning behind it, not understand what the mother may have in store after dinner. The mother has no pleasure in the very real emotional distress of a child... yet the parent knows in about 1 minute's time as they finish their dinner the child will receive that wonderful bowl chocolate ice cream with some of dad's great cookies.
This is my testimony. That God loves us, and it's not despite his refining fire, it's because of this. It's not despite death. It's through what death leads to that i know he has a loving plan... I testify that we are indeed immortal beings. Older than the grand canyon, older than mt shasta. The person next to you will exist longer than the oldest star in the furthest reaches of the galaxies.
And to close another maxwell talk:
Since this life is such a brief experience, there must be regular exit routes. Some easy. Some hard. Some sudden. Others lingering. Therefore, we cannot presume, even by faith, to block all these exits, all the time, and for all people. Nor, if possessed of full, eternal perspective, would we desire so to do. - Neal Maxwell "The Great plan of happiness"
I feel deeply for my mother. I would love to have her here. Love to introduce her to a future wife, future children. Have us all play a game of canasta or rummikub. Watch the final games of the Padres winning their first world series together. Have her tell stories and have her help my children learn to read.
But as real as the feeling of that loss... I am so very very at peace with this. I will see her again I have no doubts about this.
And i say that in the name of the person who made this possible, even jesus christ, amen.
"GOING HOME" - a song
I don't think i'm a good enough singer that I'd listen to this again... but for posterity sake I'll share the audio to the song I sang