In the midst of life, we are in death...

It has been such a strange Advent, suspended between life and death, joy and sorrow, calm and frenzy. Hope Sunday was spent far from home, not with our church family as we usually do. Hope for new life was embodied in an old man dying, one body worn out but not yet moved in to his new one... hope for a peaceful passing over to the other side of the River Jordan, hope for joy in the morning, hope for all us mortals who live in the shadow of death. We were, in the words of the writer of Titus, “awaiting our blessed hope”. This year, hope is speckled with both darkness and light. I am the richer for it... richer in soul, steeped in gratitude for the hope that led a man to leave his cultural heritage and become a new being, one who saw no differences in the colors of skin.
We came home to wait for death’s arrival. One of the gifts and curses of being self employed is you are your own boss. When the boss wants to, he can choose to leave work... but he doesn’t get paid. There is no paid leave time for illness or family emergencies. Michael needed to work. During this week of Hope, I called family members, friends, funeral home, cemetery, churches, e-mailed the obituary, began preparations for Christmas. Life marched on, nay, it raced on with or without me. There were still meals to cook, animals to feed, clothes to wash, bills to pay, a house to clean, sheets to change, company coming. Wednesday night, the word came. H.O. died in his sleep, the sleep he entered before Michael left him. In the midst of life, we were in death. Those ancient words from The Book of Common Prayer stilled my spirit, calmed my frenetic pace.
And now we are living out the week of love. It has been a week of love filled up and overflowing. Church family calling and wanting to help... a clean house and food will be waiting for us when we return from Alabama this weekend. Friends of long standing, friends who have known us since we were hardly worth knowing, friends who knew Michael’s parents, new friends, all have opened their loving arms to us, enveloped us with hugs and pats, listened to our stories, wept with us, laughed with us. We know love because of the One who first loved us and our God kinfolk who have surrounded us this second week of Advent. Love is drawing the family to Alabama this weekend for one last time in the place Michael’s parents called home. All the grandchildren will be there. One will sing Amazing Grace, others will read scripture, their presence a witness to the loves that brought them into being.
For now, we rest... rest and wait. We wait for the promised joy, joy that knows no limits of circumstance but flows from the Source of all that is. We are singing our Requiem Mass this weekend as a family, our prayers for peace and rest and forgiveness, our song of joy for all that has been and all that is yet to come. I read the words of the Requiem Mass, the Mass for the dead. “In the midst of life we are in death: of whom May we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, Who for our sins art justly displeased? Yet, O Lord, most mighty, O holy and most Merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter Pains of eternal death.” The bitter pains of eternal death, our sins, all are wiped away as we seek the One who birthed us into this world. Hoping, peaceful, joyful Love awaits us all when our Advent life here on earth is completed.