Monday, May 13, 2013

The memories we create

The memories we've created will last far longer than the path that lies ahead. -- Steve Jobs talking to and about Bill Gates.

I'm writing from a melancholy mood this morning, this bright, cool, wonderful morning when birds are doing a rendition of Amazing Grace and the lingering of memories of Mother's Day's past are just that, past.

Yesterday, a dear lady I used to visit from a former church, Miss Ruth, died. She would have been 104 this year. I had pretty well decided she might as well be Methuselah or some such. She would never die. But she did. A couple of days ago, she slipped away mentally. Her body came following.

I will never forget going into her little house behind her daughter's house one day and she was watching LSU women's basketball, which she loved. In fact, she loved all things LSU and we had fun joking about that.

I was privileged to be able to go to her 100th birthday as her pastor. I was surprised, though, to see two previous pastors from years back there in a real honor that isn't matched often.

The memories we've created will last far longer than the path that lies ahead.

This afternoon I will officiate a funeral in a little Louisiana town called Kinder. Carl Bebee will be laid to rest (which is an interesting phrase as old as burial itself, though he's been resting since Saturday.

Two days before his death, he caught pneumonia, was taken to the ER, and never came out. I have never met Carl, but I bet I know him. He lived, he was a veteran of World War II where he received many honors. He is survived by three sons and two daughters and a passel of grandchildren.

The memories we've created will last far longer than the path that lies ahead.

Reflection, I think, is a good and honored practice. Reflecting on whom we have loved and are gone is like a blood transfusion for the dying. It's not good to do it all the time, but when it happens, it always picks things up.

Mother's Day is kind of like that for me. Every funeral I do or even those I just attend is like that. All that is remembered is the good times, the memories that have been created that seems to linger with us all despite ... well, everything.

You know, in a way, that's what we've been doing with Jesus all these years, remembering. That's what the Gospel really is, remembering, what he said, what he did, who he was, who he is. That's the memories created that have lasted longer than the path that lies ahead for all of us. Get that. All of us.

Jesus said this: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Those words, in the darkest nights of the soul, keep me going. I remember who said them. I remember the circumstances that they were said in. I remember them as friends saying goodbye. I remember then when I have communion. I remember them. That's what reunions, funerals, Mother's Day are all about.

The memories we've created will last far longer than the path that lies ahead.

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