“All Saints 'Memory Gathering' Framing” 11/1/09,
All Saints For 1st Mennonite Church of Denver Copyright 2009, Vernon K.
Rempel
Rainer Maria Rilke gives us this thought on life and death:
"Falling Stars" IV Do you remember still the falling stars that like
swift horses through the heavens raced and suddenly leaped across the
hurdles of our wishes - do your recall? And we did make so many! For
there were countless numbers of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play, while in our hearts we
felt safe and secure watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall."
Each one of us is intended to be a brilliant body a sparkling and
joyful gift to creation from a God who delights in creation.
And we all have loved ones who have become our fallen stars, our
brilliant bodies who have passed from the
sky, who have fallen.
We conserve and carry forward the memories of these dear ones by
knowing that the Spirit of God, the great Spirit of
life is not only up but also down.
The Spirit is in the sparkling sky as we know it. The
Spirit is also down, in the places we don't
know the places of
mystery where they have
gone where we will all one day go.
Parker Palmer says: The God I know lives in the root system of the
very nature of things.
We gather the memories of our loved ones and live more honestly
ourselves when we think of the going
down the ending, the passing,
and understand that the divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit is there.
In this understanding we are given safe and hopeful ground for
living: in the shining and in the
falling, and in all things
that is where life is, that is where love is, and because we
encounter the Holy Spirit in both the shining and the
falling we learn something about eternity
about how nothing and no one is ever lost; we understand this in
part by gathering and keeping memories, and one day we will
understand it face to face in ways we barely imagine
now that in God's good
grounding nothing is
lost all is caught together in a great
gathering, in the deepest and most
profound places of God's
creation and love.
Let us therefore remember with good hearts and
courage and therefore find hope and
encouragement to live more honestly and
hopefully and to find our own greatness in this life.
Amen.
