Pastor's Message
                                                                                           

September Spirit Steps

You don’t have to look that closely to see that the leaves on many of the trees are starting to get a yellowish hue.  Many of the garden plants have already yielded up their fruit and are dying off.  The dark green of just a few weeks ago is giving way to a light yellowish green. The corn is fully grown and waiting for some rain to fill out its ears.  The clover and alfalfa fields are but short stubs of plants.  The days are still quite warm but many of the nights are becoming comfortably cooler.  All in all, we are being signaled that autumn is rapidly approaching.

Autumn is that transitional time when much of nature begins to die off or go into hibernation yet the dying occurs with such beauty and elegance that we look forward to it.  The colors of the autumn trees call to us to look with wonder and amazement as nature paints a spectacular mural on the landscape.  The once green fields will turn to gold that sparkles with dew in the morning sun.  And in the dying, nature comes alive with sound as the red winged blackbirds flock together to prepare for their migratory flight; as the honking of geese echoes in the morning and evening sky; and as the Sandhill Crane call out their presence.      

As Christians, we say that we believe in a resurrection, a rebirth to a life without end.  We say that believe that the life that is to come will outshine, by far, this life on earth.  If this is the case, then why do we treat human death so differently?  This is not to in any way to question or minimize the sadness and pain that comes with a loss through death.  It is, however, to question some of our practices surrounding a person’s death.  More often than not when I am called to visit someone who is dying, I find the shades drawn and the curtains closed shutting out the sunlight or starry night sky. I hear people talking in hushed tones as if any sound would be disrespectful or hasten the dying process.  Maybe here we can take our cue from nature and allow death to be the normal transitional time that it is.

Denial is part of the normal human grieving process in the face of death.  When, in our culture, that denial is enacted in the funeral process is that still normal?  I have often heard people comment during a wake that the deceased looks so good lying in the casket, and my honest reaction (which I have never said) is that the body lying there looks nothing like the person that I knew; I have never seen a dead body that looks good.  Again here maybe we need to take our cue from nature and return the body to the earth without filling it with toxic chemicals that will eventually find their way into our water and food.  Maybe we need to stop the practice of attempting to make a body look as if it were alive.

As we enter the autumn season may we more fully appreciate the beauty, the elegance, of this transitional time of the year and learn to more fully live in harmony with all the transitions in our life.  And may we more fully appreciate the God who accompanies us through all of life’s transitions.  

Pastor Bob