AND WHEN THE TIME COMES
A Sermon on Death

30 November 2003
James Ishmael Ford

The Text
Do not stand at my grave and forever weep.
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awake in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die.
Mary Frye (circa 1932)

Some here may remember how at our last service auction Patricia Balfour got seriously carried away and paid a small fortune, well actually a mid-sized fortune for the privilege of giving us a sermon topic. Well the time has come to pay the piper, and being a typical Unitarian Universalist Patricia didn’t want to throw me a softball. So today we’re exploring the subject of death.

However, as I found myself in this pickle because of you all, I didn’t think I should have to do all the heavy lifting by myself. So, this is going to be a congregational reflection Sunday. What that means for those here who are not members or regular visitors is that after I hold forth for a while I’m taking our microphone down into the pews and relying a fair amount on you to make this enterprise a little deeper and more profound than it would otherwise likely be.

Here’s the program. I will begin by sharing some thoughts on the nature of death. I will offer some of what I’ve come to through my own experiences, through my long years of contemplation, through the fires of what I’ve lived. Then, we throw it open. You share, I hope out of your own intimate experience, your own not-turning away from the great matter of life and death. Then, I’ll come back and speak briefly of how we can reflect on death as a core spiritual practice. At that time I’ll describe a meditation technique using seven contemplations that both ancients and moderns have profitably engaged as a vehicle to intimately encounter the mystery of death.

But before we get to deeper and more profound, I want to observe how my searching for humor on death was a lot more successful than my last bit of research, which was as you may recall, about homelessness. There wasn’t much very funny about homelessness. Everyone, however, seems willing to joke about death. Just to hold my examples to one type, I found a veritable treasure trove of one-liners on various aspects of dealing with the subject.

Commenting on some one else’s death there was Mark Twain’s great line, “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” Actually, I found a lot in that vein. For instance Clarence Darrow said, “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”

With a little larger spirit of generosity and advising something I in fact think is very important, that great yogi, Yogi Berra advised us “If you don’t go to anybody’s funeral, they won’t come to yours.” And, speaking to our universal human anxiety there is Woody Allen’s famous “I’m not afraid of dying; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Of course when we’re faced with its reality, death quickly drains the jokes from the room. I know in my life, surrounded as it has been by deaths vastly too intimate; my parents, my brother, and that worst of all things, my child – I understand how elusive the humor of it can be.

The death of my child is never, and I guess will never be far from consciousness. Joking aside, death is like our shadow, it is nearly always with us, dogging our every step. This is the sad fact of our lives; with our birth, our entrance into this mysterious and terrible and wondrous life, we’re also given an exit ticket. And everyone punches that ticket somewhere along the line, absolutely everyone.

At the same time there is something more. I asked Patricia to give me the text upon which to base our conversation. And I suggest her selection points to what that more might be with its allusions to how we, you and I are the stuff of sunlight and birds in circled flight.

This verse appears to have been written by Mary Frye and first published in 1932. It was recast as a song by someone named Wilbur Skeels in 1966. The owners of the copyright of the recast version are jealous defenders of their intellectual property rights (I don’t want today to go into the issues of how someone comes to own the rights to something largely written by someone else. Let’s hold that for another conversation.)

What’s interesting to me is how it appears they, the copyright owners are some category of Christian who are mightily offended the song version is published around the web by, and I quote “pagan and New Age websites.” Two things here: I’ve been very careful to use the original public domain version. And two, I find it interesting how this text is used with some passion by pagans, New Agers, Christians, and, of course, by at least a couple of Unitarian Universalists.

So, what do we find in this text that transcends creed and sect? What is there about it that many of us find compelling? Is it the observation how each individual is somehow woven together into a single garment? I think so. Here, I feel, we find the hint of our true inheritance, of a glory that includes life and death but is not bound by any one thing.

Well that’s what I think. But, what do you think? What does your heart and your mind suggest to be the truth about this matter of life and death?

Congregational Reflections

Okay, most of us have had a chance if we desired to share a thought or two on the nature of death, and our own intimate reflections about this terrible but important subject. What I’d like to take just a few more minutes to discuss is how we might fruitfully continue the reflection, how each of us might take up our consideration of death and the nature of death as a spiritual practice. And at the end, speak of what we might find.

One of our contemporary Unitarian Universalist ministers whom I particularly admire is Arvid Straube. Arvid leads the dynamic Eno River UU Fellowship in Durham, North Carolina. Somewhere along the line Arvid adapted the teachings of the Tibetan sage Atisha as a UU contemplative reflection on death.

Arvid points out how hard it can be to face the issues of death head on, how “we spend so much of our energy unconsciously pushing them away, not facing them.” Arvid suggests, “(W)e’re scared not only of death but of our feelings about death and our experiences of death.”

There is something deep within us that recoils at this engagement. At core I think it is fear. But, as Arvid suggests, if we take up a disciplined reflection on death, what we find is in fact relief, a release. Release, I think, of the terrible consequences of fear. I suggest, in this enterprise we can find wisdom and the beginnings of a moral perspective.

So, find a comfortable place, be that in a regular meditation hall or some place in your home, or here. This practice can be done sitting on a couch or taking a walk along the beach. Wherever you find yourself, think of these seven things.

Well, first, a quick point. You don’t need to take notes. This sermon is written down and you can either get printed copies later or go to the Society’s website and download it at your convenience. For now, just let the contemplations wash over you. See what they might mean.

The first of these contemplations is to admit that death is inevitable. Do you find this true? If not, why not? Second, notice how our lives are rapidly coming to an end. With each breath we are a breath closer to death. Let me make this a little more specific. Reflect how your death is rapidly coming to its end. My death is inevitable.

Third, remember that death will come to us whether we’re prepared for it or not. Again, remember how it is your death that will be coming, whether you’re prepared or not. The “I” word in all these contemplations is critical. The fourth contemplation is just a little variation on the third, but essential: our death can come to us at anytime. We cannot know how, or when. You don’t know how or when. I do not know how or when.

After we’ve worked our way through these issues, the fifth contemplation becomes most intimate. It is a contemplation on our individual fragility. We need to consider our bodies. Our bodies are wonderful, but they are fragile and vulnerable. No matter what our resources, no matter how well we take care of ourselves, no matter how happy our thoughts are, our bodies at some point will fall apart, something will stop working, some part will go wild, or we’ll simply be hit by a bus.

The sixth contemplation can be even more difficult. Our loved ones cannot keep us from death, nor can we do anything but delay the inevitable death of our loved ones. I know how in my own life it was my powerlessness over my son’s death that most hurt. For you?

And, the seventh and last contemplation is that our bodies cannot help us at the time of death. We so completely identify with our bodies that it is hard not to cling to them as we come ever closer to death. But, of course, we must let go. At some point we must let go. Can you do that?

So, to what purpose these contemplations? Where do these reflections take us? If we do all these things, I find, we can come to understand the truth of Mary Fry’s poem, of how we truly are individual and yet ultimately one. As we let go of each of these things we perhaps previously thought true, we open to something new and precious and beautiful.

The Sufis say it is necessary to die before one dies. I suggest if we take up practices like the one’s I’ve just outlined, we can do that. And from that perspective we can experience the real in a healthful and good way. As we do this we open ourselves to a moral compass that is based on something other than fear. Let me go so far as to suggest this is the way to experience our true life, what we really are.

It can be that important. It really can.

Amen.