Make Haste to be Kind
When in doubt, post a dog photo. Especially when the theme is kindness. Plus, Tobi is great at making haste.
“Make haste to be kind.” These were some of the final words of the Episcopal liturgy spoken at my father’s funeral yesterday. When I think of religion and the Episcopal church I have many mixed feelings and thoughts that I won’t dig into now. Suffice it to say that yesterday I was glad to relive the rituals of my childhood in all their certainty and poetry. The Episcopal Church, at least as I know it, can be relied on for a meaningful but efficient service, whether it is for a baptism, wedding or funeral, and this one was no exception.
At the end of the service, the priest always delivers a parting blessing of some sort, and yesterday’s reminder to “Make haste to be kind” hit home. Largely because I believe it is a wonderful phrase that we all need to remember, but also because I am pretty sure that no AI-bot is going to come up with a phrase like that. There is so much nuance in those five words - you can all go and unpack that with your therapists and poetry teachers over the next few days.
“When we lose someone, it will always hurt. It will always hurt, and we want it to hurt, because that means that what we lost was real.” That is not an exact quote (but close enough), delivered as part of the homily by our long time family friend and Episcopal priest, David Elliot. While the overall liturgy, and David’s sermon, had plenty of talk of heaven and peace, the acknowledgement that ‘it will always hurt’ beautifully brought home to me the reality that funerals are for the living, and what we are seeking is a way to handle the pain of loss, a way to describe this new hollow place in our selves and our lives.
Funerals are a microcosm of life and all of its contradictions. We got to see dear friends and family that we have not seen in years or decades - it was a joy to recognize each other and connect. It’s also humbling to know that death will come too soon for all of us. We will not be ready, no matter how young or old we are when we finally depart.
Joy and pain, age and youth, sickness and health - these are the things that make up our lives. Embracing all of it is hard, all of the time. We must learn to make haste to be kind, and also to embrace the connections that make us vulnerable to loss, because those connections are the ones that are real.We all need rituals to mark the seasons and milestones, to acknowledge the changes in our lives, and to remind us that are not alone.
On a side note, while the services have hardly changed at all in the past five decades, the Episcopal Church is adapting to the times. Once you get through the drama of the blessing of the wine and bread for communion, and are prepared to go partake of the metaphorical body and blood of Christ, parishioners can now ask for the gluten-free wafer, aka the gluten-free body of Christ. Sometimes change is good, sometimes it is bad, and on other occasions it’s kinda hilarious (No offense meant to my gluten free peeps, or the church. It’s just ‘gluten-free body of Christ’ How is that not funny?).
I leave you another parting blessing from my childhood, “Go in peace, to love and serve God.”