TREASURES IN THE DARKNESS
I just got a copy of John Gunter's book, Death Be Not Proud, at a book sale. It is a book I have wanted to read for years. It is the story of his son's fight against cancer and his death at 17.
To me, it was interesting that, after his death, he began rummaging through the leftovers.Things he left behind and saved, things he treasured from his earlier days. It raised my eyebrows. When we are gone, how can people take what is left and make sense of it? Does it tell a story about us that even we did not know.
For instance it has made me think of my Mother and what was left behind. A bell someone gave her from Jerusaleum that sits on my desk and I ring at appropriate contemplative moments, a handmade book of poems that she had written and placed in her Bible, some old pictures made with a Brownie camera, her sitting on a bicycle that we got by saving Blue Stamps. Admittedly, I have had difficulty going through her things for some reason. She died on December 23, 1999.
Oh yes, the elephants. Why did she collect elephants? I remember her laugh. Her family could laugh better than any family I have ever known.
She was a teacher. This week I received a facebook message from a student of hers in the third grade. You could tell that Mom had made a big difference in her life, this over five decades ago.
Her biscuits and cold slaw were memorable. She came to my ordination after a car wreck in which our dog Herky was killed. How difficult was that for her? A trip of over 400 miles.
You get the point. What about you? What will you leave behind? What will that tell us about you? You think about that!
(P.S.) You might even share that with me.
posted by Dan Phillips @ 10:47 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
"When you are truly loved...you can never get away...For someone holds you in their heart everyday."
Stuff...not really...For each thing had a value, perhaps not ever revealed. Hard to sort it all...and tears may fall...But our caring is most precious...for it is the warmth we need.
A Little bell to sing its song...to call to prayer...to sing its own little hymn.
One of the things that strike me are the things that society loses when someone dies. Obits show only so little to those who have done so much. I'm appalled that some of who I called really great people are left with such a small obit. Many of the things we leave are in the minds of those we touched.
WHAT SHALL WE LEAVE BEHIND? Don't we all wish to have been an influence for good in someone's life. We all have received blessings...is it not fitting that we give away some of those gifts?
POEMS BY MOM........How precious...a sharing from the deepest part of a person. A friend died, in her nineties. After her death, they found an old suitcase full of her writings. She was very insightful and very close to God. How I would like to see her poems published. I wait......
KNOWN ONLY BY GOD...................When we consider it, we are never completely known in life nor in death except by our God....and that is more than enough.
WHAT DOES THIS SAY?.....Among my wife's dear treasures is a little wooden Christmas ornament left behind when her mom died. Now you see it on a lampshade even in July. Her mother said of it...'All that love and joy and peace and goodwill at Christmas is supposed to last all year long....not put away on Jan 2nd.' Has a special value..and function...for sure.
After several years, I went through the last of parent's estate since I got stuck with it.
What I noticed was all the photos of family gathering of family and friends that lasted since grade school to the grave. Very few of us in the present society will ever know this, since we have more distractions than we know what to do with.
Maybe it is time to turn off the technology and be real.
As Merton said, "Who are we when we are no more."
Happy Easter in the Risen Christ!
Gerry
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