It is one of the things best done in community. Whether a celebration of life service, a candle lighting or gentle prayer, we remember those who die. We pause to give thanks for life, always, and believe that life is sacred both at birth and at death.
Faith expresses itself often through music. One of my favorite hymns was written by Nathalie Sleeth (Voices United 703):
In the bulb, there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
in cocoons, a hidden promise; butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there's a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
My Mom made a stole filled with images of life, death and rising again: the sun awakening our gardens in the spring, the transformation of caterpillars, the resiliency of nature. I wear it with gratitude and pride. Hope roots our celebrations. Death does not have the final word. Paul wrote: "If Christ has not been raised from death, then you have nothing to believe.//But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised." (1 Corinthians 15: 14, 20). This is our hope.
Over the weekend we remembered together,
Ruth Davie Harrison in a celebration of life at l’Actuelle Funeral home;
John Whitehead in the lighting of a Memorial Candle during Sunday worship by his family;
Baby Noah William Durocher McKeirnon in the presence of those who loved him.
We express our condolences to all families in their time of loss.
We root ourselves in hope and affirm that in the bulb there is a flower!
Rev. David
Un bour-geon cache u-ne ro-se; un pé-pin donne un pom-mier;
les co-cons mé-ta-mor-pho-sent, les pa-pil-lons co-lo-rés !
Dans l’hi-ver et ses froi-du-res dé-jà se tient le prin-temps:
se ré-vè-lent tes pro-mes-ses, Dieu, si mer-veil-leu-se-ment.