I just got back from a memorial service for a dear friend. I've told before about this friend I have cherished. Years ago, after I had become friends with his daughters, he asked me to call him "Uncle."
Uncle suffered a stroke nearly a year ago. For almost a year, he was unable to speak, and could move much less than he used to be able. He courageously endured these hardships while they were presented to him, and then a week ago, he passed from this life into the next.
He lived his values, thus building a secure bridge from this life to the next. In his tireless hope, in his tenacious faith, in his indefatigable love, he demonstrated to his youngest daughter the resilience she realized she wanted to study in her work as a psychologist. In his eloquent musings he expressed in his poems, short stories and novel, he showed his eldest daughter the passion with which she realized she wanted to write. In his silence, in his meditative pauses, in his carefully chosen words, speaking so mindfully that he seemed to be following a monastic practice, he implicitly and subtly encouraged me toward the monastic disciplines of silence and meditation which I have come to treasure.
He showed us who we were to become. He did not tell us who we were meant to be. In being himself, he helped us to see who we were, and who we have been becoming.
He loved himself, and so showed us how to love ourselves. He loved himself, so he could love his neighbor as himself* as Jesus taught him to do.
He could help others because he loved himself. If we love ourselves, we can love our neighbor, and so we can become who God wants us to be. Uncle loved himself, so he welcomed the invitation from God to become who God always meant him to be.
In his life, he loved. If we choose love, we welcome God into our hearts. If we choose love, God welcomes us into Heaven.
* Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14
Uncle suffered a stroke nearly a year ago. For almost a year, he was unable to speak, and could move much less than he used to be able. He courageously endured these hardships while they were presented to him, and then a week ago, he passed from this life into the next.
He lived his values, thus building a secure bridge from this life to the next. In his tireless hope, in his tenacious faith, in his indefatigable love, he demonstrated to his youngest daughter the resilience she realized she wanted to study in her work as a psychologist. In his eloquent musings he expressed in his poems, short stories and novel, he showed his eldest daughter the passion with which she realized she wanted to write. In his silence, in his meditative pauses, in his carefully chosen words, speaking so mindfully that he seemed to be following a monastic practice, he implicitly and subtly encouraged me toward the monastic disciplines of silence and meditation which I have come to treasure.
He showed us who we were to become. He did not tell us who we were meant to be. In being himself, he helped us to see who we were, and who we have been becoming.
He loved himself, and so showed us how to love ourselves. He loved himself, so he could love his neighbor as himself* as Jesus taught him to do.
He could help others because he loved himself. If we love ourselves, we can love our neighbor, and so we can become who God wants us to be. Uncle loved himself, so he welcomed the invitation from God to become who God always meant him to be.
In his life, he loved. If we choose love, we welcome God into our hearts. If we choose love, God welcomes us into Heaven.
* Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14
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