blessings

[bronze_ribbons]

Long but good morning at church today -- led hymns at the early service, which included "Where My Free Spirit Onward Leads" (SLT #324). I've sung this hymn for nearly five years now, and the last lines still wring my heart:

. . .eternity is hard to ken and harder still is this:
a human life when truly seen is briefer than a kiss.

To open the service, the worship leader read the first stanza of Hopkins's "Carrion Comfort", which the preacher reprised later in her sermon. The preacher was Rev. Karen Stroup (Disciples of Christ), who spoke about surviving stage 4 (terminal) breast cancer and both the blessings and banes of living permanently with cancer (it cost her a fiance and it effectively ended her dream of a teaching career). The preludes and postludes were beautiful -- two of Johann Goffried Walther's choral preludes, and Anne Marie David's arrangement (called "Hymn Tune") of "Fairest Lord Jesus" (St. Elizabeth).

Between services, the administration committee convened -- we're making slow but definite progress on a variety of items, and that's heartening -- and then I helped out with the 3rd/4th grade religious education class by bringing in some of my tools for a calligraphy demonstration. The kids were cute: one of the boys was wearing a Harry Potter outfit, and one of the girls kept pelting her friend with questions such as "Will you remember me in ten years? In twenty years?" -- mainly as a joke (it segued somehow into "Knock knock!" "Who's there?" "See, you've forgotten me already!"), but not entirely, and given that I'd just come from a service dwelling on the fragility of life (including the tenuousness of relationships), just hearing that question damn near made me cry.

My own sermon next week (at UUC Cookeville) will also be on the theme of facing mortality. Their PR chair asked me for a summary last week. This is what I sent her:

“Death is Not the Opposite of Life: Planning Now For the Beyond.”

As the old saying goes, "Nothing's certain but death and taxes" -- yet our culture shies away from teaching and discussing preparations for death in concrete terms, as though to do so would somehow hasten its arrival. As people of faith *and* reason, what are the questions we need to be asking each other -- not only to prepare for death, but to deepen and enrich our hold on life?

A cheerful topic for a summer service, to be sure, but it needs bringing up. As Rev. Stroup pointed out this morning, none of us truly know how much time we have left -- her medical situation forces her to confront it on a daily basis (thirty-plus pills plus other maintenance procedures to keep the cancer in check), but even the healthiest of us still need to consider how to help each other and those we'll leave behind. Hurricanes, terrorists, accidents, germs -- one can't immunize against everything, and one shouldn't shrink from living to avoid dying -- and, if one can bear to tackle it, one needs to determine what arrangements one would prefer should catastrophe strike (how does one personally define "extreme" measures? what should be done with the body? who will be in charge if one's partner is incapacitated?)?

Anyhow, the sermon still needs to be written, but that's part of the background for it. That, and having been in charge of my father's memorial service almost six years ago, and having attended a half-dozen funerals over the past eighteen months (including one for an infant) and watching several friends grapple with widowhood. And there were others whose memorials I did not attend but who are missed so much by people who matter to me. And two years ago -- on this day -- a brilliant and beautiful classmate from college shot herself. She'd stopped by First UU several times and I'd hoped to get to know her better, and it still aches like hell how "someday" became "never."

Back to planning: the hymns will be "Calm Soul of All Things" and "Just As Long As I Have Breath." The latter is one I hope people will sing at my own memorial, whenever that time may come, along with Salomone Rossi's "Kaddish":


Just as long as I have breath, I must answer "Yes" to life;
though with pain I made my way, still with hope I meet each day.
If they ask what I did well, tell them I said "Yes" to life.

Just as long as vision lasts, I must answer "Yes" to truth;
in my dream and in my dark, always that elusive spark.
If they ask what I did well, tell them I said "Yes" to truth.

Just as long as my heart beats, I must answer "Yes" to love;
disappointment pierced me through, still I kept on loving you,
If they ask what I did best, tell them I said "Yes" to love.

- Alicia S. Carpenter

So. That's part of this week's docket. On a far more frivolous note, as part of my post-triumvirate mourning recovery process, I have been continuing my explorations of pre-Half Blood Prince fanfic by devouring almost all of ellid's Snape/Lupin series, Motherless Child. ("Almost" -- I do have my limits, and mpreg is a definite turn-off. I don't pretend to be rational about it -- it is what it is.) In addition to the allusions to Sayers, I also find myself enjoying how she's cast Snape across several of the pieces as an occasionally observant Jew:

"This is my grandfather's confirmation certificate from 1892. Good. At least this proves the family were Reform before they left Germany. My cousin Esther was certain they were more observant." - Relics

It's struck me that part of what I relish about pre-HBP Snape/Lupin and Neville/Draco futurefic is that I have always considered both pairings canonically implausible (I mean, come on -- JKR isn't that radical -- and even if she were, Scholastic isn't), so I tend to regard the characters as independent entities who happen to be named Snape, Lupin, Neville, and Draco -- they happen to share some of the characteristics/qualities of their canonical sources, but I'm far more interested in what they do within the AU than in reconciling the AU with canon. One characteristic common to well-written Snupin and N/D is that I frequently end up laughing out loud -- Snape and Draco are such arrogant bastards that their authors often use them to voice hysterically funny commentary on other characters or situations -- or, I end up getting mushy over the themes of late-blooming competence (Neville), still waters surging from the deep (Lupin), outsiders/loners finding love in spite of their reputations/duties, etc.

It also occurred to me that part of my ability to compartmentalize canonical vs. alternate universes with minimal effort has to do with over two decades of being a Sherlockian -- in that realm, folks have been arguing over Holmes/Adler vs. Holmes/Watson vs. Holmes/women-named-Violet for over a hundred years, and I have never managed to care about any of those ships at all, in part because I mentally composed a bajilion Mary Sue fantasies about Holmes all through junior high (and beyond), and because that eventually led me to conclude (admittedly conveniently) that Holmes would have flayed Watson ten ways from Whitsunday if any word of his truelove had ever made it into print: there is no way Holmes would have wanted to risk endangering his paramour by making his/her existence known to his enemies. (My name in one of the local scions is "no sister of his" (and that allusion is yet another reason I was entranced by ellid's vignettes)).

Speaking of Sherlockian tributes, I came across William Kotzwinkle's Trouble in Bugland: A Collection of Inspector Mantis Mysteries during one of the assignments I was working on earlier this month; I'm holding onto it as my reward for cleaning off my desk. First, though, I have to deal with the piles on said desk. So, onwards. . .

Comments

[kirbyfest.livejournal.com]

and, if one can bear to tackle it, one needs to determine what arrangements one would prefer should catastrophe strike...

One of the best homilies I've ever heard was at my former parish. We had a Jesuit-in-residence who was also chair of the medical school at a local university, and his specialty was gerontology. He spoke passionately about the number of people he sees who have nothing planned-- no living will, no durable power of attorney, not even simple things such as having someone know where all the critical papers are, just in case. The priest got very... worked up. His point was yours, essentially-- you don't know when your when will be, and pretending you won't have a when doesn't protect you from it. It just means the end of your life will be more difficult for both you and those you love.

We ran into this with my grandfather. If nothing else, it taught my father what not to do. And I know where my dad's papers are.

[ky-expatriate.livejournal.com]

if one can bear to tackle it, one needs to determine what arrangements one would prefer should catastrophe strike (how does one personally define "extreme" measures? what should be done with the body? who will be in charge if one's partner is incapacitated?)?

My father is a stunning example of this -- he didn't have a living will, or if he did, we never found it. Consequently both my aunt and I were asked whether we wanted him placed on a ventilator before being told that oops, no, he'd somehow managed to express that he didn't want it. Not to mention that he made two highly contradictory suggestions as to what he wanted done with his ashes. People need to write things down and TELL other people where those documents are, or they're useless. And having another person's name on a safety deposit box is also helpful -- we couldn't get into my father's for weeks.

Same thing with my mom. Between sorting through the paper napkins that my grandfather in his senility started filing along with his tax returns, and helping me trash and burn 20 years of my father's papers, she's been quite clear on what she will not put me through. I can't say I'm not grateful, but we could have done without the illustrative examples....