04-30-24

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 30, 2024
Donna and I will be flying to Denver in a couple of weeks and then driving to Alliance, Nebraska, in the panhandle of Nebraska. When my father died at a very young age, more than 55 years ago, my mother was completely unprepared. They were living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where my dad was a professor in the Education Department at the University. They had no burial plots, but my mother’s parents did. They were back in my mom’s hometown of Alliance, so that is where my father is buried. For the last thirty years, especially after my mother made the decision to be cremated, she would tell us kids, “Don’t worry about making a trip to Alliance when I die. Do whatever is easiest with my ashes.” When it came to death, both her faith and sensibility shaped her thinking. Her words were sincere, yet the four of us (I have three siblings) never really thought of another option. For us, mom needed to be buried next to dad. We all know that nothing of the people they were or the impact they had upon this world is or will be buried in Alliance, NE, yet it is symbolic for us. There is something sort of comforting and sacred about knowing their remains will be together and their names side-by-side etched into stone. Grief and healing and the process by which a person moves from one to the other are unique to the circumstances, the people involved, and so many other influences. I am in no way suggesting that what we are doing is a model. If anything, I encourage people to create symbols that will help bring and sustain healing. We are formed and shaped by the symbols around us, specifically the ones to which we give power and the ones that communicate stories of hope, love, and joy. It will be good to be with family, to visit Alliance, as it was a place where I spent a lot of my childhood summers, and to place my mother’s ashes next to my father.

Guide us, O Source of Life and Healing, in the work necessary to restore and reconnect the broken pieces of life. Amen.