\u00a0<\/p>\n
“When the river is ice, ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life.\u201d William Stafford<\/p>\n
There was no ice on the Virgin River when we hiked the Zion National Park trail on that March Sunday. But Stafford\u2019s words always haunt me whenever I am near a river, any river.
\nAnd so, a few hours later, when the cell phone call came from my sister in New Hampshire, announcing that her husband of 42 years had died suddenly, I was in the proper frame of mind to be able to answer, \u201cyes, of course,\u201d to her request that I\u00a0conduct his funeral.
\nAnd while I usually prefer\u00a0officiating at\u00a0funerals rather than weddings, I must admit that preparing a service for a brother-in-law who was a mere month older than I am was more of a challenge than I anticipated.
\nFor the funeral service is always as much, if not more, about the people in attendance: everyone is silently reviewing their own lives even as the deceased is being eulogized.
\nEach of us is secretly wondering\u00a0\u2018what will be said about me at my funeral,’ which\u00a0invites the life review that is reflected in Stafford\u2019s ask me whether what I have done is my life.<\/p>\n
And its follow up: so what do I need to be doing before I too run out of Time? Or more to the point: how do I know whether what I am doing is my life? \u00a0As Quaker educator Parker Palmer annoying puts it:<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has a life that is different from the \u201cI\u201d of daily consciousness, a life that is trying to live through the \u201cI\u201d who is its vessel. This is what the poet knows and what every wisdom tradition teaches: there is a great gulf between the way my ego wants to identify me, with its protective masks and self-serving fictions, and my True Self.\u201d
\nThis True Self is of course is the essence one tries to lift up and celebrate at a funeral. It helps if the person has lived an authentic life\u2026.but what exactly does THAT mean? I suspect a clue is contained in the other part of the poet\u2019s lines: \u00a0\u201cask me mistakes I have made\u2026.\u201d
\nFor while the ego I strives to be perfect, the cosmic eye has other plans, plans that demand trial and error, not unlike the \u2018mistakes\u2019 in DNA that open possibilities for something new to emerge, for evolution to continue its creative unfolding.
\nFor humans of course this growing edge has to do with choices we make, consciously or unconsciously. And a funeral makes us confront not just our own deaths but our very lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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