You know how it is when you can’t be in two places at once? The prayer meeting or the football? Work or Starbucks? Family or friends? There are two places you want to be, two people or groups of people you want to spend time with, but it’s the same time, and they are different places. Such choices are balancing acts, and the degree of difficulty depends on the occasion, and who else matters in the decision.
Next week I’ll attend the funeral of a woman who, with her husband, share with us decades of friendship, both generous and graceful. At precisely the same time, on the same day next week, a close friend has invited me to his mother’s funeral thirty miles away. I’ve known them for ages too. Can’t do both – so I’ll stay with the one that already had a promise around it, and explain why to my other freind, even when I know such explanation isn’t needed.
A clash of funerals is a deeply felt reminder that life isn’t to be taken for granted, nor the happiness that comes from our deepest relationships squandered. Three weeks after my own mother’s funeral I’ll again be celebrating a life well lived, giving thanks for the gift that is a person’s presence, and doing so while acknowledging now the sadness and loss that is their absence. There are few human gestures more significant than honouring life, remembering gratefully, offering back to God praise with proper sadness.
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