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Iconography depicting Jesus standing between the world of the living and the dead robed in white — You can learn more about today’s art here.

changed, not ended

This past weekend, I traveled to Dallas to sit alongside old friends, as we prayerfully committed a loved one to the columbarium in the memorial garden; a friend who died only weeks ago. We — in a chorus of trembling grief, rivaling the vibrations of the choir and organ — cried together, held each other up, and were, most of all, joined together by the one who tended to join us together. He was a gatherer, and he gathered us again, but he gathered us into his absence, a chasm of death begging for life.

There is a line in the communion prayers for a burial, in the liturgy of the Episcopal Church, that I desperately need when I grieve. But first, hear it in context:

Celebrant Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
People It is right to give him thanks and praise.
Celebrant It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and every-
where to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of
heaven and earth.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord; who rose victorious from the
dead, and comforts us with the blessed hope of everlasting
life. For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not
ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is
prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens.

Ah, yes, there it is — For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended.

I need to hear it as much as I need to have faith, because I know my faith will become what holds me up when I fear someone I love has found an end. This faith is a faith given to me as a blessing. This is a faith as communal as it is personal, a faith of deep surrender, a faith I cannot have by my own strength.

This faith is the tender reminder that they are not ended, but changed. This mirrors our love for one another, because death does not end our love for them — or their love for us — but the way they love us and the way we love them is changed, it has different contours, it takes on new form. The way they love us and the way we love them is resurrection itself: the persistent life that will not be shrouded in death.

I talked at the reception with some friends, and if you know anything about the church where we had the funeral — Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas, TX — you’ll understand why we ended up talking about liturgy. Transfiguration has the gift of ornate liturgy, which created in our friend a love of liturgy. His burial was perfect for him, except that he should have been there, serving at the altar, with someone else’s name in the prayers.

We agreed the gift of liturgy is how it does so much of the heavy lifting for us. The prayers proclaim resurrection when all you can think about is death. The prayers make you feel close to the one who has died even though you’re there to bear witness to the cursed distance. The prayers remind you of God’s love for you, even as you question how God could love you and give you grief at the same time.

I am praying so many things, all at once. So many prayers both fit and unfit for the world. But, maybe above all of them, I need to pray for faith.

God, grant that I may be one of your faithful people, because I need more than anything else in my life to know that in death, life is changed, not ended.

May you be held up by liturgies, and blessed with some sort of inkling of faith that feels like resurrection itself: persistent life that will not be shrouded in death.

With love,
EJW

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out of office

Please note that I will be out of office February 6-10. For this reason, I won’t have posts for the week, and I have combined some reading for Braiding Sweetgrass. You can see the adapted reading schedule below! Thank you so much for understanding. <3

We are reading Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I hope you’ll join me as I become even more enraptured with the beauty of God’s creation.

Here’s the reading schedule in pages, by the week:

Week of…

January 23 — 60-97
January 30 — 98-117

February 6 — out of office
February 13 — 118-201
February 20 — 202-240
February 27 — 241-276

March 6 — 277-300
March 13 —301-347
March 20 — 348-384

gather the inklings

changed, not ended (erin jean warde)