2018.11.18 Becoming an Ancestor

2018.11.18 “Becoming an Ancestor”                        Rev. Laura Bogle

Reading  by Krista Lukas

The day I die will be a certain

day, a square on a calendar page

to be flipped up and pinned

at the end of the month. It may be August

or November; school will be out or in;

somebody will have to catch a plane.

There will be messages, bills to pay,

things left undone. It will be a day

like today, or tomorrow—a date

I might note with reminder, an appointment,

or nothing at all.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Our neighbor died in this last week.  He lived alone and died at home.  It was one of those expected unexpected deaths.  He had been in very poor health for quite some time.  But he wasn’t on hospice or anything.  No one knew this was the week he would die.  He was still getting out and about.  The last time I really talked with him was the Sunday of our All Souls service and I gave him one of the beautiful table decorations we had here that morning.  It’s still sitting on his porch.

Now, this person was estranged from much of his family.  I don’t know that whole story.  But he knew his neighbors and he had friends and fellow Vietnam veterans who would occasionally stop in.  I don’t know yet if there’s really going to be a service, a memorial, or anything like that for him.  His death is sad, but to think that he may not be honored or remembered with even a small ritual gathering troubles me the most.

In the Pixar movie Coco,  a little Mexican boy named Miguel who loves to play music goes on a journey to find out just why playing music is forbidden in his family.  It is Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday for honoring the dead around All Saints and All Souls Days.  Miguel ends up visiting the Land of the Dead and meeting many of his ancestors there. 

These are skeletal beings, in the movie, but still very real and solid. Along the way he also meets a skeletal guy who keeps kind of flickering in and out and eventually completely disappears.  Miguel doesn’t know what’s happening, so he asks another resident of the Land of the Dead, who answers,

“He’s been forgotten. When there’s no one left in the living world who remembers you, you disappear from this world. We call it the final death.
…Our memories, they have to be passed down by those who knew us in life in the stories they tell about us. But there’s no one left alive to pass down Cheech’s stories. Hey, it happens to everyone eventually.”

From The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/coco-pixar-second-death-final-death-day-of-dead-dia-de-muertos-a8164491.html :

“Coco’s concept of the ”final death” actually draws straight from traditional Mexican ideas of the “three deaths”. The “first death” is the physical one, the death of the body. The “second death” is more of a natural one: the moment the body is laid to rest in the earth and returned into nature’s cycle.

The “third death” is the most definitive: the moment the last memory of you fades. Día de Muertos [through its rituals of remembrance] helps to delay that final death.”

Our current “Facing Death with Life” class has only met twice and we’ve already come up against the challenge of our current US culture that pretty much denies death at every turn:  the medical realm, the cosmetic and supplements industry, the sanitized funeral home experience, our inability to simply say the words “He died.” But instead we have long lists of euphemisms to keep from saying it outright.

Everyone will die.  But very few of us talk about that fact, and many of us don’t even think about it, unless we have a terminal diagnosis.  As we age it might get easier to incorporate this awareness into our daily life, though this is not a given.

I mean, we all have a terminal diagnosis, but it is really hard to grasp the idea that someday you and I will cease to exist. 

The final death is even harder to confront for many – the idea that sometime in the future there won’t be anyone left who remembers you. 

We want to be remembered. We want to think our life has had some meaning.  Think about the picture of cave art – all of those hands from thousands of years ago.  Still remembered in a way.  They left their mark.

This is one of the reasons why I feel it is so important to have an All Souls service each year.  Both to set aside time to remember those who have died, AND to remember our own deaths. 

Memento mori in Latin means “remember you will die” – it was part of medieval Catholic spiritual practice. You can find jewelry from that time period that reflects the practice – rings with a skull, pendants of skeletons, or crossed bones, or a gravediggers spade, or simply an hour glass. 

Remembering you will die – as the poet says, “It will be a day like today, or tomorrow”--automatically asks the question, how will I be remembered? 

We may not all of us believe in any sort of afterlife.  In fact our tradition asks us to focus more on this life than the next.  I will die, so how shall I live? 

Perhaps a spiritual practice for us, today, as Unitarian Universalists is not just remembering that we will die, but remembering that we all, every one of us, are becoming ancestors—whether we ourselves have had children or not.  We will live on to the extent that we are remembered as ancestors, as the ones-who-came-before in our collective story.  

So let us ask ourselves:

Who really knows me?  Am I letting people really know me? 

What am I doing with this one life I have, with my gifts and my limitations?

How am I giving myself away, here and now? 

What am I passing down to the future generations? 

Will I leave behind a patiently and intricately stitched quilt of love to keep someone warm as they remember me? 

Will I leave behind my helping touch to those in need? 

Will I leave behind my simple listening attention to those who need to be heard? 

Will I leave behind a garden, a tree of life, sustenance for those who come after?

What am I doing with my resources, including my financial resources, for the flourishing of all life into the future– because if there’s one thing we know about death, it’s that you can’t take that stuff with you.  You can’t take your bank account or your house or your car or your 401k.  If you are blessed to have financial resources that you will leave behind, have you been clear about where you want those to go? Do you have a will?  Have you thought about sharing not just with your family but with organizations that reflect your values?   If you want to find out more about legacy giving to our congregation or to support Unitarian Universalism more broadly to support the work of our values in this world, we have resources to help you in that discernment. 

It is hard in the flow of day into day to wake up and remember that this all will end.  But when I do have that flash, just a moment, then it puts everything else in perspective.  Those who know they are dying, or face a possibly terminal illness, often have this gift of awareness to give the rest of us-- To know what is most important.

  

Randy Pausch was a lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University, a father of three small children, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist church in Pittsburgh.  When he was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, he knew he would die soon.  And he gave his “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon, a tradition usually for people who are just retiring.  But he did it with his own impending death in mind.  This was about 10 years ago and you may remember it – his last lecture was published, he got quite a bit of media attention. 

He was an engineer and he approached his own impending death as an engineering problem.  He said in one interview, “I have things that I can do that will make a difference.  Things that will help my wife, things that will help my kids.  …So for me to frame [my death] as an engineering problem put the focus on ‘OK I might not like this situation but what can I do with my remaining time to make the best outcome I can?’ [My last lecture and other messages to my children are] Pretty inadequate substitutes for a living Dad.  But engineering isn’t about optimal solutions, it’s about doing the best you can with what you have.”

Randy’s experience raises other questions for all of us:  Who do I want to talk to about my own death, and what I want for it, about what I hope to leave behind and how?  Why haven’t I had that conversation yet?

I want you to know that I consider it one of the highest honors I have as a minister when people invite me to have this kind of conversation with them.  It’s one of the most meaningful and important parts of my ministry with you.  Not just the doing of a memorial service when the time comes, but the conversation and the preparation before-hand. 

And I will ask you – who else do you need to be having this conversation with? What do you want to say to your family, your friends, your church community now?  You have time, now, to say how you want to be remembered, and to live out today how you want to be remembered.  

Many of us will be gathering with family, friends, loved ones over the coming winter holidays.  What conversations might you open up with those loved ones? If you’d like help having those conversations, I am here for you. 

Wherever you are on this journey through life, may a contemplation of your own death help you to see your future life as an ancestor, living on with those you have touched.  As you say “yes” to this life day after day, may you be building a legacy of love.  And may you know that here in this community of memory and hope, you will be remembered. 

May it be so.  Amen.