October 26, 7:00pm (Kevin Westling)
To be present. To allow ourselves to be present with one another. You see, don’t you, how deeply spiritual that is. It is mindfulness in the extreme. So that is what happens, or what can happen. These two conflicting forms of resistance to death, the one who is dying and those who will go on living, allow the creeping recognition of powerlessness to bring them into acceptance of the inevitable and then… and then… there is nothing to do but be present to and for one another.
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Sermons @ Trinity
October 11, 2009
Trinity@7
The Rev. R. Cameron Miller
Good evening.
Some of you know that my dad died this summer,
which is not why we are hearing about death tonight
but certainly the experience of my dad’s death
has fed my own sense of the spirituality of death.
That may seem an odd phrase to some,
“the spirituality of death,”
but sitting in the presence of death
and attending those who are dying,
are some of the most sacred moments I’ve known.
It is an incredible privilege
that is among the sweetest elements of my work.
When death is anticipated,
when there is time left to know one is dying,
then two tumultuous and conflicting agendas
eventually meet in a the same moment
and, usually,
something new is born.
Here is what I mean.
The person who is dying
usually begins with a level of fear and resistance,
a serious digging in of the heels
to staunch the outward flow of the tide.
Even when we are ill for a long time,
and even when the mind is willing,
the body will often put up resistance…
and sometimes to an awesome and amazing degree.
Then there are those of us who
must go on living without the one we love.
We come into it
scared and angry
and clucking around
with our best problem-solving efforts
in order to veil the reality of our powerlessness.
We support and push and prod the dying,
often encouraging them to
hold on…
and fight…
as if we knew that was the best option because,
the truth be told, we do not want to loose them.
We can feel grief banking up in our heart,
like huge clouds gathering at the front of a storm.
We know that if the loved one dies
we are in for it.
Not only will we miss them terribly,
and suffer in their absence,
but in the short term,
we are going to have to weather
a Gail storm of emotion.
So the one who is dying
usually comes to it first…
some level of recognition and acceptance.
That clashes with the resistance we have put up
and that we expect the dying one to participate in.
There is such a tumult of emotions
that clarity is impossible
and the best we can hope for,
the very best we can hope for…
is to allow ourselves to simply
be present to one another,
and to the tumult
as it gathers around us
and takes over the landscape within us.
To be present.
To allow ourselves to be present with one another.
You see, don’t you,
how deeply spiritual that is.
It is mindfulness in the extreme.
So that is what happens,
or what can happen.
These two conflicting forms of resistance to death,
the one who is dying
and those who will go on living,
allow the creeping recognition of powerlessness
to bring them into acceptance of the inevitable
and then…
and then…
there is nothing to do
but be present to and for one another.
The dying process,
when we are given the time,
can become a prolonged moment of mindfulness.
It feels very prolonged…
and it becomes clear
why we do not allow ourselves a more constant
state of mindfulness –
you know,
to be total presence in the moment.
It hurts too much.
Or it is even too pleasurable.
Or it is too whatever we are feeling/thinking/being.
But death evokes an extremely powerful
centrifugal force in us,
and it keeps us right there in the moment,
present
and very present for a long time.
To be present in the moment
is a heightened spiritual state,
and to be present in the moment
because of the proximity of death,
also brings Life into an exceptionally clear focus.
That is the sacredness
and the giftedness
of the dying process.
To discover the unique and unusual clarity
of being totally in the moment
on a teeter-totter
balanced on the fulcrum of life.
Now, fortunately,
we do not have to die or witness someone dying…
in order to enter into mindfulness,
or receive clarity about what we are living for,
or about whose we are and who we are
and about the wisdom of the choices
we have assembled.
By practicing mindfulness,
by learning to unveil and sit with our powerlessness,
and by practicing being fully present
to another person,
fully present,
we will get snippets of clarity
even while being fully alive.
So I invite us to come forward this evening,
and practice being fully present
in this moment.
I invite us to light a candle to someone who has died,
even someone you did not know personally,
but who has inspired you spiritually.
Amen.
