Beloved, Remember that You are Dust and to Dust You Shall Return.

On March 5, Ash Wednesday, I will trace the sign of the cross on your forehead with ashes from last year’s Palm Sunday fronds. These words above are both beautiful and brutal as they remind us of our mortality. I am humbled and honored to be a part of this moment—to remind you that God made you from the dust and that you will return to dust and return to God when this life has ended. Just because these words are holy and solemn doesn’t mean they are not also good news. I believe that since God made me with a body that is fragile and is wearing out, and God loves me, whatever happens after my body can’t go on, whatever happens when this life ends, God will be there and it will be loving and safe.

We’ve had a few funerals at St. Luke’s lately, and I’ve attended others, so I’ve got death and dying on my mind more than usual. On the way home from a funeral lately, I told my spouse that if they know I am dying and people are sitting with me, to give me regular bits of alone time; I’m a private person and there’s a chance that I will want to die alone—that I’ll be too uptight to die with an audience. After a funeral I attended with my in-laws, I asked them if they had any requests for their funerals, and they both requested Elvis songs—WHICH I WOULD NOT HAVE GUESSED. In a conversation with another person, they told me they very much wanted there to be a viewing before her funeral—so I made a note of that. At Lunch Bunch, we had a good conversation about THE APPLICATION PROCESS involved in donating your body to science— that this is something that has to be arranged in advance.

All this is to say, I am wondering if you have SOME of your affairs in order. Having all your affairs in order in preparation for your death is a very overwhelming proposition … and sometimes the enormity of it keeps us from doing anything at all. This is my request for you to consider doing SOMETHING. Send me an email or fill out the funeral form on the resources page of the St. Luke’s website— tell me a few favorite hymns, a story about Jesus that you like, a poem about living or dying that is meaningful to you, your favorite flower.

Another option is completing the “5 Wishes” program, which is a way to document types of medical treatment that you do or don’t want, how comfortable you want to be, how you want people to treat you, etc… Pick up a copy of 5 Wishes lying around church and go through the booklet (or do it online; just do a web search for 5 Wishes). Feel free to answer the questions that are easy to answer—skip the ones that stress you out. A 5 Wishes booklet that has been half completed is way more helpful to your loved ones than a completely blank one.

I’ll go ahead and state the obvious: this is easier done when it is not so … relevant. I would not wait till SOMETHING happens to take care of any low-hanging fruit around the topic of death and dying. And there is the possibility that your doing this work will inspire your loved ones to join you, or at least to talk with you about these things. Telling people what you want when you are dying or dead frees people to share similar bits of information with you!