Thursday, June 10, 2010
For you Uncle Bill on the day on your funeral. I think this poem captures the essence of how you would have spoken to us today....
........."Because of Christ, death is finally nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name, speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me and continue to pray, knowing that I pray face to face with God as you pray in faith. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without affect, without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant and even more to me; there is unbroken continuity because of Christ between where you are and were I am. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well.".....
(Variation on a Poem by Henry Scott Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral)
