remembering Earl
It’s Friday morning and I’m staring at the computer, doing everything EXCEPT writing a funeral meditation for Earl’s service. And a sermon on the paradox of incarnation for Sunday.
The paradox of community is that on Sunday I carried newly baptized Django up and down the aisle, he with his precious smile and peace-sign booties, and then went to the hospital to pray with Earl as he prepared to die. Life discovered as we embrace even death. And that would have been enough.
On Wednesday I experienced another profound paradox of community, that in the vulnerability of serving, we are served. I was mom in a doctor’s waiting room, waiting with the kids, when I received the call about Earl’s death. And again later that same day, at the hospital as pastor in route to yet another doctor’s office as mom. When the evening not so gently rushed in, and my weary eyes were stuck, it was members of the community that listened. Serving and served, object and subject.
Pondering the paradox may be good fodder for Sunday’s sermon, but it isn’t getting me closer to inspired words for Earl’s funeral. Truth be told, I don’t want to share inspired words for Earl’s funeral. I don’t want Earl to be dead. I’m not ready to pastor EUCC without Earl and Ahme. The steady faithfulness, the good intentions, the consistency of the glass half full, the gifts of spirit and presence shared by Earl carried this community and it’s pastor through a lot of change and challenge.
But the clock keeps moving, and one thing I learned from Earl is that we must do the best we can with what we’ve got. No Pollyanna lemonade, but the honest fruit of real and creative endeavor. I can almost hear the deep clip of his “well, kid”, almost feel his hand on my arm. Ready or not, it’s time to write a funeral meditation.