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Ministry & Worship Here at the UU Church of Amherst, we celebrate the meaning and contribution of an individual at our memorial services. Within an atmosphere of love, respect and acceptance of human diversity, each service is unique - the better to honor the beloved. These are samples of some of the language and readings that have been used at our services. Please speak with our minister about your needs. You are also welcome to speak with the church office about utilizing the chapel for your own services. Memorial Service Materials To bid one we have known and loved, farewell; We shall celebrate DECEASED'S living and we shall grieve DECEASED'S dying because we know the truth of Williams Blake's words; Joy and woe are woven fine... Under every grief and pine, Runs a joy with silken twine. It is right it should be so, We were made for joy and woe. Today we must grieve this death. But we must also celebrate their life. Though our grief is strong and we must mourn, we will not let the shadow of death obscure the living person who touched us many times, in many ways, filling our lives with meaning, and love. Let us be wise enough and let us be brave enough now to honestly remember and bravely celebrate a human life - a life that was DECEASED'S life. So we have come together. It is good that we have come together, because we need each other in empathy and consolation, and because we need each other in courage and wisdom: to face DECEASED'S death, to celebrate DECEASED'S life, and to show our love and support for DECEASED'S family: Those who knew---------best and loved her/him the most. It is good - right and fitting - for us to come together, Because a human life is sacred in its being born in its living, and also in its dying. (MEDITATION) Let the faiths and philosophies that sustain us separately meld into a unity of the most human and of the universal, where differences dissolve in the awe-inspiring yet wonderful harmony of the moment. Before the wonder of living and dying we are humbled. In the midst of our sorrow and grief we feel a river of sacredness. Out of our memories and unending affections flows a thanksgiving. In our gathered concerns and compassion, healing begins. Let this gift of courage, wisdom, and thanksgiving come to each of us and swell among us in the days to come. Courage to face DECEASED'S death. Wisdom to speak openly and honestly of our loss. And thanksgiving for DECEASED'S life. As conscious and self-conscious life, we know that death is inevitable. We know too that death shapes our life. Most of the time we accept death as an abstract principle - a dispassionate fact of Life, part of the biological chain of generation begetting generation. But when death becomes personal through someone we have known, respected, and loved, it comes in a variety of guises and triggers varying emotions. When death comes to one of many years (as it has now) our grief is a quiet sadness. When it comes to one who has suffered and endured a long and painful illness (as it has now) our grief is softened by a sense of welcome and even blessed relief. When death comes, out of time - with little or any warning (as it has now) - our grief is sharp and shrieking. 1. No matter what guise death wears, we, being human, will "rage, rage against the dying of the night," as Dylan Thomas writes. Do not be perplexed by a gentle or savage rage you may feel now. Such a rage comes from a deep and universal human grief that living means dying. And do not be perplexed by other emotions that might rise unbidden from the depths of your being. You may feel a steady anger, rather than a bursting rage. ( We do not easily relinquish to death those we love.) You may feel remorse, or worse, guilt for things you neglected to say to or do for the one who is dead. At such times we more clearly see ourselves as relational beings. You may fantasize about things may have turned out differently. (What if this?) (What if that?) And you torment yourself with maybes, shoulds and onlys. You may be harboring even more disturbing emotions. You may feel abandoned. You may in this death remember hurts and wrongs not resolved with the deceased. Do not deny such emotions and their like. Accept them. Try to understand them. They are doors into life's deeper understandings. Death always brings us face to face with life. There is opportunity in this moment and there is the means to begin to live life again, though hesitantly, slowly at first. From this moment on, our living and doing can be more virtuous and more abundant. This is one of the paradoxes of such an occasion as this that it opens us to life and living. It is a miracle, Nothing less than a miracle: That flowers bloom every spring; That living thing begets living thing; That we human beings emerge Again and again from ignorance to knowledge, from hopelessness to meaning, from sadness to joy. It is a miracle, Nothing less than a miracle. 1 We have come here this day to commit to the preciousness of memory a life that was mingled with our own, we are here to do honor to the life and memory of DECEASED. 2. We are gathered here today to do honor to the life and memory of DECEASED. Death has come to our friend, as it eventually comes to all human beings. Once again we know how keenly the passing of friends and loved ones affects us, and how deeply our own eventual passing enters into all that we are and do. 3. We are gathered here at this time and in this place to pay our tribute of affection and respect. May these moments together be filled with memories of a mutual friend and loved one, who only such a short time ago walked the way with us, blessed us with his presence and departing, leaving us saddened but uplifted in spirit because of the many memories and the quality of his living. Poet singer and writer alike have looked squarely into the face of this greatest of life's mysteries, and all through the ages have sung their message and songs of faith and courage. 4. We are gathered here today to do honor to the life and memory of DECEASED. Inevitably our anguish frames the question, Why?, if not on our lips, in our hearts. There is no answer that removes this question - no answer that can bridge the chasm of irreparable separation. Life will never be the same, and this is as it should be, for our loved ones are not expendable. 5. We can meet such loss only with our grief, that uncontrived mixture of courage, affirmation, and inconsolable desolation. Grief is enough; for, in our grief we live an answer, as in the depths love and selfishness conjoin until, if we allow it, love asserts its dominance, and we become more aware of the community of which life makes us a part. 6. DATE this brave and beautiful spirit was caught up into the greater life it had been seeking. And so today we commit her to the joy of memory and the peace of her God. And we ask ourselves, what is it that moves the world forward if it be not lives such as hers? The great words that are spoken - truth, justice, love - what would they mean to us if no one ever lived them into life? What would kindness mean if we had never felt it? And sympathy? what would we know of it if it were just a word? And what of the word God? For many, including DECEASED, this is the greatest word of all. The spirit of God-if we are to find it-must first be found in ourselves and in one another. And we find it best in those whose lives remind us that God's other name is Love. 7. We are gathered here in memory of DECEASED. Looking across a span of human years, as we do now, is like looking out on the expanse of the seas. The years roll by with the regularity of the waves, reminding each of us that life is a long voyage into the known and the unknown. Along the way there will be tenderness and trouble, long labor and short sweetness, ideals, defeats and sickness. There will be sparkling joy and cavernous sorrow, the molehill of misunderstanding against the mountain of true accord, puddles of regret beside the beautiful lakes of love and companionship. Each of us is somewhere along the way of this great journey. Birth is but awakening, life is dedication, death is the change which comes between where we are and where the universe is; when that change is filled with the understanding that envelops all differences and distinctions, life has renewed itself with that from which it cannot be removed. And we are forever at home on a vast but friendly shore. 8. Those whom we love do indeed leave us, and when we lose them no spoken words can lessen our grief. But what DECEASED was can never leave us. The strength of her presence, the firmness of her convictions, the warmth of her love - these are ours always, interfused with our thought and blended with our lives. 9. May these moments together be filled with the memories of a mutual friend and loved one who only such a short time ago walked the way with us, blessing us with her presence and departing, leaving us saddened but uplifted in spirit because of the many memories and the quality of her living. Poet, singer and writer alike have looked squarely into the face of this greatest of life's mysteries, and all through the ages have sung their messages and songs of faith and courage. 10. The occurrence of death brings home to us the common concerns, the common crises and the common destiny of all who live on this earth. Death draws us together in the deep-felt emotions of the heart; it dramatically accents the ultimate equality involved in our human fate; it reminds us of the essential fellowship of all humankind that lies beneath all the bitter dissensions and divisions registered in history and contemporary affairs. The human race, with its infinite roots reaching back over the boundless past and its infinite ramifications extending throughout the present world and ever pushing forward into the future, is one great family. The living and the dead and the generations yet unborn make up that enduring communion of humanity which shares the adventure of life upon this dear and pleasant earth. 11. Our few days on earth have been for long described as like the grass of the fields in their brevity, but they also represent the flowering of some great cosmic urge that brings forth intelligence, a sense of law and order, of love and duty and responsibility, and a sense of beauty and song. Though days be brief, they represent and reflect all time. Creations wonders are in us, creations tragedies, creations miracles and secrets. Our comings and our goings are the pulsations of eternity. 12. Although it is premature death that is most tragic, the final parting signified by death is bound to bring shock and sorrow whenever the ties of love and friendship are involved. Those who feel deeply will grieve deeply. No religion or philosophy ever taught can prevent this wholly natural reaction of the human heart. 13. Whatever relationships and enterprises death breaks upon, we can be sure that those whom we have lost are finally and eternally at peace. And whatever length of time we have had a friend, we always remain grateful for her having lived, and for our having known him in the full richness of her personality. 14. Here on our planet there have evolved, over millions of years, human beings possessed of the power of mind, the beauty of love, the splendor of heroism. Men and women, with all their diverse gifts, are fully part and product of the Nature that is their home. They are cousins to all other living forms; and in their very flesh and blood one with that same marvelous and multi-structured matter that underlies the whole might universe, the shining array of stars, the gracious sun, our own world and everything within it. This great and eternal Nature it is in which we ever live and move and have our being. Thus beyond or kinship with our fellow human beings, there is always our kinship with the natural world that sustains us with its varied goods and stirs us with its wonderful beauty. This dynamic Nature stamps its pattern of constant change on every existing thing. Change means transformation, beginnings, endings, birth, growth, death. So it is that the freshness and delight of each new day, the continual zest of living, are tempered by the sting of transiency. Yet transiency and death itself are entirely natural and understandable in our universe. Life and death are different and essential aspects of the same creative process. It is Nature's law that living organisms should eventually retire from the scene and so make way for newborn generations. In this sense life affirms itself through death. Each one of us "must die for the sake of life, for the flow of the stream too great to be dammed in any pool, for the growth of the seed too strong to stay in one shape...Because these bodies must perish we are greater than we know." In the larger view, then, in the total picture, death as such is not an evil and is not to be feared by reasoning people. We recognize these truths. And we accept as inevitable the eventual extinction of human individuals and the return of their bodies, indestructible in their elements, to the Nature that brought them forth. In death as in life we belong to Nature 15. Our meeting here, today is to celebrate the fullness of life which we saw and loved in the brief days of DECEASED's years. To say that (HE/SHE) would want no show of mourning would be true, but grief does touch us deeply as his swift radiance passes and we ar "left darkling." Surely his own eagerness against the adversary Fortune, his refusal to live timidly and hoard his hours should teach us to shake off grief and celebrate life. 16. People like DECEASED are the conscience of the society to which they belong. As one lamp lights another, and neither grows less, so nobleness kindles nobleness. No life can be so pure in its purpose and strong in its strife, without all life not becoming purer and stronger thereby. 17. Great people are the fire pillars in this dark pilgrimage of humankind. They stand as everlasting witnesses of what has been, prophetic tokens of what may still be, the revealed, embodied possibilities of human nature. 18. Our meeting here, today is to celebrate the fullness of life which we saw and loved in the brief days of DECEASED's years. To say that (HE/SHE) would want no show of mourning would be true, but grief does touch us deeply as his swift radiance passes and we ar "left darkling." Surely his own eagerness against the adversary Fortune, his refusal to live timidly and hoard his hours should teach us to shake off grief and celebrate life. 19. To meet DECEASED was to find a person who gave no hint of the many battles of his/her few years. (HE/SHE) made no show of sorrow over the several circumstances which would have made a weaker soul long a coward. (HE/SHE) could have followed a path of creeping caution, coddled himself and wheedled a few more days or months out of life, but (HE/SHE) did not choose to do so. 20. DECEASED loved life much and spent it lovingly, and (HE/SHE) loved his friends and his family truly, and (HE/SHE)gave them treasures which increase on recollection. This is what we must strengthen and increase in ourselves, his loving gentleness, his even-temperness, his tolerance. We are grateful for his having lived and we celebrate his having lived among us. Please join me in silent meditation and prayer as we celebrate the life of DECEASED. 21. We belong to the eternal here and now. We did not begin when we were born; our origin goes back to the beginningless beginning of all things. Our biography is the story of earth and sun and humankind. Do we end when we die? Something eternal is revealed in everything. Our brains and our bodies are mosaics of the same unknown that underlies the light, the star, the sea. We do not know what it is but we live in it and we call it Life. We belong to the oneness from which we have emerged. 22. Would you please join me in the spirit of meditation and prayer in memory of DECEASED. 23. DECEASED loved life much and spent it lovingly, and he loved his friends and his family truly, and (HE/SHE) gave them treasures which increase on recollection. This is what we must strengthen and increase in ourselves, his loving gentleness, his even-temperness, his tolerance. We are grateful for his having lived and we celebrate his having lived among us. Please join me in silent meditation and prayer as we celebrate the life of DECEASED. 24. "When sorrow comes, let us accept it simply , as a part of life. Let the heart bee open to pain; let it be stretched by it. All the evidence we have says that this is the better way. An open heart never grows bitter. Or if it does, it cannot remain so. In the desolate hour, there is an outcry; a clenching of the hands upon emptiness; a burning pain of bereavement; a weary ache of loss. But anguish, like ecstasy is not forever. There comes a gentleness, a returning quietness, a restoring stillness. This, too, is a door to life. Here also is a deepening of meaning---and it can lead to dedication; a going forward to the triumph of the soul, the conquering of the wilderness. And in the process will come a deepening inward knowledge that in the final reckoning, all is well." A. Powell Davies 25. In the words of James Russell Lowell: " I cannot think of thee wholly gone; The better part of thee is with us still; Thou livest in the life of all good things; What words thou spak'st for freedom shall not die." 26. Over 2,000 years ago, the Latin poet,Horace wrote: Happy the man, and happy he alone, He, who can call today his own: He who, secure within, can say. Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. Be fair or foul, or rain or shine, The joys have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not Heaven itself upon the past has power, But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour. 27. I share with you the agony of your grief. The anguish of your heart finds echo in my own. I know I can not enter all you feel. Nor bear with you the burden of your pain; I can but offer what my love does give: The strength of caring, The warmth of one who seeks to understand The silent storm-swept barrenness of so great a loss. This I do in quiet ways. That on your lonely path You may not walk alone. From Meditations of the Heart (Howard Thurman) 28. L'ENVOI- Rudyard Kipling When earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried. When the oldest color's have faded and the youngest critic has died. We shall rest, and faith we shall need it- Lie down for an Aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew! And those who were good shall be happy; They shall sit in a golden chair; They shall splash at a ten league canvas with brushes of comet's hair; They shall find real saints to draw from- Magdalene, Peter, and Paul; They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all! And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame; But each for the joy of the working, and each in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are! 29. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my strength. My help cometh from the heavens and the earth, from good neighbors and the spirit of the hills and valleys which I cannot make my own. My help cometh from outside and from inside. It waits when I am impatient; it goads me when I hesitate from fear. When I am strong with courage and with faith, the sun and rain shall not smite by day, and sorrow will not haunt me by night; goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. They will keep my coming in and my going out. They look from afar like the inscrutable heights of the soul. 30. "ACCEPTANCE" - ROBERT FROST When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud And goes down beyond burning into the gulf below, No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud At what has happened. Birds, at least, must know It is the change to darkness in the sky. Murmuring something quiet in her breast, One bird begins to close a faded eye; Or overtaken too far from his nest, Hurrying low above the grove, some waif Swoops just in time to his remembered tree, At most he thinks or twitters softly, "safe! Now let the night be dark for all of me. Let the night be too dark for me to see Into the future. Let what will be, be. 31. "NATURES WAY" - Corliss Lamont It is nature's way to affirm life through death. She has decreed death for all the higher forms of life in order that life may rise to greater heights. Instead of retaining indefinitely the same instrument for the evolutionary upsurge, She discards them at a certain stage and produces new and more vigorous ones. We die to make room for newborn and lustier vitality. Generation after generation of youths and maidens, men and women, have their chance to taste the joys of living and to make their own particular contribution to the never- ending human adventure. Such is the meaning of death. 32. "What shall I say about death? (Eula P. Mohle-UWorld 1/15/74) The first point to make is that I should stay too busy living to spend much time in thinking about death. The Creator has endowed us with gifts too beautiful to ignore: a planet hanging low in the sky, a rose unfolding in the shiny dew, a cardinal calling to his mate, the sweet voices of little children at play, the joys of friendship, the harmonies of a full orchestra, a well-kept home, a delicious meal, a moving sermon, a provocative class discussion, a word fitly spoken, an exhilarating faith in the essential goodness of people and our need for each other - all these and many more should occupy our minds rather than a fear of death. I cannot accept the ecstatic longing of ancient and medieval martyrs to join the heavenly hosts as soon as possible. Life was made too beautiful to cause me to wish to leave it. As long as reasonable health is mine, I don't know of any place I'd rather be than on God's little planet Earth. I shall continue to seek to comfort the dying and the loved ones left behind. I shall freely acknowledge that my own time of death will come when it will come. That the time of my loved ones, too, will come when it comes. This does not make me bitter. It is merely one of the problems of living I cannot solve. It is a spur to my endeavors, to prick me into making my life count in its own little niche of the universe. Then what?, I simply do not know. If I've had any worthy thoughts or done any worthy deeds, I believe they will live after me in those I may have touched. They will join the unbroken chain that binds each to each. I will become a part of the great world soul and the continuum of creation." INTRODUCTION TO BIOGRAPHY 33. When a good person dies his friends gather together for many reasons. Life has touched us with a deep grief and we need one another's company for our own comfort. Just to be together, to look in friends' faces and see the common expression of hurt takes away some of the loneliness of our feeling and draws our hearts together in the blessed healing that friends can do for one another. At such a time the various faiths which sustain us separately come together in a harmony which acts across all creeds and insures us of the permanence of goodness, the inspiration of dedication, the value of a serviceable life. It is well for us to speak of those qualities which we treasured in our friend, for by speaking of them they somehow become vital and enduring and grow into us so that we take on what was noble and become more noble ourselves. 34. How do we take the measure of a man? By an inch of waist, or length of leg, or size of shoe or span of arm? Perhaps by all these things and more: Within the corners of the mind, the broad dimensions of the soul, and precious heritage of the heart. And so, our task for love and friendship's sake, to capture and make plain the quiet strength of him who was and is our friend. And in the gentleness that like a wreath about his brow we take to make it ours, we feel the patient virtues of a life well lived, bequeathed to us. The mark of such a man, above all else, is honesty. If nothing more than this we learned from him our lives and all of the future of the world would stand assured. The falsehoods of this world stand shamed and shattered on the rock of truth; the shabby and the pompous and the mean are scattered by the brightness of integrity. We need such darting wit to pierce the sham of pettiness and strike, with certain aim, the center of an issue; we need to cast aside the artifice more clever but without the stern demand of principle. We cannot let such honor perish and, if praise from us would less than empty tribute be, we must take up such valiant purpose with the will to bind it to our hearts. 35. DECEASED was not a perfect person---there are no perfect people. Sometimes (HE/SHE)was difficult to live with, sometimes (HE/SHE) was hard on people who loved (HER/HIM). For many years (HER/HIS) struggles with (HER/HIS) own personal problems caused hurt and pain both to (HER/HIM)self and those who loved (HER/HIM). But many of (HER/HIS) friends were understanding and some were very helpful to (HER/HIM). (HE/SHE) enjoyed being with people, and they enjoyed being with (HER/HIM). (HE/SHE) will be missed. 36. No person can sum up the life of another. Life is too precious to be passed over with mere words which ring empty. Rather, it must remain as it is remembered by those who loved and watched and shared. For such memories are alive, unbound by events of birth and death. And as living memories, we possess the greatest gift one person can give to another. Does anyone (else) have memories of DECEASED which you wish to share at this time? (SHARING) CLOSING 37. Nothing now can detract from the joy and beauty that we shared with DECEASED. Nothing can possibly affect the happiness and depth of experience that (HE/SHE)herself knew. What has been, has been---forever. The past with all its meaning is sacred and secure. Our love for her and her love for us, her family and friends, cannot be altered by time or circumstance. 38. We rejoice that DECEASED was and is a part of our lives. We rejoice that (HE/SHE)will live on in her RELATIVES. Her influence endures in the in the unending consequences flowing from her character and her deeds, it endures in our own acts and thoughts. We shall remember her as a living, vital presence. That memory will bring refreshment to our hearts and strengthen us in times of trouble. 39. The world we know is always passing, and yet it is always the same. Our lives and loves are temporal affairs and yet how great a thing is living! We are all pilgrims born into a kind of wilderness no metropolis will ever populate. The heart is a lone stranger on this journey. Each person treads a path in solitude---through the evil, the tragedy, the heartbreak, the sunrise, the accomplishment, the thrill---and beyond . And sometimes in the most difficult part of our journey we find a green and pleasant path that has a kind of tomorrow in it. Nothing is ever of itself fully contained and sufficient; it relates to the elements we have come from. For in our living clay bloom the hopes that give courage to the soul. 40. There are no compensations when death enters the perfect round and leaves a broken arc. Something has gone which can never be regained. Memories are sweet,and gratitude for what has been is a healing medicine, but the whole pattern of life has changed. Arguments kindly offered by those who do not know avail nothing. The attempt to light a little candle of argument does not bring the dawn. 41. But whatever the loss, whether it comes early or late, there is the unfinished adventure of life ahead; there are other people who have suffered and have needs which those who mourn can serve; there is work today, and there are the counsels of our own hearts, counsels of self respect and heroic living. 42. The reasons for living are not withdrawn when life is a broken arc. Follow these reasons; get back to the daily tasks; rejoin the circle of friends; remember to serve the people who crave what you, and perhaps you alone, can give. Then you will make a discovery; the loss has not grown less, but life has started anew. Scars remain, but health of spirit equal to the journey has been found. If there is darkness when you turn back or drop by the side of the road, there is also light when you go forward! We have suffered a deep loss, a grave loss. We can never fill the void caused by 's death. Before this emptiness we can only assert that love never ends. Our dead are immortal because we have loved them and they have loved us. Our dead live on through us and in us; in the ways they have influenced and shaped us, in our memories of them, and in our flesh. Trust that your memories and the passing of time will lessen your grief. Even the deepest grief will become bearable, giving you the means and leading you to the desire to live on. Nevertheless, it is also true that each of you who lived in special affection has also died some. You are more because lived. Let us all be strong in the conviction that in spite of death, the scheme of life is ultimately good and that we must leave this service determined to live through the loss and grief to an even more abundant life. We affirm: Death is not too high a price to pay for having lived. Mountains never die, nor do the seas, nor rocks, nor endless sky. Through countless centuries of time, they stay eternal, deathless. Yet they never live! If choice there were, I would not hesitate to choose mortality. Whatever Fate demanded in return for life I'd give, for never to have seen the fertile plains nor heard the winds nor felt the warm sun on sands beside the salty sea, nor touched the hands of those I love - without these, all the gains of timelessness would not be worth one day of living, and of loving; come what may. INTERNMENT AT CEMETERY 43. So comes the next opening - the sense of being part of a universe - the sense of personal relatedness to all life, all growth, all creativity. At this gathering we become aware that our own lives are not just little individual existences, but that we are bound in fact to all of life, from the first splitting off of the planets, through the beginning of animate life, and on through its slow evolution. We are all a part of life, but each one of us is but one separate channel of it. What has flowed through "this" life, flows on through works of accomplishment, through services rendered, through love freely given. Nothing is lost. Each quiet passing of a friend or loved one somehow marks clearly for all to see that the cycles of birth and death are to be celebrated each in their own way. We who are the living will be troubled deeply unless we take from death the message of its passing. Gentle or swift there is a quietness visiting the soul. Loosened are the bonds of earnest contentions. Set free is the spirit - beyond suffering. Confirmed is the faith. Made whole is the rounding circle of family affection which held love dearly and with honor. As we here pay our final honor and tribute to DECEASED, let us not forget the sunshine on the heights of HIS/HER life - may that solemnity deepen our sense of comradeship with men and women everywhere - may it broaden our sympathies with all who suffer - may it increase our understanding of the frailties of the flesh and the goodness of the human spirit. We seek steadfast hearts and quiet minds that we may pay to our generation the debt we owe because of our relationship with DECEASED who we have loved, and honored in our time together today. Earth returns to earth, and dust remains dust, but that which was truly beautiful in life, rises ever onward. Amen REMEMBERING Now we pause: to gather our individual feelings and thoughts; to remember the (woman/man) that was; how (she/he) touched our lives and our lives touched her/his life; to meditate upon the meaning of this occasion; to say our final farewell. BENEDICTION MEDITATION We join our minds and hearts in meditation: For thoughtful, conscious life all creation is precariously contained in a mended cup of meaning. It is the cup from which we drink our lives - the cup with which we drink to life. It is a cup which is broken and mended, broken and mended, over and over again. Each time an era passes, a way of life is destroyed, or someone significant to us dies, we cry out that our cup is broken and so it is, Yet, somehow, - together - we must find, we do find the way to mend it all over again. Now we are faced with the task of mending again. Please rise, as you are able, as we conclude this service of Remembrance and Affirmation for the life of DECEASED. Humbly we stand in the face of death. Confidently we stand with life. Our strength is the strength of many. Indeed, it is the strength of all humanity throughout all time; because we share one Fate and a great compassion. May understanding and peace go with us that we may live together in charity, compassion, and joy. In this spirit let us - individually - and together go forth to live and to love.
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