Put Heaven Into Yourself

My grandfather - grandpadaddy, as we called him - was by all standards old - 92 - when he died. His wife, my grandmother is still alive at 97. Grandpadaddy died soon after their 70th wedding anniversary.

Before grandpadaddy's funeral we sat in my grandparent's living room with the pastor of their Presbyterian church who had come to call. I know the drill myself. You sit with a family, listen to stories of the deceased, and assess as best you can their gifts, loves, and passions in life. So, we did that for about seven minutes, then the rest of the conversation turned to the logistics of the service and memorial gathering after.

The next day was the service. The people-gathered consisted mostly of Shriners and Daughters of the American Revolution members - the two organizations my grandparents loyalty never swayed from. The eulogy was full of dates, locations, and factual information about his life. But the story part of his life was surprisingly short, for such a long life; it skipped decades, and felt more like a list. He worked for the Ford Motor Company in 1932, sold drapery hardware in 1954, and retired to Florida in 1975. That was all true. Now, I've done Unitarian Universalist memorial services for so long that I frankly didn't see coming what came next. What I didn't see coming was ¼ of the eulogy was his story and the other ¾ of the eulogy about an affirmation that indeed we would see Ken again in heaven - that he would wait for us, and that we were to be comforted and held because of this fact - that our despair and loss was weighed evenly by the consolation that God has promised us the kingdom in the sweet by and by, and by God, Ken will be there waiting for us. We will all be connected to the holy once again, just as Ken is now. Just you wait and see.

I think I sang Amazing Grace after that, and then ate finger food at the reception. I conversed with numerous octogenarians about my grandfather. They were polite and grateful for his participation in their organization. Then we got in the car to drive back to grandmother's house.

I remember getting in the car, and having held it in so long, it came out in an exasperated flood to my sister? "What the hell was that?" Where was Ken Gillespie Miller in that celebration of life? Sure he got the facts and dates right, but where was grandpadaddy? There were no stories about his odd philanthropy, of this racist, sexist, classist man, who routinely would drive burn victims from Florida to Atlanta, to the Shriners' hospital because they were without health insurance, and the Shriners would cover their medical bills. He'd pick them up at their run down house on the "wrong side of the tracks" or at the trailer park, and drive them with apparent dogged dedication and glee to their destination. This man who had an opinion about everyone: the clothes people wore, what they drove, what color their skin was, or what side of the tracks they lived on, but when it came to this - the car-service to the least of these - he was strangely honorable, respectful, and humbled. He was a walking contradiction, if ever I knew one.

In my opinion, Ken Miller was missing from his own funeral. Someone on a list with appropriate dates, civic affiliations, and vocational choices showed up instead. The other thing that struck me at the memorial - as much as I loved my grandfather, I didn't always like him that much. And if there is an eternity, I don't want to have to spend it with him. Ken Miller was a bore. He had one, one - mind you - glorious story, but it took me 28 years of listening - hour after blasted hour - to the worst storyteller on the planet in order to hear it. And it was just sheer luck that I paid attention then. You see some people are born storytellers who take you with them on their journey - they care that they are talking to a person not a brick wall. That person was not my grandfather. And I realized, that for me, that is one of the problems with a theology that involves an afterlife. That when you believe your connection to the holy is best satisfied by being reunited with god and your loved ones in some afterlife, in my opinion you run into problems. And here was proof of those problems. Though, who is to say that my grandfather secretly had no interest in hanging out with me in heaven either; he might have shared my opinion of the whole endeavor. He might just as well have loved me, and not liked me that much. I could be a thorn in his side; I at times pushed him when I probably just should have let it go. Maybe he was thinking, "Oh please just let me go with other Shriners; I bet there is a Shriners heaven. Can I keep out my edgy, liberal, opinionated granddaughter? Can you mention that during my eulogy?"

In the end, what my grandfather's memorial reinforced for me is that the focus on the afterlife was not helpful to my grieving, letting go, or finding meaning in our relationship with one another. What his service did do, was make me incredibly grateful for this tradition, for our faith that says something different. We don't say that you'll find your most meaningful connection to the holy upon your death, but rather we say, "Our task is not to get people into heaven, it is to get heaven into people. AND We believe that is made possible, by focusing on one's life now. We ask each other, how is the sacred, the holy moving and shaping your life each day, each moment, each hour? That is our big overarching question, and our memorial services reflect this. Our memorial services are a celebration of someone's life, of the gifts they shared with us while alive, and then how do we - those of us who knew and loved this person - carry those gifts on into our own lives, so the deceased in a way has some staying power, has some immortality in the continuation of their essence through our own living and loving. To live in hearts that love is not to die - that is our mantra and theology.

Heaven and hell are rarely on our radar screen. We let each of you decide for yourself what happens to you when you die. So some of you believe that you are dead, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, recycled into the world of which we came. Others believe in some form of an ongoing spirit or soul that gets reincarnated until enlightenment is obtained. Still others believe that there is an afterlife, where we will be whole and one with all that we experienced here in this life.

For us, no matter your belief, the whole discussion on what happens to us after we die is - immaterial. As Unitarian Universalists, the bigger question, the sacred question is - How are you constantly growing and evolving so that you are a source of the divine in action? How is the sacred showing up in your living and loving? Again - Our task is not to get people into heaven, it is to get heaven into people - which is best made possible, by focusing on one's life now.

When I think about that question, I realize there is a foil in front of me often, a foil that keeps me from getting heaven into my life. And that foil isn't my grandfather's conservative religion, or even shallow, consumerist culture. Upon reflection, I realize that I stiff-arm my own welcoming-in of a heaven into my life, more often than I would like. In truth I think this is true for most of us - that our biggest foil to ushering heaven into our lives, to living in the now, is ourselves. "How so?" you ask. Well, this story by Rachael Naomi Remen, MD and author gets at one of those obstacles we put in front of ourselves.

Remen tells the story of a patient she had who was depressed unless things went a certain way in his life. For him, happiness was "having the cookie." As he said, "If you had the cookie, things were good. If you didn't have the cookie, life wasn't worth a damn." Unfortunately for him, the cookie kept changing. Some of the time it was money, sometimes power, sometimes sex. At other times, it was the new car, the biggest contract, or the most prestigious address. A year and half after his diagnosis of prostate cancer he sat in Remen's office, shaking his head and saying, "It's like I stopped learning how to live after I was a kid. When I give my son a cookie, he is happy. If I take the cookie away or it breaks, he is unhappy. But he is two and half and I am forty-three. It's taken me this long to understand that the cookie will never make me happy for long. The minute you have the cookie it starts to crumble, or you start to worry about it crumbling or about someone trying to take it away from you. You know, you have to give up a lot of things to take care of the cookie. To keep it from crumbling and be sure that no one takes it away from you. You may not even get a chance to eat it because you are so busy just trying not to lose it. Having the cookie is not what life is about."

Remen says that her patient laughed and said that cancer had changed him. That for the first time in his life he was happy. He had heaven in his life. He was living in the now. His happiness didn't depend on his business doing well or not, or winning at golf or not. Listen to what he said, "Two years ago, cancer asked me, 'Okay what is important?' - What is really important? Well, life is important. Life. Life any way you can have it. Life with the cookie, life without the cookie. Happiness does not have anything to do with the cookie; it has to do with being alive. Then he said, "(You know what,) I guess life IS the cookie. "

Life is the cookie. I love that story, because I see myself in it. I see how all of us can get caught up in not getting heaven in our lives because we mistake objects, professions. perks, and houses for the cookie. But Life is the cookie.

We get in the way of ourselves having heaven in our life. We also do it by having the past get entangled in our lives right now. The past contains our mistakes, our regrets, and our resents - those things that keep us from growth, expansion, and seeing ourselves as alive - living human beings, as being capable of moving on. The bible tells us that as she looked back, Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt. Rachel Remen articulates this turn of events so well, she says, "I suspect that many of us have had this happen to us without our realizing we have become frozen, trapped by the past. We are holding onto to something long gone, and with our hands full, we are unable to take hold of our opportunities or what life is offering (now)." Sometimes it is our past that gets in the way of our present.

Sometimes it is our future. We look forward to an event, occasion, or opportunity that does not contain the suffering, or pain we endure now, and thus we can't or won't be present to what unfolds in front of us.

No matter what it is, the whole of this tradition, of Unitarian Universalism is to help give you the tools and the resources so that you see the present, the here and now as your best opportunity to connect with the holy. We do that by offering various meditations, stories, and reflections on what to avoid, what to lean into, and what to practice. Today, what I want to offer, leads me back to my grandfather's funeral. ¼ of that eulogy was about my grandfather, but mind you it was only the good pieces of him. It is true that eulogies tend to mention the positive aspects of the life of the departed. Which is only natural, as they're dead, why bring up their addictions, their tendency to cheat on their spouse, or their inability to be a good parent.

In truth, you'd rarely if ever hear a minister do something like this:

Jane is dead. She died at 44 and was a pistol of a gal. She could bring joy and elation to people's lives weekly, but also often liked the idea of people better than she really liked individual people.

She had three children she loved fiercely, and yet would often wonder when they were going to move out of the annoying behavior evident of their age, captive by the possibilities of the future-them, rather than the present-them.

She was creative, innovative, challenging, yet moved so fast, she often missed the beauty right in front of her, the sun setting at dusk or the moon rising, because there was e-mail to attend to, laundry to fold, or dishes to put away.

She made every one of her parent-teacher conferences for her children, and yet would stare with bewilderment at the date of April on the printed page, because in her mind, her child had just started the grade they were in, and she was reeling back through the months wondering where she was, and what she had done and thought about through Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec., Jan., February, and March - now all gone, dates on a calendar, with days and weeks difficult to account for. How had it become April? Or how could she be 44, was a constant question of Jane's. She was more often than not wanting to try to catch up to her life happening before her.

She was often quick to anger and had no slow burn. There was no frustration level, and she could startle the most settled when her anger ventured out.

She lived well on Monday's, Wednesdays, and some Fridays - present, attuned to her family, the natural world, her pets, and the present. The rest of the days were spent rushing activities and events, so the present could become the past.

She liked to be liked, and was surprised when she couldn't woo someone over. She cared more about what others thought of her than she should have, and didn't give into her joy, her passion, and her loves as much as she should. She needed and wanted to surrender to life more often, rather than holding it close, and then back out at arms length, as could become her habit.

This was Jane. She offered us the good and bad. When she practiced daily a discipline of being present in our lives, we got the best of her, when she didn't we got the whirling dervish version of her. This was Jane.

Am I right? We don't get that in a eulogy. Perhaps it is not just because we have a certain respect for the dead - as they are dead after all - so why go into the fullness of who people are, but maybe more so, because this eulogy wasn't written by a minister, but rather by Jane herself. Okay, by me. Jane is me. You see, I've started this practice of writing my own eulogy every couple of years, because it is an honest assessment of where I am at. It keeps me concentrated on the here and now. I have found it is one of the best tools I have to make me get heaven into my life.

You'll notice in this writing I didn't write about how I would want people to remember me. Indeed the trick of the exercise is to write it so that it would mirror what someone could honestly write about you at a particular time and place. What they would pick up on if they really were candid. Not the eulogies that are sometimes a work of fiction, or just the best of us, but an honest assessment.

The exercise helps me get to looking not only at my life right now and how I wish to be remembered, but has a way of focusing my attention on what I have done, or more importantly failed to do with my life.

In short, this exercise, this tool, makes me look at what I would like to focus on and change. When I'm dead I can't change any of these things; now I can. I can be more present in my life than just Monday's, Wed., and Fridays. I can work on my temper - because it keeps me from connecting with others. I can work on doing rituals/spiritual practices to bring me back to the present so I'm not living in the past or future. I can stop being a whirling dervish more often and just stop and be present - witness the moon and the setting sun, to stop and see. I can change and work on all of these things. And when I do, I usher in a heaven more often, and have the holy residing in my life.

Again, as a tradition, we do not hold up the promise of reconnection with God when we die, rather we focus on the task of living into the connection with the holy as best we can each day, each hour, and each minute of our lives. We are a people of the here and now. So in the next week, do this simple exercise - write your obituary. Be sure to write not how you want to be remembered, but an accurate account of how you are living, what you are doing well, and what you aren't. Then use it as a tool, to shape, change and focus you on the holy - those areas you need to lean into, let go of, and explore. Use it to bring the sacred into your life today. Use it to get heaven in your life now.

So may it be, amen.

Kaaren Anderson, Parish Co-Minister
March 21, 2010