Always a Sunset Glow
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
May 28, 2006

“When…[we] become sufficiently mature to apprehend the deeper meanings…[we] begin to die. The glow of life is always a sunset glow.”—Henry Nelson Wieman

 

Call to Gather Adapted words of David Sluyter 

I awoke to the confusion of a new day,

The scraps of dreams, memories of yesterday, and new cravings creeping into awareness,

The sun spilling its light over all but the shadows and a cacophony of sound.

From outside and in.

What to make order of?  What to let go?

And who makes the choice?

I think I will go down to the river and just watch it flow,

It’s been a long time since I have done something really important.

 

This is a new day…a day to recall what we have shared and lost…a day to renew our appreciation for what we still have…a day to receive the gift of being together.

In this hour, as we watch the water flow,

May each of us find something to take home:

Forgiveness, comfort, or challenge,

A new perspective or a renewed feeling of peace.

May it be so.  It is good to be together

 

 

Meditation

“The Wish to Be Generous” by Wendell Berry

 

All that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man’s evil, or dwindle
in its own age.  Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

 

 

 

Reading
“Since You Asked” by Lawrence Raab
for a friend who asked to be in a poem

 

 

Since you asked, let’s make it dinner
at your house—a celebration
for no reason, which is always
the best occasion.  Are you worried
there won’t be enough space, enough food?

But in a poem we can do anything we want.
Look how easy it is to add on rooms, to multiply
the wine and chickens.  And while we’re at it
let’s take those trees that died last winter
and bring them back to life.

 

Things should look pulled together,
and we could use the shade—so even now
they shudder and unfold their bright new leaves.
And now the guests are arriving—everyone
you expected, then others as well:

friends who never became your friends,
the women you didn’t marry, all their children.
And the dead—I didn’t tell you
but they’re always included in these gatherings--
hesitant and shy, they hang back at first
among the blossoming trees.
You have only to say their names,
ask them inside.  Everyone will find a place
at your table.  What more can I do?

The glasses are filled, the children are quiet.

 

My friend, it must be time for you to speak.

 

Special Music

Sermon

 

During my preparation for the ministry, I spent a summer as a hospital chaplain…three months of on-the-job training in ministry as a ritual leader, hand holder, and pastoral care provider for the various patients and families who found themselves caught by circumstance in the uncertainty and chaos of medical care in a big, downtown Chicago hospital. Most denominations require the equivalent of this unit of CPE (or clinical pastoral education) for their future clergy.  It is a structured rite of passage for us…an intentional immersion of our good intentions and ministerial ambitions into the oftentimes turbulent water where health and illness intersect, where life and death meet, where reality touches mystery.

 

In the hospital where I experienced CPE, my peers and I were each assigned a couple of floors of the hospital as our “parish”.  I was given what amounted to the hospital’s rehab unit.  Those first few weeks, I meandered through the halls of my unit, stopping by the rooms of patients who were as unsure about my purpose as I was.  For every patient who was happy to see me, there were ten who seemed suspicious of me.

 

The patients I visited in my unit were typically a generation ahead of me and were mostly just enduring hospital food, boring television, and painful rehab exercises while waiting for their bodies to heal from hip or knee replacement surgeries. I didn’t blame them for doubting the value or purpose of my feeble attempts to serve their spiritual needs.  I know I would have been skeptical of a young man posing as a chaplain, too.  But, I like to think I helped more often than not.  If only because I didn’t impose myself (or my theology) on those I visited.

 

And I learned a lot, too.  I learned that people will generally tell you what they want you to know…you don’t have to guess (and you’ll often be wrong if you do).  I learned that asking too many personal questions may be a good way to bring patients to tears, but it doesn’t necessarily help them.  And I learned that the most helpful things any of us can do when we are with someone who is sick are to simply be present—to listen, to pay attention and to acknowledge and honor their experience without trying to “make it better”…as if one even can.

 

Perhaps the most valuable learning of my CPE experience, however, did not occur in the rooms of the rehab unit, but rather during the weekly 24-hour shifts I spent as the on-call chaplain, the person whose presence was expected during all hospital emergencies…which usually meant death or a situation threatening death. In fact, at this hospital, the on-call chaplain was required to do some essential paperwork after each death, so even if we missed the actual moment, we were called to the room before the body was removed, usually when the family was still present and grieving.

 

During the early evening of one of my on-call shifts, I was paged to the room of a patient on the 7^th floor, who had been removed from artificial support and was nearing the end of her life.  When I arrived, I met her two middle-aged daughters, who were understandably a little anxious.  Through the windows of the hospital room where their mother lay, the setting sun was casting that familiar yellow-orange glow of dusk that leads filmmakers in search of poignant lighting for tender scenes to call it “the magic hour.”  I stood near the foot of the bed and upon request, joined the two women in a simple prayer of gratitude for their mother’s life and our hope that she would soon be at peace.  It wasn’t long before her life mercifully came to an end and her daughters were able to release tears of sorrow mixed with relief.  Just then, the television, which for some reason was still on, caught my attention.  On the screen was a close-up picture of a beautiful sunset.  The sound was down, so I couldn’t know for sure why the image was there, but it lingered long enough for me to point it out to the daughters.

 

We paused for a moment to catch a glimpse of the broadcast sunset, mirroring the sunset casting its glow into the room, mirroring the setting sun that had been their mother’s life.

 

We all agreed the convergence of setting suns seemed like a sign…of what, we weren’t sure…but we knew we wouldn’t forget it.

 

When death comes, I think it is human to look for ways we can make sense of what has happened…for indications that things are the way they should be…for some symbol or sign that life may have ended, but life goes on…as it always has…as we know, even in our feelings of loss, it should.

 

After I finished the required paperwork and said goodbye to the daughters, the sunset images of that room stayed with me throughout the night…and a long night it was.  Over the remainder of my on-call shift, I got little sleep as I was witness to the aftermath of six more deaths.  I saw a little bit of everything that night, it seemed, and yet, despite the great variety of age and circumstances of those who had died, each room where death had visited brought forth in me the memory of that dusky glow I had shared in the 7^th floor room earlier that night.  When I had arrived at the hospital the morning before, seven deaths in ten hours would have seemed impossible to grasp, at least to a still wet-behind-the-ears seminarian.  And yet living through that night and the various sunsets it offered, was a gift to my future ministry, because it brought into sharp focus the sunset that all life is…no matter our age or the size of our bank account or our politics or our theology. 

 

That night brought home the wisdom of the quote of liberal theologian Henry Nelson Wieman upon which I have built today’s service: “When…[we] become sufficiently mature to apprehend the deeper meanings…[we] begin to die. The glow of life is always a sunset glow.”[1]

I appreciate Wieman’s analogy of life to a sunset, because a sunset is not the absence of light; rather it is a grand reminder that the light is temporary…that it will not always be.  A sunset is our reminder to appreciate the sun… even as it is setting…even as it disappears from view, leaving behind the colorful streaks of the day that was.   Likewise, each death we endure, is another streak in the sunset of our own lives…another reminder that we will not always be…another reminder to appreciate and to fully inhabit each day of our living…even as the shadows around us grow. 

 

When I decided to build this service around this sunset theme, I figured I might be able to draw upon a sermon I preached on the same topic five years ago.  I remembered liking that sermon and thought it might be worth revisiting. However, when I read that sunset sermon for the first time in many years, I was struck by how much had changed since I wrote it…how much, you could say, the sunset aspects of life had become even more apparent to me since then. 

 

In that sermon, I wrote:

“… my wife…celebrated a birthday this past week. We kept the party simple, just the two of us.  I grilled a dinner as the sun set.  Just before dinner was ready, the phone rang.  It was her parents calling, [huddled around a phone], singing together…probably a little off-key…but with the parental gusto they have always exhibited on the anniversary of their daughter’s birth.  Susan chatted with them for a few minutes, and when she got off the phone, she confessed that she had heard their singing differently than she had in the past.  As those two familiar voices bobbed and weaved through the melody of “happy birthday” Susan acknowledged that these voices would not always be able to serenade her this way.  She said that as they playfully sang “little Susie” she could see young parents proudly holding their newborn child, she could hear the years of their lives together transmitted through their cellular phone.  She could hear the sunset.

 

“The glow of life is always a sunset glow.”

 

When I wrote that passage, we were still more than a year away from our daughter’s birth…but even more poignant to me is that we were a few months away from learning that her father would be diagnosed with ALS and would begin a rapid descent toward a sunset of his own, culminating in his death less than two years later.

 

Reflecting on the changes that have occurred since I wrote that first sunset sermon, I was reminded of what each of us learns, one way or another. Life can change in an instant.  The people we love, the people we can so easily take for granted, are not permanent fixtures in our lives.  Of course, even when we know this fact, it hurts each time we have to learn it once more.  Each death we endure, each empty space that appears in our hearts, is another reminder that the time we have together is brief and worthy of our attention and our reverence and our honor.  Each passing day affords us another precious opportunity…not only to bask in the sunset glow of our own lives, but, more importantly, to appreciate the light that we have, and to share our light with others.

 

I came across a poem by Linda Pastan that reflects this sunset glow and the call it can offer us when we are fortunate enough to notice.  She writes: 

It was early May, I think
a moment of lilac or dogwood
when so many promises are made
it hardly matters if a few are broken.
My mother and father still hovered
in the background, part of the scenery
like the houses I had grown up in,
and if they would be torn down later
that was something I knew
but didn’t believe.  Our children were asleep
or playing, the youngest as new
as the new smell of the lilacs,
and how could I have guessed
their roots were shallow
and would be easily transplanted.
I didn’t even guess that I was happy.

The small irritations that are like salt
on melon were what I dwelt on,
though in truth they simply
made the fruit taste sweeter.
So we sat on the porch
in the cool morning, sipping
hot coffee.  Behind the news of the day--
strikes and small wars, a fire somewhere--
I could see the top of your dark head
and thought not of public conflagrations
but of how it would feel on my bare shoulder.
If someone could stop the camera then…
and ask me: are you happy?
perhaps I would have noticed
how the morning shone in the reflected
color of lilac.  Yes, I might have said
and offered a steaming cup of coffee.

--(“The Happiest Day” by Linda Pastan)

 

What are the images of happiness that you might be looking past, that might be getting lost amidst the “small irritations?” or maybe even the big ones?  As a friend shared with me this week, “Life is pretty good, you know, except for the big stuff.”   Big or small irritations aside, is there space in your life for gratitude, for taking stock of all that you have…even as you acknowledge all that you may have lost?  Might you be too busy mourning impending darkness to appreciate the light that is still left, the sunset glow that life always has been and always will be?

 

I learned a little about gratitude and living through loss from a friend of mine named Grace, a lovely woman who I met during my internship at the Unitarian Church of Evanston.  Grace was someone who not only acknowledged the sunset glow of her life, but who truly and joyfully basked in it with gratitude and a generous desire to share it with others. She approached me after church one December Sunday, inviting me to visit her in the assisted living facility where she had recently moved.  She told me that she thought it was important for a future minister to see how an older woman lives.

 

I arrived at her place on a rainy afternoon.  We shared a late lunch in the cafeteria and then visited for the remainder of the day in her tiny but comfortable apartment, a three-room set-up cluttered with furniture and keepsakes of a life well lived.  She told me of the autobiography she was writing and showed me the typewriter where she did most of the work.  She walked me past the mementos of her life, pictures of her husband…dead now for many years, the artwork she had collected and photos of her sisters.  We looked at a few newspaper clippings from her days as an activist and talked about how her life had changed over time.

 

Then our talk turned to the small upright piano that stood against one wall of her living room.  How long had she played, I asked.  Only for a couple of years, she replied.  She accepted my request that she play something.  She pulled out an already worn book of classics and sat down at the keys, poised and at peace.  I knew I was in for something special.

 

She began to play, softly, just tentatively enough to convey that she was still a beginner.  As the delicate, well-worn fingers of my new friend gently pushed on the keys and notes trickled out of the wooden box, I was moved to tears.  I could hear in the careful melody filling the room, the tune of a life nearing its end, but not yet complete…a tune both melancholy and joyful…a tune rich with history, still alive to possibility.  That afternoon, if only for a few hours, I could not only hear the sunset, I had become one with it.  I was marveling at its beauty and its grace even as I acknowledged its light would not shine forever.

 

We soon parted company and I began my drive through the streets of Chicago, when I noticed the afternoon sun was already beginning to make its way into the lower reaches of the city sky.  I knew that Grace had given me a gift by sharing the sunset song of her life with me, a song I guessed she had been playing and sharing long before our paths had crossed.  I also knew that like the sun of that December afternoon, Grace would not shine forever. 

 

A couple of seasons later, not long after I had moved to Des Moines, I got the word that Grace had died.  I regret that I did not hear her play again, but I will always remember the sunset she shared with me.  And I will treasure the colorful streak of memory that her life has added to my own.

 

“The glow of life is always a sunset glow.”

 

I know now, several years after Grace’s death, that she is just as accessible to me now than she ever was, for I have begun to learn the wisdom of today’s reading…the piece by Lawrence Raab that suggests that “in a poem we can do anything we want.”

 

Life, after all, is our poem.  Despite the limitations embedded in its language, we can interpret its metaphors for ourselves.  We can translate our memories into its body, weaving them into stanzas of remembrance of those who have known…we “only have to say their names, ask them inside.”  Let’s take some time now to share the names of those who still reside in our hearts…those who we ask inside to this room…this day.

 

Naming Meditation

Each year, on the Sunday before Memorial Day, we set aside a portion of our service to remember those whom we have loved and lost…those who, as St. John Chrysostom wrote, are no longer where they were before…they are now wherever we are. 

 

This is a time for each of us to reflect on those who may still be with us in spirit though not in body, those with whom we have shared our lives, those whose death has offered us sorrow that is, of course, a tribute to the life we had the privilege of sharing.

 

I invite you to join me now
in a spirit of meditation and reflection

recognizing that none of us have come to this hall
without our own unique empty spaces…

spaces once filled
with the lives of those we have known and loved—

partner or parent

family member or friend.

 

As is our custom on this day, we will now share a naming ritual.

We will begin with a brief time of silence.

Then I will speak aloud the names of the church members or friends who have died since last May,
acknowledging the losses we have collectively shared as a community during this church year.

Again we will be silent.

Then, into the silence, I will invite you to speak aloud or silently

The names of those whose absence has left an empty space in you, those whose lives you cannot help but remember this day.

This will be a time to acknowledge
the names of those whose lives have ended,
but whose presence is unending.

 

We will offer these names in recognition of all that was shared,

In forgiveness for all that needs to be forgiven,

In honor of the bond that remains preserved
even in death.

We will offer these names as a way of preserving the memory of those we have loved and lost,

Even as we continue to let go.

 

Let us be silent for a time. (silence)

This day we remember

George Banks Brown

Jean Kroon Bragg

Gerald Edwards

Lillian Emmanuel

Joe Graham

(silence)

 

But in a poem we can do anything we want.
The dead—
You have only to say their names,
ask them inside.  Everyone will find a place
at your table….

My friend, it must be time for you to speak.

 

Now, let us offer to the silence the names of those we remember this day, mindful that as the names are spoken, they may repeat and overlap, just as our sorrows sometimes do. 

This day we remember:

(names)

 

We have shared these names, 

These symbols of life lived, memories shared
and now the empty spaces that reside in our hearts.

Remembering that there are countless names
that remain unspoken, and there may be empty spaces within us that cannot yet be shared. 
 

Amen.

 

Closing Words (inscription on a sundial at the University of Virginia)

Time is too slow for those who wait; too swift for those who fear; too long for those who grieve; too short for those who rejoice.  But for those who live, Time is Eternity. Hours fly, flowers die, new days new ways pass by.  Love stays.