When you come to the end of your life what will they say of you?
A successful life? A good friend? A person who placed their family first? Or what?
Your passing must become a gift. Your brief time on this earth was a gift: you did not ask to be born but you were given life by the creative hand of God. Our Christian faith gives us a very clear understanding that every person who walks on this earth has a purpose. There are no useless human beings. Everyone one has a purpose in the great creative plan of God.
As we come to the end of our days we must frame our life as a gift: to God, to our fellow human beings and to ourselves.
To God we give our sharing in the out-pouring love of God. The very center of all the cosmos, amidst all the billion galaxies, is the outpouring love of our creator God. Everything is an expression to the outpouring goodness of God, We have lived in that same outpouring of love and goodness for humans and all of creation. Our life is a song sung in harmony with the creative heart of God.
This was a human being who loved, respected and cared for all parts of the earth: plants, animals, birds, humans and to us a geographical image, the Rocky Mountains. This was a lover of the earth and all its blessings. May your footprints have touched the earth with love , joy and respect.
We have always lived among our fellow human beings. We are truly inter-dependent beings but your life is actually a gift when you walked with compassion and justice toward others. Life was not abut getting rich for yourself, but working towards the well -being of others. You always understood that your life would thrive if you enabled your fellow human being to thrive.
We appreciated how your shopping trips to the grocery store always elicited concerns about the people on fixed incomes. How do they manage to feed themselves when the price of groceries has increased by nine or ten percent during this last year? You always had a strong position that we must care for one another. You always asked ‘and how is my sister/brother doing when the national economy took a down-turn? You wore your concern for others on your sleeve?
And then the earth. You took joy in the gift of clean water, fresh rain, the growing crops of Saskatchewan canola, and the refreshing winds of autumn. All parts of nature were a blessing to you and you shared these blessings with all of us.
And then in your daily prayer you were very joyful in gratitude for the great love that God has for all of us. We always felt that we were all included in your prayer.
What a blessing your life has been. We want to say that the earth and all others humans have truly been blest that you have walked this earth. God always rejoices in your goodness.
How wonderful to come to the end and to make your death a gift to God, to all human beings and to the earth earth itself.
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