The Funeral

For reasons known only to God, I slept a full seven hours last night.  That doesn't mean that it was meaningful sleep, but at least I wasn't awake and/or up every two hours checking the clock.  Seven hours is not only welcome but unusual.  The downside is that it cuts my day shorter than usual.  Here it is after 2:00 PM, and I'm still not getting anything done.  Why?

In the course of my morning, I was surfing Facebook on my phone when I ran into, quite by accident, the livestream of Congressman Elijah Cummings's funeral at his home church.  Former presidents Clinton and Obama were to speak, and I couldn't turn away.

Congressman Cummings was African-American and a Democrat.  He recently passed away and became the first African-American to lie in state in the nation's Capitol, but his actual funeral service took place at his home church in Baltimore and was live-streamed on Facebook.  

I don't need to tell anyone that I am not African-American.  My skin color is quite white, and I have lived my life understanding that people of color and I haven't had many shared experiences in life; however, I've experienced African-American church services and funerals before and know that they simply are more moving than anything us white folks have to offer.

When we lived in Pontiac, IL, our next-door neighbor and his family were black.  They had lived there forever, with land south of John Street, while the land north of John Street was made into a subdivision that was somewhat posh in those days, and it happened during his lifetime.  The neighbors' names were Hubert and Katherine...plus their adult son, Hubert, who was emotionally disabled due to PTSD and other problems.  They had another son, married with children, who lived elsewhere. The father Hubert was called Ruby.  And Ruby was a sweetheart.  I never knew much about Katherine because she wasn't well and mostly stayed in the house, as did the son, Hubie.

Ruby was Methodist.  He and family drove to Bloomington, IL, every Sunday (35 miles or so, one way) to attend an African Methodist Episcopal Church there, in spite of the fact that Pontiac had a "regular" Methodist Church, of which I was a member.  He felt that he needed to go there to be with other believers of color.  Ruby was an old man back then and, I'm sad to say, had seen a lot of history in his time and understood "his place" in society.  He didn't want to create problems for anyone.  It hurt me to know this.  It wasn't right.  I loved that old man.  In time, and with old age, Ruby finally braved staying closer to home for Sunday services, even though there were basically no other blacks in that congregation.  Long after I left Pontiac, I read that Ruby--easily in his late 70s--was on church mission trips out of the country to help build churches and homes in underdeveloped areas of South America.  (Reminds me of former president Jimmy Carter.)

Somewhere early in my neighborship (?) with Ruby and family, his wife Katherine died.  I didn't really know Katherine, but I knew Ruby, and I attended her funeral.  I think I may have been the only white face in the gathering.  Still, I will never forget the experience.  This wasn't my first "black church" experience, but it was mind-blowing.  I can't do justice to the African-American minister's service, but I'll try.

To wit:
"My wife and I were to depart on a mission in the middle of winter to a warmer place than home.  It was snowing and cold where we were.  We had our coats with us, but had to wait in the airplane...and wait...and wait.  The pilot came over the PA to say we were awaiting permission to take off.

"Finally, that permission came.  The plane rose up over the snow and cold, up into the clouds where we stayed above the invisible earth.  When it came time to land, we went back down through the clouds to be delivered to our destination.  We looked out the windows, not knowing what to expect.  To our wonder, it was warm, sunny, and cloudless.  We threw off our coats and basked in the glory of it.  We clearly had gone to a better place!

"Our sister Katherine Boswell has been given permission to take off.  Her spirit has soared above the coldness and pain of life's winter, and come to rest in a place of constant beauty and warmth.  She has no more need of a winter coat, or medicine, or any other earthly reminder that she is anywhere else but in the presence of Jesus!"

And I would never be quite the same after that eulogy.
Of course, the pastor's delivery was more dynamic and animated than his words, in the traditional style of African-American preaching.  (Black ministers hold the franchise for getting their congregations actively involved in their sermons!)  Not only was I enthralled, but also comforted.  And I didn't even know the Dearly Departed!

A couple of days ago, one of my former students announced on Facebook that his grandmother had passed.  He wrote glowingly of her in eloquent terms, not at all mushy, and I understood in that moment that as long as he lived, she would never truly die.  Which led me to wondering what, if anything, my own grandchildren could/would say about me after my passing.  I don't think they remember the early days of their lives when I was more present, less disabled, and so shamelessly head-over-heels in love with everything about them.  (Still am, on that latter part.)  Now, I think I'm just a dinosaur to them, but who knows?  I guess it doesn't really matter.  I have enough delightful memories of them to last for the rest of my life!

In any case, today's funeral service for Rep. Cummings took me down a special road.  One of the speakers quoted one of my favorite hymns, then immediately also quoted a stanza of one of my favorite poems.  I wondered if my former students were watching because the Robert Frost poem  ("Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening") was one of the memory selections I required of them each year.  And the hymn, It Is Well With My Soul, will forever be part of my life.

I confess that I wept during most of the service all alone in my little house-on-a-slab.  I wept for Rep. Cummings and his family; for the words of Mr. Cummings' children, relatives, wife, and staff; over the words of past Presidents; and over the words of the Pastor of the New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.  My tears were cathartic because, as I wept for Mr. Cummings' demise, I also wept for my own,  They were also tears of sadness over lost innocence in this land of ours, considering the climate of now.  And in there, somewhere, were tears of happiness and joy that there are still good people in the world who find "right" worth fighting for, and tears of hope that the world that we leave for our children, grandchildren, and the generations beyond can become that warm and sunny place where sister Katherine's soul landed after having been given permission to take off.

I pray that it will be so.