Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Written for my mother's memorial service:

I have been asked to say a eulogy, literally a good word, for my Mom. This is usually where a friend, relative or pastor talks about the admirable qualities of a life departed to those who know the person, both the good and the bad, at least as well as the speaker does. Many of you have known my Mom longer than I have and better than I do, so I won't presume to speak of things related to some lofty goal like who she was as a person or what her life might mean on some grand scale. I'll leave that to those of you much wiser than I. Instead, I want to talk about what my Mom meant to me, what I learned from her and how our relationship made me who I am and who I want to be. That's something I think I can talk about with some authenticity and something that I think celebrates the life we remember today.

Perhaps the first thing I should talk about is the strong cord of perseverence my Mom wove into the fabric of my character. As a boy I didn't always like that she emphasized that I follow through on my goals and commitments to the degree she did, yet as a man so much of who I am can be traced to that lesson repeatedly expressed in many different ways. Without it I can assure you that I wouldn't have achieved have of what I have. I doubt that I would have finished college after a disappointing freshman year, much less finished a course of study in a demanding field. I would have left graduate school after one semester for a job in computer programming without the tenacity she forged into my outlook by her words and life. While the research I did was certainly esoteric, her name could have been added to those papers which shared the new knowledge I discovered with all humankind. At every difficult crossroads of my life when there seemed to be an easier path that might have led me away from my dreams, the endurance she taught me enabled me to stay the course. It is not surprising then my the verse of Scripture that means the most to me is Hebrews 12:1-2: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everthing that hinders...and run the race marked out for us with endurance. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the originator and completer of our faith..."

The second thing I learned from my Mom was to live life from my heart. As you all know, my Mom was a very passionate person. She loved my brother and me passionately. She loved her parents and husband passionately. She loved her freinds passionately. As everyone who was close to my Mom knew, her passion for what she loved sometimes led to conflict, but that same passion never let you forget her love for you. To be honest, I think my Mom was uncomfortable with her passion sometimes. She always seemed to want to ask me for a rational persepective; a logical approach. Probably she did that with some of you as well. While she sought to have me live with my mind, her passion taught me to live with my heart; something I have always endeavored, though not always succeeded, to do. There are times when that confounded her but I think she always understood the reasons behind what I did. She knew that once my heart had decided something it was useless to argue with my head. She could have fought those battles and sometimes did, but usually she let me follow the things I was passionate about and celebrated with me in my accomplishments and in the fullness of my life.

The final thing I wnat to share is something that I've come to realize over the last week in remembering my Mom and her life. What I've remembered is how much she loved to dance. As a kid I was often embarassed to dance with her when she asked me to. Believe it or not, I was a kind of shy and sensitive boy who and I was very self-conscious of how I looked when I would try to dance. I'm pretty sure she wished I would have danced with her more often but she was kind enought to give me the space to be who I was. As I've grown older I've sort of learned to dance; both with myself and with others. There's a real joy to it; becoming motion in tune with rhythm and emotion. It's a very liberating thing.

Over the course of the last year or so, in the process of trying to learn to be in a relationship with God that is as much about my heart as my head, I learned about an an idea that describes the Trinity. The early Christian writers used the term perichoresis to describe how the three persons of a single God could be in relationship with one another. The word literally means "circle dance" and is used in this context to describe the eternal dance of indwelling love between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Some theologians have said that there was a time when humankind participated in this dance. They say that through the sacrifice of the Son and the work of the indwelling Spirit we can again hear this music and join in the dance.

I pray and hope that my Mom has found Someone to dance with. Someone who loves as completely and as passionately as she does. And I pray that there will come a time out of time when I will join in that wonderful dance with her.

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