"Learning to Grieve with Hope" - Community Church of Issaquah - Issaquah, WA - October 20th, 2013

     Here is to those surprises when you find gems that line up with your schedule (whatever those gems are). The Community Church of Issaquah has a 1:30pm service that matched up perfectly with my schedule for a visit before later things in the day.

     Right now they are having services in the building that hosts the Issaquah Christian Church while their new building gets built. The main difference between the groups that I can gather from their websites is the Issaquah Christian Church is an Evangelical Church verses The Community Church of Issaquah who are Baptists.

    The first thing I noticed was the congregation, the congregation is old and small. There is a closeness among them too and everybody knows everyone. They are also kind to strangers as I experienced after the sermon.

   The Pastor looked the role of the Baptist preacher. He had a grey suit, tie, glasses and grey hair. He also had a lot of anecdotes during the course of the worship service. The service began talking about their missionary work in Myanmar and the volunteer doctors and nurses their (as well as their expansion) and after there was a prayer for all those sick, in surgery, going through cancer and a prayer for the country to elect virtuous leaders or for people to lead with virtue. Next were two songs praising God before the sermon began.

       The service was about "Learning to grieve with hope." The readings also had to do with the sermon as well were about Paul talking to his followers about how they had hope from Jesus rising from the Dead that they would rise again with him. The Pastor than talked about grief relating stories about what it was like to lose his grandparents and parents and his relationships to all of them.

     He then talked about how people choose not to believe. The reasons he believed people don't believe is from Intellectual barriers (he said Spiritual disability - which was the one thing I really took issue with during the sermon, since those intellectual issues are in fact valid, just look at all the questions asked throughout time not just in regards to Christianity but any religion and the proofs that are honestly needed, my appreciation for the philosophers grew after this sermon), or people who have been hurt by their community (which if a community does hurt a person they should leave, no one should stay in an abusive relationship with another person or community).

      Afterwords was the closing hymn and I briefly talked the pastor and one of the Bible Teachers, they both introduced themselves to me. I think I will drop by the Bible study sometime during the course of the blog. They are kind community and I'm curious to learn more about what they are all about and their intpretations and experiences.There were a few liberal bumper stickers (one said Obamacare in a positive light), which was something I did not expect. It just goes to show that there truly are such a wide range of political thoughts within any congregation and within the different congregations inside a denomination.

Grandma Claire's Funeral - Butler 33rd Ward Church of Latter Day Saints - Salt Lake City, UT - October 12th, 2013

     Today was the day of the funeral. This is the third funeral I have ever attended, and each one was different in type of grief and memories with it. A funeral should capture who a person was and meant to people. The greatest way to honor someone is with the truth and remembering and appreciating the person as all of who they were. Across all religious and non-religious boundaries this what I've learned.

     The funeral began with a prayer by my Uncle Todd and than the closing of the casket. The room was full of pictures from the viewing. All of us cousins with pictures of Grandma, including the picture from her house where all of us gave her thumbs up breast surgery for the cancer she was going through. The prayer honored her faith and after we made our way into the chapel for the service.

Grandma Claire's viewing and the family prayer - Salt Lake City, UT - October 11th, 2013

   There seem to be 3 things that bring a family together (outside of reunions which tend to be special and rare events) birth, marriage and death. The event today showed just how much a part of people's lives my Grandma Claire was.

     For the past few days since I heard about her death I've been keeping myself busy. She was a part of my life for so long and mattered so much, that expressing how much she means leaves me at a loss for words. Today I was able to find some of those words and accept her death the part of my life and others' lives who she was.

    The viewing began and a few uncles, cousins and family members from my Grandma's generation were there, as well as her friends. Eventually more of the cousins arrived and I tried socializing and on that found that myself and everyone else were in different stages of grief and acceptance so it was more of a recognition and gratitude for someone being there than in deep conversation, those happened later with the cousins who I am closest too who I hadn't seen for a while.

   In between that time I visited the open casket. After her body has been given dignity (when a person dies death doesn't grant much dignity in how it lets go), she looked as if she was asleep. I must have walked at least twice just to say hello, letting the fact that she dead sink in. That she wasn't asleep. In between those times I hugged and was there for family as they were there for me. That gave peace...

     Next when I was with the cousins I grew up with around my age and who I hadn't seen for a while we talked events still going on in life, what are plans were and where we were going and in that also talking about Grandma.

   It was after that I took time for myself just to think about her. When I was young and in elementary school my family would visit Grandma every Sunday. It was there we would hang out with her and also play SEGA in the basement, and Christmas meetups and bowling on Thanksgiving. Later memories were of Bear Lake and talking to Grandma at the beach and her Condo, I'm glad I made her a part of the short story inspired by that place, I plan to make it mostly in her honor.

     Later after I left the Mormon Church it didn't effect our relationship. When I'd visit from Washington we'd talk about her and her childhood. I learned about her growing up in Europe after World War 2 and as I got older saw how big of a part she was of her community. She was the reason for all the big family events, she brought all of us together.

   For me that was the prayer showed. My Uncle who was a bishop in the Church said the prayer and it did emphasize how important Grandma's belief in the Church was but also her legacy and her humility, kindness and humor even in the face of terminal cancer.

   Tomorrow is the funeral, and more of my thoughts then about my Grandma and the event. For now, after the funeral I met up with the cousins around my age group and their wives, picked up my brother at the airport and connected, remembered, lived and found humor and joy. It was a beautiful end of the day to honoring a beautiful and amazing woman.

The Problem of Evil - Return to St. Paul's Church - Nanjing, China - July 1st, 2012

Today has been an interesting day. I've met with friends and talked philosophy and teaching in China, ran into a philosopher from Kentucky who is teaching math and physics here and experienced an interesting sermon. 

I figured with the time I have left in Nanjing I should revist St. Paul, and also visit the Temple before I go. Both are interesting places from what I experienced before, and in the case of Daming Temple, heard about. 

The sermon today touched on the Problem of Evil, and to a degree the nature of belief and faith. 

First I arrived early and sung two of the songs with the congregation, while also catching up with Durin, a college student who I had met there last time I had visited. After that there was the songs and readings, all which focused on the reality of God being there and the desire for God, before leading up to the sermon. 

The readings were a psalm, and a chapter in Mark in which Jesus heals a woman who is healed by her faith in him, and his healing of a dead twelve year old girl. 

The sermon started with the pastor telling a story about a sixteen year old believer he knew who died of cancer. He mentioned how he didn't know why events like this happen if God heals and that it had initially caused him to doubt. He eventually came back and tied this story to the story of a missionary in the 19th Century whose daughters had died in a shipwreck, and when he had passed the shipwreck on the way to his wife how his belief in God had caused him to have peace in his soul. 

"What is the state of your soul?" He asked the congregation. 

My thoughts were...'I don't know if I have one...I really have no way of proving if it exists or not. Where is the soul? What is the soul?'

He ended with making a claim that God seeks those who trust and have faith in him, like the woman who had faith and healed and the young girl who had been dead. If Jesus is "The Way, the Truth and the Light," my experience of the relationship has been an unknown, much like the existence of my soul, except Jesus's stories remind us of the importance of integrity with the world and living with truth and honesty in all that we do.

That is something I do believe in. virtue and integrity, it may be hard to fully define but it is something that can be defined and experienced without the questions and unknown. If Jesus Christ is God, I'll always be open to knowing that, but right now Jesus is unknown as anyone else in the past where I can know how others thought of him and what others believed him to be, but if I believed that without any doubts...I'd be lying to myself and that would not be living with virtue or integrity.

Memorial of a Friend - Catholic Newman Center Prince of Peace Chapel - Seattle, WA - June 1st, 2011

      Friends and community. Some of you have probably been wondering why I haven't been updating the blog at all. The reason I haven't is because I've been dealing with the death of a friend who was like a sister to me. It's strange really, while there at her memorial, funeral and burial I did feel that connection to her and something more...at times after that, I've wanted to visit churches and keep up the blog, but then I find I can't go.

        Many times it's because I visit communities where I don't know anybody...I'm a stranger. I don't want to bring my vulnerability to strangers, to put it simply. Another reason is I think, is the issue of God and the afterlife for me. At the core, I think I am quite agnostic, I believe in living in the moment and now and in this life, not for a possible next, though I hope for God and an afterlife, and to see all friends, family and community again..I cannot know if God and the Afterlife exist with certainty. 

      I've never had a death hit me like it did that day at the memorial. It was week after she had died, and I arrived early and took the schedule for when she would be buried and when her funeral be, as well as the article in the UW Newspaper about her and sat on the couch to wait for more people to arrive. I looked at the schedule... the surrealness lessened and it really it him that she was gone. That was the first time I've cried in a long time. 

      The memorial was beautiful and powerful. A lot of my friends came, some who knew her, were related to her, or didn't know her at all...but came to support those who did.

     It was being there with my girlfriend and friends that really helped the beginning of moving forward to acceptance and seeing her life in all her wholeness. She lived, and had a profound effect on all of us. The reading that was used to represent her life was the Beatitudes, for they represented who she was very well:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  
 Blessed are those who mourn,
   for they will be comforted.  
Blessed are the meek,
   for they will inherit the earth.  
 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
   for they will be filled.  
Blessed are the merciful,
   for they will be shown mercy.  
 Blessed are the pure in heart,
   for they will see God.  
Blessed are the peacemakers,
   for they will be called children of God.  
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

        She truly did live all these things...

       The sermon was very evangelical in that it was calling everyone there to Christ as well, which I've come to expect from any Trinitarian Church, so it didn't feel completely out of place.This was also her Church speaking, and her Catholic faith meant so much to her.

     I talked to the Priest after, since he's a friend of mine and to my others friends who came that day. We reflected for a while and the conversations helped with accepting her death that day, as did the sermon.

     After talking to friends and the month since that day, I'm still allowing time to heal.

    The sadness has been like water against the land. Sometimes it simply laps the shores. Other times it's stronger and comes in more inland, and at one point I was even it by a tsunami of the grief.

     It's been strange. I've found myself both wanting to be alone and wanting to be with people contradictory more so since her death. I've wanted to reach out to talk about it, but found myself closing up. I think I may be at the place now where I can talk about it, about dealing with the grief of her loss and the joy of her friendship and life.

    She would want me to live, and us to live. It's something that in the grief I've sometimes forgotten.