"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.

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.