Saturday morning, a bunch of coworkers and I attended the funeral service of the father of our presiding judge. It was at a Baptist church, and so far I think I like Baptist services better than Catholic ones. I’ve been to two Catholic funeral services in the past several months and found this Baptist priest’s words to lay more smoothly against my personal soul. I found his words soothing and they touched a nerve of truth within my own heart. He reminded us that death is not something to fear but something to celebrate as a return to the place from whence we had come. It is not so much an end of life, as the beginning of eternal life. I especially liked a poem (I think it’s a poem) he read, and I’m not sure if it came from the Bible like a psalm, or was written by a God-loving poet, or maybe he wrote it himself for the occasion. Anyway, it went something like this, although I’m sure I am not doing it justice:

To reach up and grab a hand, and find that it is God’s;
To breathe the air and find it celestial;
To awake healthy and happy and find immortality;
To see endless beauty and find that you are home;
To leave the maelstrom of hopeless end and find endless hope;
Such is our fate, and our hope, as we come from and return to God.

Amen.