Thursday, June 13, 2013

People we remember, not easily forgotten





Our annual conference gathering opens with the Memorial Service to those clergy members and their spouses that have passed away since our last gathering.  Unless you are the member of a clergy family you probably don’t realize it, but clergy typically can’t get away to attend the funeral of one of their colleagues when they pass away.  Clergy work, the work of ordering and guiding a congregation, is demanding and time consuming, and you often can’t break away to attend the funeral of a beloved friend, mentor or co-worker.  So we begin by remembering.   And because of the age of our clergy (average age somewhere in the late 40’s), we sometimes have a lot of remembering to do. 

And because of our exaggerated interrelationship with one another, because we depend on one another, it is rare that there is no one being memorialized that you don’t have some connection to.  And I feel that is a good thing.  One of my favorite movie quotes is “it’s good having someone that saying goodbye to is so damn hard.”  As a United Methodist we have lots of people that it is hard to say goodbye to.

It is a thin place. 

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