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"Homily - Drusilla Carter's Memorial
Service"
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Glen Ellyn,
IL
April 27, 2007
Isaiah 25: 6-9
2 Corinthians 4: 16- 5:9
John 8: 12-16
Psalm 119: 105-106, 111-112
When Forrest Gump died and went to Heaven he was met at the
great Pearly Gates by St. Peter. The gates were closed, however,
and Forrest approached the gatekeeper. St. Peter said, "Well,
Forrest, it's certainly good to see you. We have heard so many
good things about you. I must inform you that we've been giving
an entrance quiz for everyone. The tests are short, but you
need to pass before I can open the gates. Forrest responded
"It sure is good to be here, St. Peter. I was looking forward
to this. But nobody ever told me about any entrance exam. I
hope the test isn’t too hard; life was a big enough test
as it was.
St. Peter said, "I know, Forrest, but the test is only
three questions:
• What days of the week begin with the letter T?
• How many seconds are there in a year?
• What is God's first name?"
Forrest went away to think the questions over. He returned the
next day and approached St. Peter to give his answers.
St. Peter said to Forrest, "Now that you have had a chance
to think the questions over, tell me your answers."
Forrest answered, "Well, the first one about how many days
of the week begin with the letter T...that one's easy. That
would be Today and Tomorrow."
Peter's eyes opened wide as he exclaimed "Forrest! That's
not what I was thinking, but.....you do have a point though,
and I guess I didn't specify, so I will give you credit for
that answer."
"How about the next one?" "How many seconds are
in a year?"
"Now that one's harder" said Forrest, "but I
thought and thought about that and I guess the only answer can
be twelve."
Taken aback, St. Peter said "Twelve! Twelve! Forrest, how
in Heaven's name could you come up with twelve seconds in a
year?"
Forest said "Well, St. Peter, there are twelve: January
second, February second, March second. . . "
"Stop, stop" interrupted St. Peter. "I see where
you're going with it, though that wasn't quite what I had in
mind, but I'll give you credit for that one too.
Let's go on with the next and final question. Can you tell me
God's first name?"
Forrest replied, "That’s the easiest question one
of all…it’s Andy."
When St. Peter asked how in the world he came up with the name
Andy, Forrest replied, "You know, St. Peter, that song
we sing in church: "Andy walks with me, Andy talks with
me, Andy calls me home."
Many of you, no doubt, have heard this classic piece of humor.
It was told to me only seven weeks ago, during the reception
at Glen Oak after Phil’s service. At Phil’s service
we sang the hymn “In the Garden” in which Forrest
Gump heard God’s name. With a post-joke smile still on
my face, I went over to Dru to say hello. She said, “Hmmm.
Forrest got it wrong. God is a woman. Everyone knows that. Because
as the songs goes, “Angie walks with me, Angie talks with
me, Angie calls me home.”
We are gathered today for an Easter liturgy. It happens to
be the season of Easter which celebrates the resurrection of
Jesus from the dead. The word “liturgy” simply means
“the work of the people.” When we put Easter and
liturgy together, we have a celebration that involves not only
joy but work – the work that each of us is doing by being
here to sing hymns, offer prayers, read and listen to Holy Scripture,
to break bread and share the cup and to thank God for the life
of Drusilla Carter. But it is especially hard work because there
has not been much time to rest since we were here just last
month for the liturgy for Phil. At the time, many of us were
concerned that Phil’s death would be a shock to Dru. She
took the news surprisingly well – expressing for a moment
of bit of shock, confusion and anxiety but not much more than
that. It is my belief that after sixty years of marriage, she
knew instinctively that death could not break the bonds of love
and connection that had been forged between them, and that theirs
was a love that remind us of the words of blessing from the
marriage ceremony which are: “the Lord mercifully with
his favor look upon you; that you may faithfully live together
in this life, and in the age to come have life everlasting.”
(BCP 431).
As I have had the opportunity to synthesize the story of Dru’s
life, gathered in memories shared by her children and friends
along with my own conversations and visits with her over the
past year, a clear metaphor emerges. I ask you to imagine a
jigsaw puzzle. You shake the box and hear the pleasant sound
of a thousand cardboard pieces mixing together. You open the
box and pour out the pieces on the smooth plat surface of a
kitchen or dining room table. The first thing you do is fan
out the pieces turn all of them right side up. Your mind is
energized by the challenge in front of you, to organize what
is chaos into a coherent image. You identify pieces with smooth
edges as borders, and make that first victory of linking two
pieces that belong together. You begin to group pieces by colors,
constantly probing and analyzing the shapes of pieces for a
match. The momentum builds as the border is completed, but the
pace slows as you encounter expanses of uniform whiteness and
gray. Each placed piece is a moment of joy and victory. After
a while, you may ask yourself whether the puzzle will ever be
finished. It will take many more hours or even days to reach
your goal.
Dru loved puzzles. She especially liked a certain specialty
order puzzle that is customized for each client and purchased
by such puzzle sophisticates as Queen Elizabeth and the New
York elite. These championship–level puzzles are borderless,
come without a picture and are highly intricate. Now picture
Dru working at it diligently and patiently, her mind focusing,
eyes scanning, fingers moving over the pieces, stopping, picking
up, putting down and testing pieces to see if they fit together.
Now image all of the things that Dru loved to do – whether
being a parent and a wife, playing bridge, cooking, golf, bookkeeping,
entertaining, keeping tabs on the rich and famous, and shopping
for clothes. I see the puzzle metaphor in each of these. The
work of creating a gourmet meal begins with a cook book but
becomes an art of timing, multi-tasking, efficiency and presentation.
It is a puzzle where the pieces are vegetables, spices, sauces,
knives, strainers, pots, plates and palates. Golf is a verdant
puzzle of muscle, mind, perspective, weather, hazards, handicaps
and egos. Hollywood is a never-ending puzzle – as glamorous
stars rise and fall, get married, divorced, remarried and re-divorced,
have children, adopt children, fight over children, gain weight,
lose hair and lift and tuck their necks, toes and everything
in-between. Shopping for clothes is a puzzle of putting together
the pieces of style, trends, color, fabric, shoes and jewelry
to create the right look. Bookkeeping is a puzzle of time, numbers
and tracking. For those of you who know the satisfaction of
balancing your checkbook, it is no surprise that Dru balanced
her checkbook to the penny every month. Parenting is a puzzle
as children grow up, develop their own minds and strong personalities,
test boundaries, hang out with the opposite sex, leave home,
start careers, get married, have children, who have children
and so on.
Finally, faith is a puzzle, and for Dru, it is one she worked
at steadily. Scripture is nothingless than pieces of a puzzle
that reflect God’s on-going relationship with creation.
The Scriptures that we have heard today echo this theme. The
prophet Isaiah declares that the Lord of hosts will destroy
the shroud that is cast over all peoples; the sheet that is
spread over all nations will be lifted. The operative words
are “will destroy.” Our reality is one of seeing
only in part, through a cloud, the disconnected pieces of our
lives and the world that we live without seeing the whole as
it will be revealed. The reading from 2nd Corinthians reminds
us that we walk by faith, not by sight, yet we have confidence
in that what we cannot see is eternal. Both the psalm and the
reading from the Gospel of John speak of light – the light
upon the path and the light of Christ. Jesus says, “I
am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will have the
light of life.” Finding light, gaining sight and removing
coverings are the on-going themes of Scripture and of a life
that turns toward God. For Christians, it is not that we become
Jesus but that we follow him. This is a path that is long and
sometimes dangerous. It seems that we follow for a time and
then lose the light in front of us. But Jesus will not leave
us in darkness. Over a lifetime, the pieces of the puzzle are
illumined and gathered but not completely assembled until that
time when all will be in God and God will be in. Dru was a witness
to this truth as she worked diligently on the puzzle of life
and faith, and was one of its pieces.
Claudia told me that Dru completed one of her designer puzzles
but couldn’t decipher the rebus contained within. She
racked her brain and even called the owner of the company, who
refused to reveal the answer. Sometimes we wish God would reveal
the answers to the puzzles of Scipture, faith and our lives.
But I am afraid the puzzle is either too complicated to fathom
or too simple for us to accept. In either case, each of our
lives is a piece of the divine puzzle, and today we are thankful
for Dru, who completes her work and finds her rest, with her
beloved Phil, and with all the Saints who go from strength to
strength in God’s love.
Amen.
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