Memorial Readings
The Serenity Prayer
By Reinhold Niebuhr
God, grant us the serenity
to accept the things
we cannot change,
Courage to change the things we can,
and the wisdom
to know the difference.
Amen
***
On Joy and Sorrow
By Kahlil Gibran
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth
you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
***
I Live My Life in Widening Circles
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
***
“In the end, we’ll all become stories.”
By Margaret Atwood.
***
“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it”
By Haruki Murakami
***
“Grief is one of the biggest mountains you’ll ever have to climb.
Not least, because it’s one that you absolutely won’t want to.
And people may talk of ‘getting over it’.
But the truth is,
I don’t think we ever do.
And that’s not to say that we don’t end up on the other side of the mountain. I’m not saying that we’re stuck in one place forever.
But, rather than getting over it…
Perhaps we find a cave we can walk through which brings us out on the other side. It may be dark and dim and difficult, but we make it through into the light.
Perhaps we find a path around the mountain that leads to the other side. It may take a long time and it might be unsteady and precarious, but we make it round.
Or perhaps we just slowly edge our way past. A little up, a little through, a little round. Step by step.
No, I don’t think we get over it. It is too big, too overwhelming.
Too insurmountable.
So instead we get through it.
Round it.
Or quite possibly,
we just get by.”
By Becky Hemsley
***
“You Don’t Just Lose Someone Once.
You don’t just lose someone once.
You lose them when you close your eyes at night.
And as you open them each morning.
You lose them throughout the day.
An unused coffee cup.
An empty chair.
A pair of boots no longer there.
You lose them as the sun sets.
And darkness closes in.
You lose them as you wonder why.
Staring at a star lit sky.
You lose them on the big days.
Anniversaries.
Birthdays.
Graduations.
Holidays.
Weddings.
And the regular days too.
You lose them in a song they used to sing.
The scent of their cologne.
A slice of their favorite pie.
You lose them in conversations you will never have.
And all the words unsaid.
You lose them in all the places they’ve been.
And all the places they longed to go.
You lose them in what could have been.
And all the dreams you shared.
You lose them as the seasons change.
The snow blows.
The flowers blossom.
The grass grows.
The leaves fall.
You lose them again and again.
Day after day.
Month after month.
Year after year.
You lose them as you pick up the broken pieces.
And begin your life anew.
You lose them when you realize.
This is your new reality.
They are never coming back.
No matter how much
You miss them or
Need them.
No matter how hard you pray.
They are gone.
And you must go on.
Alone.
Time marches on, carrying them further and further way.
You lose them as your hair whitens and your body bends with age.
Your memory fades.
And the details begin to blur.
Their face stares back at you from a faded photograph.
Someone you used to know.
You think you might have loved them once.
A long time ago.
Back then.
When you were whole.
You don’t just lose someone once.
You lose them every day.
Over and over again.
For the rest of your life.”
By Donna Ashworth
***
from the Diamond Sutras
“Thus shall ye look on all this fleeting world:
a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
a flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
a flickering lamp, a phantom
and a dream.”
By Gautama Buddha
***
“I’m going to die one day.
I know it’s coming for me too.
I’ll be a mountain,
I’ll be a stone on the beach.
I’ll be nourishment.”
Mary Oliver
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“Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming.
All we can do is learn to swim.”
By Vicki Harrison
***
Adrift
“Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze
makes the birds move from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh
of the next stranger. In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.”
By Mark Nepo
***
“There’s a thread you follow.
It goes among things that change.
But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see,
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.”
By William Stafford
***
“We’re not wanting to be insensitive to what so many of you are feeling, but we are very much wanting you to put this death thing in the proper perspective: You are all going to die! Except there is no death. You’re all going to make your transition into Non-Physical. It is time to stop making your transition into Non-Physical sound like a subject that is uncomfortable and begin acknowledging that it is something that happens to everyone. This death thing is so misunderstood that you use it to torture yourself never-endingly and just absolutely unnecessarily. There are those who feel such fulfillment of life and such Connection to Source Energy, who understand that there is no separation between what is physical and Non-Physical; who understand that there is not even a lapse in consciousness, that “death” is a matter of closing one’s eyes in this dimension and literally opening one’s eyes in the other dimension. And that, truly, is how all death is, no matter how it looks, up to that point.. The re-emergence into Source Energy is always a delightful thing.”
By Ester Hicks
***
Alo-Ha
Alo means “in the presence of” Ha is the “breath”
“The power of breath is identified by the Hawaiian people as more than the air one draws in and expels from the lungs. It is the impulse to breathe, the very life force itself. the divine spirit is us.”
By Alice Holokai
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"I hope death is like
being carried to your bedroom
when you were a child
& fell asleep on the couch
during a family party.
I hope you can hear the laughter
from the next room”
Uplifting Credit: Lilies Abounded
***
“We share a world when we are awake.
Each dreamer lives in a world of his/her own.”
By Heraclitus
***
~ from A Morning Offering
“...All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.
I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.”
By John O’Donohue
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"Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
And between the two my life flows."
By Nisargadatta Maharaj
***
“Our sorrow is
the other face of love,
for we only mourn
what we deeply care for…
The sorrow, grief,
and rage you feel
is a measure of your humanity
and your evolutionary maturity.
As your heart breaks open
there will be room
for the world to heal.”
Joanna Macy
***