The Age of Saying Goodbye
It was my third funeral in six months. I attended my first funeral in 1987. I was the preacher. I was 26, and I had never been to a funeral in my life; now a member of the church of which I was student pastor had passed away, and I had to preside at her service. This being southern Illinois, it was an open casket service. It was a macabre experience, and I was extremely nervous going in, but apparently I acquitted myself well. Over the course of the next thirteen years, I performed many more funerals, some of them for parishioners I knew well, but most for strangers with only a tenuous connection to the church I was serving at the time. I became adept at preparing for these services, interviewing the family, selecting hymns, preaching a sermon that was personalized, comforting, and inspiring, setting just the right tone for the liturgy. I believe this was the most effective part of my ministry. And then it stopped. In January 2000, I walked away from ministry, with the help of a...