On Celebrations

    

I’m for celebrations…of all kinds…all the way from refined, elegant, special awards presentations to wild and wooly wedding receptions and Christmas lights and bells. I’m for serene and lovely opportunities that feature beautiful offerings of art; I’m for the biggest array of fabulosity that a fireworks show can produce. I’m for all of these as often as possible because I believe that our hearts are made more alive and able to reveal love when we’re in the midst of celebrating special times and our special selves. There is lift and leaven inherent in celebration.

Filled with the events in peoples' lives...
The lives of ministers are filled with the events in peoples’ lives. Some of them may hold sadness, but many of them hold great joy. It has been said that ministry is a profession that allows its clergy to grow up in public. True enough, and if you’re in the ministry long enough, you can watch the public grow up as well.

We gave all grown up...
Over the last several decades I think we have all grown up a great deal around end of life commemorations, such as funerals and memorials. During my early years in ministry, such times were quite mournful and somber, most probably because we looked at life and death as mutually exclusive situations, death being something to be feared and not even spoken about. Over the years I have watched us all come to understand that life and death belong together as two ends of the same stick. Certainly we can’t avoid either. We have come to know that our lives are large enough to embrace all its parts, and that every day lived brings us one day closer to our eventual, physical demise. Funerals and memorials have taken on a whole, different tone now. We call them “celebrations of life,” remembering, yes, and senses of loss also, but a clear celebration as well of a life that was lived among us, a life that may have made our hearts very glad.

We have valuable, memorable lives...
Celebrations make everything important. They capture our accomplishments; they let us know that we have valuable, memorable lives, that we do make lasting impressions on those around us.

I say…bring ‘em on!