Celebration of Life for Memorial Day Sunday

Liturgical Materials for Sunday the 26^th of May, 2002

Mark Belletini, Minister First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, Ohio

Opening Words [Next] [back to top]

We are here
on a weekend of both rain and sun
memory of war and hope for peace
to spend a while in worship
that we might quench our thirsts for a time
from deeper wellsprings of the spirit.
Knowing that we have come far,
but still have far to go, we pray

may our reason and our passion keep us true
to ourselves, true to each other,
and true to those shared visions of what we can together become

Preface to the Silence [Next] [back to top]

Packed and whirling days as students and families prepare for significant graduations.
Noisy days as lawnmowers hum roughly through
the neighborhood, clipping the rain-soaked grass.
Solemn days as the news papers warn of stealth
attacks and new, explosive expressions of hatred.
Relaxing days as holiday folks attend long put off blockbusters and find ways to picnic despite the clouds and rain.

Tender days as flowers are left by graves and
tombs and on hillsides where ashes were scattered.

Celebratory days as the savory smoke from Asian and Native American festivals rises on the humid breeze to tantalize.

Musical days, as birds chirp trills and calls in the
green canopy of the trees.

Beautiful days, when people gather at the Meeting House to set aside the flurry,
the noise, the solemnity, the picnics, the festivals, and all the wonders that attend the end of the month of May
to sit together in silence for a time, breathing, in and out, knowing that this world is ours together…

(silence)

Let our complex lives be blessed with the soothing memories of good friendship. On this particular day, may we allow ourselves to recall those friends of ours who have brought us safely to this day… we name aloud or silently those who have been our companions through thick and thin, those who have known who we are all the way down to the bottom and loved us anyway, those who find their delight in us, and in whom we have taken delight. Friends from school, from work, from families, from church, from trips and teams and performances…friends. Friends alive, or friends long gone…

We name them with thanksgiving.

(naming)

Blest is the complex world of our lives, the May wine and May poles, the packed schedules and easy holidays, the buzzing flies and buzzing lawnmowers, the names of friends which are music in our ears. Like those who have won the race, we take our pleasure in such music, and are at peace.

First Reading [Next] [back to top] comes from the autobiography of the well known religious radical Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) telling of her relationship of friendship with her best friend, Susan B. Anthony, a nineteenth century pioneer of modern thought who was, with her family ,a member of the First Unitarian Church of Rochester NY.

In thought and sympathy we were one, and in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In writing we did better work than either could do alone. While she is slow and analytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am the better writer, she the better critic. She supplied the facts and statistics, I the philosophy and rhetoric, and together, we have made arguments that have stood unshaken through the storms of long years…So closely interwoven have been our lives, our purposes and experiences that, separated, we have a feeling of incompleteness - united, such strength of self-assertion that no ordinary obstacles, difficulties, or dangers ever appear to us insurmountable.

Second Reading [Next] [back to top] is a quotation from Essay VI. Friendship, by R. Waldo Emerson, the man who left the Unitarian Ministry to become a world famous lecturer and wisdom teacher.

I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the company of plough-boys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed amity which only celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a fancy carriage, or dinners at the best taverns.

Friendship is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of each human life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery.

Sermon: Celebration of Life for Memorial Day Sunday [Next][back to top]

Those who visit my office often comment on my photos, the various photos I keep of my friends and mentors over the years. Some of these friends are dead now, and in some cases, our friendship is no longer viable.

But all of these, the quick and the dead, the close friends and faded friends, are deep in my heart. And I assure you they are in my heart forever, whether they were the great friends of a lifetime or only brief friendships. Part of what I mean when I say "I am" has to do with them, and what they have been to me. In the words of Paul of Tarsus, they are the "great cloud of witnesses which encompass my life."

Sometimes, when people see my photos, they tell me that they are amazed I am intimate with so many people.

But I have to tell them two things to put this all in perspective: one, not all of my friends are present friends, and not all of them are living, so the actual number is smaller than it looks.

And two, some of the intimacy I find with my friends others in this congregation may find with portions of their family. Sometimes, if not always, certain family members can also be friends.

But the converse is true too. Sometimes, friends slowly develop into family. My friend Richard and I call each other brother and mean it as more than a metaphor, even though we both have brothers by blood that we also love.

I think this family/friendship continuum is especially true of people like me, I who have been by temperament so fiercely independent throughout my life, and who come from such a small family, without first cousins, aunts or uncles.

Although once partnered for 16 years, both Phil and I kept an independence of friendship that we found very important. His friends were not automatically my friends, nor were my friends automatically his. Sometimes it worked out that way, but only rarely. And although he was, and still is, a friend, he was not ever my "best" friend.

And I am glad of that too. When our relationship ended, I still had a best friend's lap to cry on. Had my partner also been my best friend, a blended reality so many engaged couples tell me they expect of each other in their marriage these days, I would have lost a life-partner and best friend in one fell swoop. A terrible disaster, I'd say.

By now you must be ready to burst with the obvious question…

Well, who or what is a friend?

Well, it's not such an easy question to answer anymore. The table waiter smiles and gives you his or her first name as if you could go out to see a movie the next day; the salesman calls you "my friend" the first time he meets you; and the beggar in the street also begins his pitch with a very convincing "Ah my friend…."

And if you listen carefully to radio and television advertisements, you will find out that you are just about everyone's friend, and that whatever you buy will increase your popularity as a friend. The politician and the ranting preacher both begin their addresses with "My friends…" and the preacher will go on to tell you that Christ is your only true friend. You can fly the Friendly Skies of United out to Los Angeles for the cast party of a very popular TV show Friends, or, if you wish, the great singer James Taylor can be your friend for a while. You can divorce and still be friends, testifies one book, and you can be your own best friend testifies another. The internet reminds you that you can be a friend of the earth, or a friend of the trees, or a friend to sharks, or bats or even the gnu, that's g n u, gnu, a kind of rare African mammal. You can be a friend of the local public radio station, or even the Unitarian Universalist Association, or even this church and I hope you are at least that. I hear there's a large, smiling purple dinosaur who will call you friend even if you are much older than his usual entourage, and you all know that robins, terns, wrens, owls and cardinals are really our feathered friends. There are international sites on the internet where you can sign up to be a friend of Liberia, Mongolia or Malawi. Or if being friends to a nation-state or salesman or waiter is not up your alley, you can sign up to be a friend of Charles Dickens, a man long dead, I believe, or Punch and Judy, some famous puppets who I am quite sure are made of wood.

There are some wonderfully classic institutional uses of the word "friend," to be sure. Our close religious cousins, the Society of Friends, usually called the Quakers, proves to be one of the oldest and most dignified usages of the word Friend in spiritual circles, even though the Psychic Friends Network tried to take over that niche for a brief time a couple of years not long ago.

And of course, the bumper stickers remind us that friends don't let friends drive when drunk, which is good, but they also don't let you drink Starbucks coffee, or pay sales tax or God knows what else.

So who or what is a friend? According to all I can glean from the culture around me, the word friendship has lost all its deeper meaning, and therefore we are all friends all the time, and to be a friend is simply to be human, or in Dickens case, dead.

But of course, that makes no sense.

Now if things are confusing in our day, it apparently wasn't much better in Emerson's day either, 150 years ago. Using two surprisingly strong words for that more gentile era, hate and prostitution, Emerson said that he hated "the prostitution" of the word friendship to include "modish and worldly alliances." He concludes: "I much prefer the company of plough-boys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed amity which only celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a fancy carriage, or dinners at the best taverns." In more modern language, Emerson simply recoils from what he perceives as a devaluation of the word "friend." It had come to mean in his day simply some business connection, or brief profitable encounter, or some modish, that is, fashionable, acquaintanceship. But of course Emerson was right to be afraid of society's reverse alchemy which turns the gold of friendship into a lump of lead so crumbly and insipid and dull.

I once had a very interesting two and half hour conversation with Sammy Davis Junior, and I have met and conversed briefly with Rosie O'Donnell and Rock Hudson and Aaron Copland. I have written Arthur C. Clarke and Carl Sagan and received nifty, even friendly, answers from them, but this does not make them my friends. They are simply amazing people I happened to meet.

Liking someone, or getting a gift from someone, or having a singular remarkable experience with someone, does not make them your friend. I've been taken out to dinner by colleagues I barely know, and they are not my friends. Some colleagues are, but others are, well, colleagues. Furthermore, I like my dentist, Jim Ford, as a person, but he is not my friend. I do not invite him over to dinner, expect him to call me on Tuesday afternoons just to chat, or hold my hand when I am afraid or depressed. My cardiologist, Dr. Haas, is a swell guy, easy to talk to about almost everything, but he is not my friend. I do not expect him to drop in on me just like that, or go out for coffee and conversation, or tour the art museum with me. Pietro, the man who sells me my fish, is fun to talk to when I go shopping. We laugh and exchange stories about our work and movies and our personal history, but this does not make him my friend. He does not have me over for fish chowder, or tell me to simmer down when I am upset. Ministers, priests, rabbis, lawyers, doctors, teachers are all open and "friendly" to most everyone, but this does not mean they are friends with everybody. I like many, many people. I even love many people, and care about them deeply. But they are not all my friends.

Friendship is not just based on liking or even loving someone. That's right. That's what I said. Even loving.

Instead, a friendship is a cultivated and deepening mutual relationship, regardless of context. In Emerson's elegant if slightly antique words "Friendship is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of each human life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery."

Elizabeth Cady Stanton reminds us that friendships are not like looking in the mirror, either. She and Susan B. Anthony were "complementary." One could think on her feet, the other had to brood. One was fiery, the other calmer. They were different, as different as the upper-class Emerson and his working class "tin peddlers and plough-boys." Yet they formed a friendship of years, that in Emerson's words, "dignified the needs of each human life, and embellished it with courage and wisdom."

It's important to make clear there is no such thing as a one-sided friendship…it's either absolutely mutual or it's closer to hero-worship than friendship. A true and deep friendship is something far more rare than the silliness which modern life makes it out to be. One good friend is plenty, two is a treasure, and three, a grace, a miracle unexpected. I am lucky in my friendships, to be sure, but I am not talking about quantity, just quality.

You still may be wondering what a friend is. Let me tell you a story, a true story, that might lift up the golden meaning of that much abused word.

Not long ago…was it last summer? or maybe last winter?... a 52 year old man went to visit his 16-year-old godson. Let's call the godson Ben. Ben was in Ohio to say goodbye to his ailing grandfather, and the godfather had gone to visit Ben, and to be present to his beloved godson during that hard time.

They went to the art museum and talked, and then went to dinner and talked, and finally they went to grandpa's back yard and talked under the beautiful arbor there about many things, not the least of which was grief.

But they also talked about the differing styles of parenting employed by the parents, and they talked of future schooling and career hopes. Finally, the godfather asked Ben about his best friend, Robin.

"Oh, we are doing a bit better now."

"I didn't know things weren't better," the godfather said.

"Oh, last time I talked with you on the phone, I almost spoke with you about Robin and me, but I was right in the middle of it then, and didn't know very much, so I thought it was premature to be talking about it."

"So what happened, if I may ask?" the godfather asked.

"Oh, well, Robin didn't show up a few times when he said he would, and I found out by asking around that he had been lying to me about a couple of things, and that these lies were elaborate. I was really upset, so I asked around to find out what he was doing with his other friends at school. I found out that he was drinking a lot, and doing some drugs. And this made me really upset because Robin and I had talked about such things for years. 'I'm adopted,' I used to tell him, 'and I don't know what genes I might have in me that might predispose me to addiction tendencies. But Robin, you know what your family is like, and many of them have suffered from such addictions and you know it.' You see back in Sunday School, when we were studying about addiction and stuff, we had promised each other we would just avoid drugs and alcohol at all costs. We had made a covenant, a pact. So when I found out what he was doing, I fell all to pieces."

"God, you and Robin have been best friends since you were both about four years old or something," the godfather mused. "I can't believe how much that must have hurt you. So what did you do, Ben?"

"Well, I thought about it for a few days, trying to figure out what I had to do. I talked with my moms and I spent a lot of time going over what I felt, and what I could do. It all felt pretty scary. But then I decided what to do. I called Robin up on the phone. I said to him, "Robin, you and I have to talk. Right now. Not tomorrow. Look, I know now that you have lied to me three times recently, and I know that you have been drinking and using drugs, and lying to me about that because of the covenant we made in Sunday School back when we were twelve. But now you have destroyed my trust in you by lying so much. And friendship at the very least is based on trust between two people.

I have to say that I really don't know how you can help to get me to trust you again, but I don't want to lose you. I love you, Robin. You and I have been best friends for many years. But we cannot be friends now until you do the things that will help me trust you again.

This means you have to find help to stop your headlong fall into alcohol and drug addiction. I really think you need help with this. I think you need to find a therapist who specializes in adolescents to help you. I am sure if you talk with your mother she will help you to do that. She knows about such things. But I cannot be your friend until the basis for friendship is restored, and that's something you are gonna have to figure out how to do. As for me, I will always love you no matter what happens, but I will only be able to be your friend if there is a way that the trust can be restored."

"You said all that to Robin?" the godfather asked. "With those words?" He was used to his godson's rich vocabulary and sensitive language; this clear and powerful grown-up kind of strength, however, came as a moving revelation. Ben nodded, then added with a little smile, "Well, I may have been translating some."

"In any case, it's a downright amazing story, Ben. You know, I'm beginning to think you know more about friendship than I do, and you are only 16," said the godfather. He said this with a clear catch in his throat and something warm and wet brimming in his eyelids.

After a moment the godfather asked, "So tell me, Ben, how did Robin respond to what you said?"

Ben put his foot up on the bench in the arbor and rested his long arm over his knee. "Ah, well, he said right away that he agreed with what I said. He told me he had lied to me, and betrayed our friendship. He said that he loved me too, and he realized he had broken the trust, and that, yeah, he would work up the strength to talk with his mother. He knows he has to give up his drinking and all the stuff it means to him socially, and he knows that is going to be tough. He's a real popular guy at his school, you know. He also said he didn't know how he would earn my trust back, but that he would work on it bit by bit as he figured it out. And he knew because I said what I said, I would be working from my end. I think he was surprised but not surprised that I said what I said, know what I mean?"

The godfather nodded, and thanked his godson for telling him this tender story. Then he said to his godson, "So, things are slowly being restored between you and Robin? I mean, you said things were getting better…"

"Yeah," said the godson, "things are getting better; we are spending more time together. He may be going to the same college I want to go to up north…that would be cool."

"Yes it would," said the godfather, "yes it would."

In this story, much of what I call friendship has been revealed with clarity. It's about mutual trust, trust built over time. It's about telling the truth honestly but with clear care, even when that is difficult. It's about hanging in there. It's about not making excuses. It's about a covenant, spoken or unconscious, that this relationship can develop.

Friendship is not simply "friendliness"…it's not the waiter or the sales clerk smiling at us, or the common courtesies expected in a civilized society. It's not gaining advantages, or worth by association. It's not just liking someone, loving someone, or reverencing someone's ideas or quick wit. Friendship is no less than a significant and mutual privilege in this brief life of ours, one that shares some of the dignity of marriage and family if not any of the legal bindings. Friendship with its tenderness and honesty and toughness is one of the finest joys available to us here on this earth, a true mark of our freedom as human beings.

I know. Some will find friendship easier than others. Some will find it a difficult concept in the deeper way I have outlined. Some will say that they can live without friendship. Some will nod with complete understanding as if I have been saying only what is completely obvious.

But in any case, as for me and my house, the bar of friendship is set very high, and this is my joy, my gladness and my strength. The photos in my office are only the daily reminder of this primal joy. And to all of my friends, wherever they are, thanks. I could never do this without you.

Memorial Day Prayer [back to top]

Remembering on this day, oh Love Most High,
all those who knew you while living on this earth
but who now sleep under green meadows,
we grieve for our human follies
and return the images of peace to our hearts.
Those who have died in wars
were soldiers and civilians, the high and the low,
the privileged and the unprivileged.
They saw you reflected in the eyes of lovers
and families and friends while here on this earth,
but now their eyes are melted into the clay,
and our eyes are open.
And being open, may they behold clearly
the stubbornness, the fear,
the want, the inability to control, and the
unshakable belief systems
that so often pave the high
road to war in the world.
May we also, however, oh Love,
see you shimmering in the eyes of
our lovers and families and friends,
in the opening of peonies,
and the light of the moon on the backs
of sleeping birds.
Let the images of lions and lambs
reclining together gather themselves
again and plant themselves in the bloodied
meadows of our exhausted imaginations,
and let us dare to open our mouths on
this Memorial Weekend and sing for
all the possibilities of peace on earth. Amen.

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