Being Church

Another of the elders to whom I’d carried communion died—our second in less than a week. Several of my fellow Lay Eucharistic Ministers (LEMs) were at the funeral to keep company with D on the last steps of his earthly journey. There were LEMs in the pews and LEMs as crucifer, reader, chalice bearer, and acolyte (me). As the Rector remarked just before the service began, it was time for us to “be church.”

The funeral itself was loving and dignified. I was humbled to learn that D kept up a weekly vigil against the war in Iraq long after most people habituated or resigned themselves to that endless war. My spouse and I talk often of what we could—or should do—about the war. But while we were talking, D was out there every Friday on the pedestrian mall, whatever the weather, increasingly frail and bent, holding a lonely protest sign.

There was no trip to the cemetery after this funeral, for D donated his body to the Anatomy Department. His wife of 56 years told me how pleased she is that D’s ashes eventually will return home to rest in the Parish columbarium. He will, as she said, be “right there.” I am pleased too, for I intend that my own ashes eventually will reside in that same place. D will be fine company.

In the meantime, my office window looks out over the building that houses the Anatomy Department. With every glance outdoors, I hold D and his family in my prayers and I express my gratitude for D’s quiet and powerful witness for peace.