Liturgy for missing someone

 A good friend died yesterday. This is a common experience here in the retirement community. But it doesn’t seem at all common, ordinary, or even acceptable when it happens to someone we love. And even though as Christians we know that this beloved person is rejoicing in God’s presence, our joy and gratitude are tempered with sorrow. It’s as though something bright, beautiful, and good has gone out of our lives. We—I—miss her.

I didn’t have a long-time friendship with Marcile. I admired her from a distance and then, a few years ago, I invited her to share a meal and we enjoyed our conversation so much we decided to keep it up. We shared many meals in the dining room and good conversations in her apartment. We talked about our families, our marriages, our struggles, growing older, and the books we were reading. She loved to read. We found mutual joy in our friendship. Words I would use to describe Marcile are gentleness, kindness, compassion, and encouragement.

We learn, somewhat, to accept death as a part of life. Belief in God’s grace in giving eternal life helps. Life goes on, and so do we. Yet I find that with some people, I continue to carry a certain sadness with me. They played such an important role in my life that I don’t get over missing them. I don’t call it sorrow, but rather a gentle, wistful sense of gratitude. Bill, Anita, Arthur, Mom, Dad—thank you, thank you, thank you.

Of course, the “bright, beautiful, and good” has not disappeared from my life. God promises that his goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life. Jesus preached from the passage in Isaiah where God promises his people that he will “comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning….” (Isaiah 61; Luke 4)

I love Douglas McKelvey’s book of liturgical prayers, Every Moment Holy (vol. 3), for times of death, grief, and hope. The “Liturgy for Missing Someone” focuses on the redemptive, transforming aspects of grief that God works out in our lives. I quote part of this prayer:

 

A Liturgy for Missing Someone

O Father,

You created our hearts for unbroken fellowship.
Yet the constraints of time and place, and the
stuttering rhythms of life in a fallen world dictate
that all fellowships in these days will at times be broken
or incomplete. We acknowledge, O Lord, that it is
a right and a good thing to miss deeply those whom
we love but with whom we cannot be physically present….

Therefore we praise you even for our sadness,
knowing that the sorrows we steward in this life
will in time be redeemed….

Use even this sadness to carve out spaces in our souls
where still greater repositories of holy affection
might be held, unto the end that we might better love,
in times of absence and in times of presence alike.
We now entrust all to your keeping.

May our reunion be joyous, whether in this life
of in the life to come.
How we look forward, O Lord, to the day
when all our fellowships will be restored,
eternal and unbroken.

Amen.

(From Every Moment Holy, Vol. III, Douglas McKelvey)

Goodbye, Marcile. Thank you, thank you, thank you.