Crossing the River of Death to the Celestial City

Great-great-grandma Norma with my own grandson, little Logan.

I offer these remarks on behalf of my mother Bettie, her mother’s only daughter.

Grandma told me about one thin connection between the Puritans of England and our family.  She told me the story that for many years, there was handed down in the family a Bible belonging to the famous Puritan preacher John Bunyan, writer of the Pilgrim’s Progress.  Some of you perhaps remember the story of how that came to be in the family even though we are not John Bunyan’s descendants, I do not.  I mention Bunyan’s Bible because I want to talk about the central message of the Pilgrim’s Progress, a treasure far more valuable than a historical artifact.  In the famous allegory, the central character of the book, Christian, undertakes a long journey to the Celestial City, through many trials and temptations.  The central thesis of the book is that it is not our own actions that can remove the sin that mars every human life in this world, it is grace, it is the action of Christ on the cross on our unworthy behalf that covers our sin and restores us to God.  Because we cannot live life the way we should, we know the Christian is saved through this grace by faith in Christ’s sacrifice.

The Puritans were a devout people who thought a lot and wrote a lot about the art of dying well in this faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(From two reviews of the book Patience, Compassion, Hope and the Christian Art of Dying Well. By Christopher P. Vogt, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004)

"...(In his recent book, Patience, Compassion, Hope and the Christian Art of Dying Well) Christopher Vogt guarantees that, if we were living in an earlier century, the discourse about dying would not be concerned with physician assisted suicide…, living wills, Alzheimer's, or do-not-resuscitate orders... Instead, we would be talking about the long-standing art of learning to live well in order to die well. We would be reading Erasmus, the Puritan William Perkins, the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine, the Anglican Jeremy Taylor who wrote of the need to cultivate virtues as one prepared for death. According to these authors, preparation for dying could never begin early enough and involved the habit of visiting the sick to remind us of our own mortality, to learn the art of dying for ourselves, and to be a compassionate presence for the dying and their caretakers. Most writers recommended regular examination of conscience, frequent confession, and a repentant heart to strengthen our awareness of God's mercy and compassion lest we crumble in despair on our deathbeds..."

     (--Doris Donnelly)

"…(One of the foremost leaders of the Puritan movement, the clergyman and theologian William) Perkins suggest(s) that caregivers and visitors recount appropriate passages from scripture that testify to God’s enduring compassion. 'These works from the ars moriendi (art of dying) tradition all recognize also the primacy of hope, faith, and patience as potent medicine for the dying soul in the throes of death—virtues informed by the knowledge that “God’s compassion and mercy are more powerful than human sinfulness” and that “neither sinfulness nor death itself is enough to cut us off from the love of Christ.'”

     (--Mitchell Kalpakgian, Ph.D)

Grandma’s life was not unlike the central character Christian in the Pilgrim’s Progress.  The story of her life, like the life of every believer, is a litany of hardship, joy, trials, failures, sins, grace, forgiveness, and triumph in Christ. 

As young people, my mother and my uncles lost their fathers in 1949 and in 1955, the one to suicide in a lonely apartment in Seattle, the other to liver failure due to poisoning by vineyard pesticides. These tragic early deaths cast a shadow over us who were yet to be born, these missing fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers.  Their loss is deeply felt today in the generations.  For these 60 years since these premature deaths, Grandma continued on in her journey through life as the sole surviving parent to three sons and one daughter.  They eventually had their own families.  She grew to become the matriarch of a clan of grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren.  We have lost our leader.

We assemble here today in a way that we will never assemble again.  Grandma was the gravitational field that pulled us together as a family.  Now she is gone.  We will assemble in smaller groups in the future.  Perhaps we will go our separate ways.

But let us never forget what she has given us.  She loved us, she sometimes fought us, she prayed for us, she scolded us.  But whether you treasure some of these memories, or not, Grandma has left all of us a priceless legacy, a treasure of unlimited value.  Grandma left her sins at the cross of Jesus.  Grandma died singing the praises of our Lord and sharing with others the grace he had bestowed on her. 

At the close of Pilgrim’s Progress, at the end of his long journey, Christian comes to the River of Death that flows before the Celestial City.

This River has been a terror to many, yeah, the thoughts of it have often frighted me…The waters indeed are to the palate bitter and to the stomach cold, yet the thoughts of what I am going to and of the conduct that waits for me on the other side, doth lie as a glowing coal upon my heart…I see myself now at the end of my journey; my toilsome days are ended. I am going now to see that head which was crowned with thorns, and that face which was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with Him in whose company I delight myself… His voice to me has been most sweet…He has held me, and has kept me from mine iniquities…

      --John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

Grandma’s toilsome days are now ended.  I know it would be her fondest wish for all of us to cherish her memory, to forgive her failings, and to follow her to the Celestial City in John Bunyan’s understanding of a good death, in dying well in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.  May she rest in peace.

Eulogy for Norma Loreen Bach Lightbody Taylor, 1915-2012

Delivered March 16, 2012, Tumwater, Washington
MORE ABOUT MY GRANDMOTHER'S LIFE

O Unsounded Mystery

My final meditation for Advent and for Christmas.

Alan Orsborn

Epiphany, 2011

(after the Latin, “O magnum mysterium” and “O Redemptor sume carmen temet”)

O unsounded mystery and wondrous consecration

that the animals should see the Lord of all creation,

newborn boy in swaddling cloth lying in the manger trough.

Alleluia, alleluia, in excelsis Deo gloria!

Blessed Virgin, favored one of women deemed deserving

to contain the ageless Son, the Christ who shared our suffering,

carried in the Virgin’s womb, conquering darkness, death and tomb.

Alleluia, alleluia, in excelsis Deo gloria!

O Redeemer, hear your hymn, receive our harmonizing,

you were born to bear our sin, we worship with thanksgiving.

Let us keep the Christmas feast through eternal centuries!

Alleluia, alleluia, in excelsis Deo gloria!  Amen.

Las Posadas

St. Peter the Aleut

O Peter,
upon the rock of thy faith
hath Christ built his Church, 
and in the streams of thy blood
hath he hallowed our land. 
In thee thy people
   hath been sanctified, O Aleut; 
from the farthest islands of
    the west
hath he raised thee, a light
   unto all.
Glory to him that hath
   glorified thee.
Glory to him that hath
   crowned thee.
Glory to him that worketh
   healings for all through thee.


   Troparion in the First Tone


St. Peter the Aleut was an early Indian convert of the Russian Orthodox mission to Kodiak Island who was martyred in California in 1816.  Thought to be a young native of Kodiak, Peter was employed by the Russian fur trade that extended from Alaska into California.


While trapping in California with the Russian fur traders, Peter and his party were captured by Spanish soldiers and taken to San Francisco. He was chosen first among the captives to be tortured by Jesuits, according to witnesses, to force him to renounce his Orthodox faith.  This he steadfastly refused to do.  Using California natives as his tormentors, they cut off his fingers and toes, joint by joint, finally removing his hands and feet. He remained steadfast in his confession before bleeding to death at the hands of his captors.  The other prisoners were then released.

His martyrdom is greeted with joy because he was first among the American converts to shed his blood for the holy faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.  St. Peter the Aleut is represented holding a cross, symbol of martyrdom, with his hand upraised, symbol of the resurrection.  Sometimes he is represented with a grape vine symbolizing the fruitfulness, and the blood, of martyrdom.

The Earth, the Sky, the Ocean His Glorious Way Adorn

My meditation the third Sunday of Advent is the reintroduction of a lost Christmas carol too good to be forgotten, A Day, A Day of Glory (music here) written by John Mason Neale in the mid 1800's.  Neale is most remembered as the author of Good King Wenceslas and for his translations of Latin and Greek hymns.


Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
                            --Psalm 24, ESV

A Day, A Day of Glory

A day, a day of glory!

John Mason Neale

A day that ends our woe!
A day that tells of triumph
Against our vanquished foe!
Yield, summer’s brightest sunrise,
To this December morn:
Lift up your gates, ye princes,
And let the child be born!

With gloria in excelsis
Archangels tell their mirth:
With Kyrie eleison*
Men answer upon earth:
And angels swell the triumph,
And mortals raise the horn,
Lift up your gates, ye princes,
And let the Child be born.

He comes, his throne the manger;
He comes, his shrine the stall;
The ox and ass his courtiers,
Who made and governs all:
The House of Bread** his birth-place,
The Prince of wine and corn:
Lift up your gates, ye princes,
And let the child be born.

Then bar the gates, that henceforth
None thus may passage win,
Because the Prince of Israel
Alone hath entered in:
The earth, the sky, the ocean
His glorious way adorn:
Lift up your gates, ye princes,
And let the child be born.

*     Lord have mercy (Κύριε ἐλέησον)
**   Bethlehem means "house of bread." (בית לחם)

Eternal Son, Eternal Lamb

Continuing the meditation of the mystery of the incarnation this second Sunday of Advent, I offer a poem inspired by the modern praise song In Christ Alone, by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty. I was impressed by how the lyrics connected the dots from the manger to the cross to our salvation.  


I set out to write a modern Christmas carol following Townend's meter and rhyme as a template. The poem has been set to its own original music by our organist, Ron Bechtel.

                           Eternal Son, Eternal Lamb

                           Eternal Son, eternal Lamb

                           The morning stars sounded your praise

                           The day you formed and scattered them

                           Across the blackness of black space.

                           The cherubs raise your sapphire throne

                           Across Heaven’s expanse unknown.

                           The thundering cherubs hide their gaze

                           From Glory and your Majesty.

                           In this untamed transcendency

                           You ride the morning’s silver wings,

                           You tread the paths of stormy seas,

                           Your voice, the storm cloud’s thundering.

                           How can it be you bowed so low

                           To taste of death and our sorrow

                           When angels sang your nurturing

                           With stabled animals at rest

                          

                           That happy dawn when you Most Blessed

                           Put off the Majesty in Heaven

                           To take our flesh, to take the breast

                           To take our penalty for sin.

                           From every roof that lights adorn

                           Sing unto us a Child is born

                           And unto us a Son is given,

                           Eternal Son, eternal Lamb.

O Great Mystery

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 
--The Gospel of John, ESV

This is the first Sunday of Advent and first day of the liturgical year in the calendar of the Western Church.

Advent recapitulates the mystery of the incarnation, in which the Eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, makes his appearance on earth as a baby boy. In the single person of Christ are united two natures, God and man, transcendent and immanent.  The birth of Jesus marks the beginning of Christ's journey of condescension and humiliation, from the manger to the cross, to save his people from their sins.

Christmas tradition and imagery suggest the further mystery that animals could see the Lord of all creation lying in a manger, a feeding trough, their bovine exhalations a mist over the place where he lay.  This is the subject of a medieval Latin poem that has been set to music many times.  King's College Choir, Cambridge sings this hauntingly beautiful O Magnum Mysterium at an Anglican Christmas Eve service in their world-famous chapel. The living American composer Morten Lauridsen, born in Colfax, Washington, a beautiful town among the Palouse hills I know so well, composed the renowned and beloved musical setting.  All this is Christmas worship in a very high register, but it will be accessible to you if you follow the text with the translation as it is sung.

The text links the Greek word mystery to the Latin word sacrament in a parallel construction using the  literary device of repetition of meaning.  The two words should then be thought of essentially as synonyms, the intention of the anonymous author, reflecting the historical development of the terms within the Church.  What were known as the mysteries in the Greek Orthodox East became the sacraments in the Latin Catholic West, and so they remain.

O Magnum Mysterium                     O Great Mystery

O magnum mysterium                                       O great mystery

et admirabile sacramentum                               and wondrous sacrament

ut animalia viderent                                           that animals see

Dominum natum                                                the Lord newborn

iacentem in praesepio.                                      lying in a manger.

Beata Virgo                                                      Blessed Virgin

cujus viscera meruerunt                                   whose womb was worthy

portare Dominum Christum.                             to bear the Lord Christ.

Alleluiah.                                                           Hallelujah.

November 22, 1963

Age 8, third grade in Mrs. Meyers's class, Chief Kamiakin Elementary School, Sunnyside, Washington. The leaves on the stately sycamore trees outside the school were turning brown, and mostly fallen, a few seed pods remained. It was very close to Thanksgiving. 


The old brick Chief Kamiakin school burned down years ago and President Kennedy has been gone longer still, and I never want to relive that day.  A Republican Protestant boy, I could not stop my convulsive sobbing, Mrs. Meyers could not console me. 


My President was shot dead on this date in history.