I was at a funeral this week and thinking about an old hobbit when an old friend said something that took me by surprise, but the truth is …
I was kind of thinking the same thing.
How often does that happen to you?
Probably never, right?.
Well, here’s some of the background.
The father of a good friend of mine passed away, so I was there with my family to show our support and offer up our prayers.
In a strange way, though …
It was nice.
The sun was out and there wasn’t much of a breeze.
The temperature stayed a few degrees above chilly – almost warm, but not quite – and I got to spend a good chunk of the day driving my wife and kids around. Traffic moved well enough, and the autumn colours were on full display in the countryside, so being a chauffeur was on the right side of pleasant.
I’m glad we went.
Not only were we able to pray for the soul of my friend’s father, and for his family, we were also able to reconnect with some folks we haven’t seen in a few years …
You know, thanks to that pandemic-thing.
I don’t know about you, but funerals are surreal events for me.
They have these TV screens these days that scroll through old family photos and you get to look back on people you never knew when they were many years younger, pictures that tell stories to those who were in them while everyone else only gets a glimpse of happier times. (Whenever someone’s taking a picture of me now, I’m wondering who’ll see it after I die.)
Then there are all the people at the funeral home standing around and talking, or grabbing a coffee and snacks.
Me?
I did a lot of that, too, in between trying to keep an eye on my kids who seem to find their own way around from group to group.
And maybe this is weird (OK, it is), but I think the Tolkein nerds out there will understand what I was running through my head.
I kept thinking about that scene out of the Fellowship of the Ring (the book, not the movie) where an aging Bilbo Baggins was getting all introspective while talking to his nephew before Frodo sets out for Mount Doom. (What a killer name for an evil mountain, by the way.)
There was this poem Bilbo had, and it goes like this:
“I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.”
How many more autumn drives am I going to have with my family?
How many more springs and summers am I going to see with them?
I read the Fellowship a couple of years ago with my eldest daughter, and I guess that one passage left a strong impression on me.
I was thinking about it at the funeral home, and once again at the cemetery as the casket was being lowered into the ground …
And that’s when the old friend leaned over.
“When I look at that casket,” he said, “I see me.”
“Me too,” I said.
“That’s going to be all of us one day.”
“Yeah, it will,” I told him, “which is why we have to get right by God.”
I’m not 100 per cent sure why I said that, but looking back on it …
I wholeheartedly agree with myself, maybe it’s because I’m smarter than I look.
A funeral has a way of making you think about the Last Things, doesn’t it?
The big Four Last Things …
Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.
We’ll all get three of those in the end.
These Four Last Things are something I should write about more as we get closer to All Hallows Tide.
I think it’s always good when you can share these sorts of deeper reflections with your readers, no matter what kind of business you’re running. You don’t have to get into theological reflections about death or anything – unless you DO want to go there. What I’m talking about is the kind of content that builds a stronger bond with your clients and help you to stand out from your competitors who only send emails where they’re forcing a sale.
If you’re interested in figuring out how to do this kind of marketing in your own emails, send me a quick note at [email protected].
Stay holy my friend, and God bless.