betty-funeral.md

Funeral: Betty Boyd – August 24, 2017

Remember

• paschal candle? process in? process to garden?
• parish register
• ps. 23 in Unison (Gordon) – Leslie prayers – MP chalice bearer

To the congregation: Betty found her way to Episcopal Church because something touched her deep within. At least a part of it has to do with communion. That is why we worship this way each week. You are all invited to come forward at communion. There will be little wafers and a chalice of wine that will be blessed – prayed over – not unlike we do when we say grace at a meal. If you are baptized, you are invited to receive it. Hold out hand. Offered the cup – some will dip the wafer in it. You may just come forward for a blessing.

Homily

Known Betty only a little more than a year. I wish I had known her longer. From the moment I was introduced, I knew she was someone special

Testimony from Kim

• Loving. Family. Created traditions that bind together, that will be passed on by children, grand-children, nieces, nephews, cousins.

All Sickness is Homesickness: given to me by a friend many years ago. Title that seems strange at first sight. Obviously there’s all kinds of sickness. From the moment I met Betty she was marked by sickness.

• But that isn’t what identified Betty. What did was her ability to be the embodiment of what makes a home: family, care and concern for one another, offering hospitality of all kinds,
• She was a person who responded to the homesickness I think is in all of us. That’s what made her special to me. She was a light to those around her. There is an old image of that that has been important for a long time. Leonard Cohen sang about it in a song of his.

Heading Light gets in

Leonard Cohen: “Anthem”
…
You can add up the parts
but you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

The earliest stories that Betty shared with me and Mary Pat indicated that she knew where her true home was, even when she couldn’t see it with her naked eyes. Somehow she conveyed to me that she knew she had a glimpse of heaven and that was where she was headed – come what may. All kinds of ways to find our way home.

Pooh can hear the honey pots to find his way home

• 24.1 A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

“Well,” said Pooh, “we keep looking for Home and not finding it, so I thought that if we looked for this Pit, we’d be sure not to find it, which would be a Good Thing, because then we might find something that we weren’t looking tor, which might be just what we were looking for, really.” “T don’t see much sense in that,” said Rabbit …. “If I walked away from this Pit, and then walked back to it, of course I should find it.” “Well, I thought perhaps you wouldn’t,” said Pooh. “I just thought.” “Try.” said Piglet suddenly. “We’ll wait here for you.” Rabbit gave a laugh to show how silly Piglet was, and walked into the mist. After he had gone a hundred yards, he turned and walked back again -,… and after Pooh and Piglet had waited twenty minutes for him, Pooh got up. “I just thought,” said Pooh. “Now then, Piglet, let’s go home.” “But, Pooh,” cried Piglet, all excited, “do you know the way?” “No,"said Pooh. “But there are twelve pots of honey in my cupboard, and they’ve been calling to me for hours. I couldn’t hear them properly before, because Rabbit would talk, but if nobody says anything except those twelve pots, I think, Piglet, I shall know where they are calling from. Come on.

Someone whom God would not let go of – someone who God himself pursued relentlessly. That, of course, is all of us really. But not all of us recognize it. Betty recognized it. In the opening words of an old poem:

• 23.6 As Francis Thompson says in his poem “The Hound of Heaven”:

**I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped; **
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me

In the end we bear testimony to the reality and tangibility of God, to be found at every turn, in every nook and cranny. We find God in bread and wine. But also in candles lit at church or on the dining table or on the lamp stand beside which I pray every day. They are found everywhere.

• 18.2 Dick Allen: Zen Master Poems

Our knowledge that we shall not pass this way again –
almost unbearable—although it makes
each moment precious in itself,
strikes even deeper if we come to feel
the signs and patterns of the mystical
on every tree and bush and turning wheel.

That was what Betty was for me. The sign that in all the cracks, the sickness, the brokenness, the failed memories – in all of them there are signs of God. Everywhere we turn there are the sounds of honey pots that call us to our true home. Betty could hear the honey pots. She has found her way home.