Radical Hospitality...Walking

Two funerals in two days reminds me of the importance of walking with each other in life and in death. That final "walk" is often lost in the death business in this country. We don't often have a body and we seldom bury our dead on the church grounds or on the family estate.

I think we miss something by not thinking of death as the final sacrament of life. We baptize our babies and promise to walk with them through the journey of their life of faith. The walk through our last moments on earth, accompanying each other to the grave are gifts of faith as well.

It's a harder journey, no doubt. We would rather see possibilities than endings. But I think if we take the journey seriously, we walk all the way to the end...or to the next beginning, which is the reality which we are approaching.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

            The LORD is the everlasting God,

                        the Creator of the ends of the earth.

            He does not faint or grow weary;

                        his understanding is unsearchable.

            He gives power to the faint,

                        and strengthens the powerless.

            Even youths will faint and be weary,

                        and the young will fall exhausted;

but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,

                        they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

            they shall run and not be weary,

                        they shall walk and not faint.

            I, the LORD, am first,

                        and [I, the Lord] will be with the last. (Is. 40, 41)