A Grave Concern

What I learned after my first time preaching a funeral

Last Saturday, I preached my first funeral.

I’ve read eulogies and obituaries before. But this was my first time meeting with the family to learn about the deceased directly from them. Out of respect for the family, I’ll refer to the deceased as Marlin.

You’ll often hear the phrase “salt of the earth” to describe rugged, blue-collar people who wake up at 4 am and drink coffee so stout it stands up and talks to you. That’s Marlin. He lived long enough to see his family span 4 generations. He was born in the early 1930s, and he and his wife celebrated 72 years together.

Seventy. Two. Years.

I’ve known people who’s lives were shorter than half of that. My wife and I just hit 15 last January. In that time, we raised 2 boys who are now 11 and 8. Long days, short years. Hard days, easy(-ier) years.

Marlin’s daughter and granddaughter told me he treated them no differently than he treated the boys. The girls all learned how to track animal footprints and how to find civilization from the woods. Marlin was an avid hunter and fisherman whose church was the First Church—Creation.

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.

—John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

Marlin took his family on trips to Alaska, Hawaii, South Dakota, Florida, and Wyoming. His daughter shared a memory with me that she had from one of their South Dakota trips. On a dirt road, they passed by a herd of buffalo. She said it was her favorite memory of Marlin. These buffalo likely passed by this road all the time and thought nothing of it.

It was their land. They ate there, slept there and had babies there. But once this magnificent herd of these intimidating beasts passed by a girl, her family, and her daddy. And she felt completely safe.

When Marlin’s daughter and granddaughter asked me to help them hone in on a verse for his funeral, we landed on Proverbs 14:26. I read it from the KJV, which says:

In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.

Refuge was what Marlin made for his family. He stood tall in the light of his life, his broad umbra stretching out around those he loved. The borders of his shadow formed a barricade. Inside this sanctuary, life sprouted from seedlings. He tended it and kept wolves and foxes at bay across four generations. He kept them safe and they became what they were supposed to be. All because of his vigilant eye.

It’s June in Tennessee, so the humidity has been working overtime to make the air as sopping wet as possible. But the day offered me a drive outside my regular route. The western part of my home state is full of trees and mountains. But my county is largely urban and suburban, so you do have to drive a spell to really see the land.

“Habit is a great deadener,” Vladimir says in Act I of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. I spent so much of my late 20s and early 30s attempting to create the perfect routine. We find life chaotic (and it can be), so we make routines to help us control it. That’s all well and good, but what happens when the routine becomes a rut? That’s what’s happened to me as I’ve gotten closer to 40. I’ve been plowing along the same field in the same line for so long. The dirt on each side is stacked up so high I can’t see over it. Might as well be me in the grave, then.

In chapter 4 of Exodus, the Lord asks Moses what he has in his hand. At the time, what he has is his staff. A piece of wood for tending sheep. Something so commonplace he likely never thought of it unless he’d misplaced it. Like I might my wallet or my keys.

But what Marlin had in his hand was his family. And the Lord delivered them into a place of safety and sanctuary. Certainly, their lives were not without problems. But because Marlin became a constant, they flourished.

Hesed is a Hebrew word you’ll find often translated as “steadfast love.” It does mean that, but something hesed works like a natural law: it’s true because it’s true. It’s an uncaused cause. A constant rather than a variable. Marlin was hesed for his family. He didn’t write any books, or pioneer any cutting-edge science. As far as I know he never held public office.

But what he did hold was what was given to him. And he held it well.