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Friday, December 21, 2007 And Mary said, Yesterday we attended Katie’s funeral. At 23, she died after an agonizing bout with leukemia. We didn’t know Katie, but her sister is a friend of ours. Katie was a senior in college … artist, actor, eccentric. Her memorial service took place in the Theatre at her college. At the entrance, a display cabinet neatly contained the play bills of all the productions in which Katie had performed. And inside, the stage held big, floppy sunflowers in vases on empty chairs, easels with Katie’s bold and earthy artwork, her ashes in a wooden box, and her young friends … who came up, one by one, to sing a song they had written, or read a poem, or tell a story about the day Katie did something wild or wonderful or brave. The celebration was extraordinary, not only because of the life being remembered, but also because of those who were present for the remembering. Grace abounded – as a friend who couldn’t make it through his witness without crying was encouraged to try again; as the gentle tattooed man stood up to read. with quivering voice. a children’s book The Next Place; as the fussy blonde baby of the red-haired mom and blue-haired dad was passed up and down the row until someone was able to comfort him. By all accounts, the conventions of the church did not hold or sustain Katie, but the Spirit of Life did – and it was clear that God had found a passageway into this world through her strong and generous, creative and whimsical presence. My soul magnifies the Lord. Today, Katie and Mary seem like the same woman to me: representatives of all the unlikely ones, those outside the boundaries of polite church and conformist society, who are willing to help God be born in the here and now. In Gospel Medicine, Barbara Brown Taylor says, May we all choose to be God-bearers – giving birth to light and grace and laughter – for as long as ever we can. |
