“Best not flirt with disaster, lest it decide to commit.”
“Take two opposites, connect the dots, and you have a straight line.”
These are a few of the pithy wisdoms included in Where Epics Fail, an upcoming book of aphorisms from Egyptian-American poet Yahia Lababidi, who also said, “Poets, thinkers and artists do not really teach, but remind us of what we already know.”
This was certainly the case on Sunday, May 21, 2017, when I was honored as guest minister at St. John’s UCC church in New Buffalo, Michigan. The title of the sermon was, “The Light that is You.”
I opened with a story from way back in the days of full-service gas stations, about a minister who waited in line to have his car filled with gas just before a long holiday weekend. The attendant, a member of the church, worked quickly, but there were many cars lined up ahead of the minister.
Finally, the attendant motioned the minister toward a vacant pump. “Reverend,” said the young man, “sorry about the delay. It seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip.”
The minister laughed and responded, “I know what you mean. It’s the same in my business.”
In the perfect style of aphorisms, the sermon was summed up by this wonderful image on the bulletin cover, selected by Sandy Orange:
I was blessed to share the work of some wonderful writers, including Zan Lombardo’s poem “EVERYTHING IS INDEED REACHING OUT TO EVERYTHING ELSE” that is done in calligraphy along the bottom of her amazing 30-foot watercolor (See: Three Sylables), and “Social Ethics,” a poignant opinion article by Kathy Zerler which had recently been published in our local newspaper.
Confessing that I have already created my own eulogy so I can feel honored while I am still here living this life, and to save my loved ones from having to work to do it when I transition, from that I shared “When I’m Gone,” a poem by Mrs. Lyman Hancock, and “Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep,” written in 1932 by Mary Frye.
Kathy, my sister-from-another-mister, was with me at church on Sunday, so she got to hear me read her piece. Following the service, Kathy blessed me with the most delicious lunch at Pierre Anne Crȇperie. An authentic French restaurant in a charming Victorian home has been there for 19 years waiting for me to discover it. I am still feeling the lingering effects…
From the sermon:
Our lives live on. Our lives are important. Children watch how we live. And children watch how we deal with death. We can live in ways that teach children death is not the absence of goodness, nor the absence of beauty. Perhaps life and death can each be seen as the place where true beauty can be known.
Death is the only inevitability we all face.
It seems only fitting to close this blog with another powerful aphorism that reminds us of what we already know—this one found on the St. John’s UCC web page:
Never place a period where God has placed a comma…
Can I get an AMEN to that?
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