She is slowly taking her leave,
The painful withering away
Of mind and body
That is Alzheimer’s.
She lies still in her own bedroom
Given the dignity of dying in her own home
By her beloved devoted daughter Lynn.
Grace, who is full of Grace,
Has been at their side
In constant loving care
For both dying mother
And grieving daughter.
What a gift,
I often think,
That Grace cares so much to Lynn.
What a gift,
That Grace cares so much for the mother of Lynn.
She has been such a powerful presence
that Lynn’s mother calls Grace her daughter.
Grace is a gift.
That’s what we believe.
The miracle is that,
in the act of gracious giving,
She has received a gift herself.
They have become family.
Broken in pieces
But being put back together.
When Jesus was dying on the cross,
He turned to the beloved disciple and said,
“Son, this is your mother.”
He turned to his mother Mary and said,
“Mother, this is your son.”
In other words,
It is not good
That we should be alone.
It was only “After this,”
After binding the broken pieces together
In a re-membered family,
That Jesus knew everything had been completed
And surrendered himself to
What lay ahead.
Shelter my mother
From the cruelty
Of being a woman unaccompanied.
You who share in her love
And her loss,
Grieve with her,
Move through mourning with her,
Shelter her heart,
Shelter her broken pieces.
And so Jesus speaks to us from the cross,
Woman, man, these are my children.
Shelter my broken ones.
Shelter the motherless child,
The childless mother,
The elderly warehoused and forgotten,
The mentally ill whose family has given up,
The homeless facing down the freezing night
With only a bottle and a blanket
On the cold hard ground.
Can we hear Jesus speaking to us
From the cross, saying,
Woman, man, these are your children.
Take them into your home,
Claim them as your own?
Can we hear Jesus speaking to us
From the cross, saying,
Here is the mother of Michael Brown.
Take her into your home,
Claim her as your own?
Can we hear Jesus speaking to us
From the cross, saying,
Here are the six children of Eric Garner.
Take them into your home,
Claim them as your own?
Yes, we say to Jesus, yes!
She is our mother,
They are our children,
We claim them as our own.
The real miracle will be
When we hear Jesus’ speaking to us
From the cross, saying
Here is the mother of Darren Wilson.
Will you take her into your home,
Take her as your own?
Even as he breathed his dying breath,
Jesus was re-member-ing the body,
Taking the broken pieces
And creating something new.
This is my body
Broken for you,
This is my body
Broken for you,
The broken body of Christ.
Can we hear Jesus speaking to us
From the cross, saying
You are the body of Christ, the broken body of Christ.
Will you say it with me?
“We are the body of Christ, the broken body of Christ.”
Broken in pieces
But being put back together
Of the One whose love knows no bounds
By the One whose mercy knows no bound.
From the moment Jesus entrusted
His mother broken by grief
To his beloved disciple,
the disciple made a place for her in his home.
May it be true of us,
That from this moment on,
We will make a place
In our homes
For the broken bodies of Christ.
May it be true of us
That from this moment on,
We will make a place in our sacred spaces,
For the mother who has lost her child,
For the child who has lost his mother.
May it be true of us
That from this moment on
We will make a place in our homes
For the hungry, the thirsty, the naked,
The sick, the imprisoned,
The stranger,
Yes, even the enemy.
Even the enemy,
We will give them a home,
We will claim as our own.
For as Jesus taught us,
When we have done so
Unto the least of these,
We have done it unto him.
BLESSING
This day
let all stand still
in silence,
in sorrow.
Sun and moon
be still.
Earth
be still.
Still
the waters.
Still
the wind.
Let the ground
gape in stunned
lamentation.
Let it weep
as it receives
what it thinks
it will not
give up.
Let it groan
as it gathers
the one
who was thought
forever stilled.
Time
be still.
Watch
and wait.
Still.
-Jan Richardson
