Friends of Heaven

1 Make me a channel of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me bring your love;
where there is injury, your healing power,
and where there's doubt, true faith in you:

2 Make me a channel of your peace:
where there's despair in life, let me bring hope;
where there is darkness, only light;
and where there's sadness, ever joy.
O Spirit, grant that I may never seek
so much to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love with all my soul.

3 Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
in giving to all that we receive,

and in dying that we're born to eternal life.

Make Me a Channel of Your Peace

We have been watching Dead to Me (Netflix), a series about is kind of about grief which has been described as a dark comedy. It does probe around in the realities of grieving and it is often funny, so they got that right. It is also suspenseful with some strange and improbable twists. 

The two key characters, Jen (Christina Applegate), and Judy (Linda Cardellini) meet at a grief support group sponsored by a congregation and mediated by Pastor Wayne. It has the ridiculous name, Friends of Heaven -- even Friends in Heaven would be lame. Jen has anger issues and is dubious about anything the group might have to offer but attends anyway. Pastor Wayne seems somewhat insipid in the beginning (why won't TV and movies create a strong clergy character!) but comes across as a more insightful person in an episode called "Don’t Leave Me This Way." The two women attend a grief retreat where participants can sing Carry-on-oke (really), and go to seminars such as  “Window to the Widow” and “Lost Angels", for those who have suffered miscarriages. 



Pastor Wayne

The show points out the ambivalence many people have about the role of religion in addressing grief in our increasingly secular society. When son Isaac began his most recent pastorate a family didn't want him to preside at the service of an elderly loved one because they didn't know him and feared he might attempt to proselytize. Pulleeze. 

One of the more touching scenes, for me, was an awkward memorial gathering for Jen's late husband (killed by a hit-and-run driver). Once again Jen is angry, but her co-worker offers to pray. After an emphatic "no" Jen relents and he prays extemporaneously, then recites from memory the Prayer of St. Francis, which most of us know as the hymn, Make Me a Channel of Your Peace. It was almost certainly not written by Francis, but it touching in this context just the same. 

Dead to Me has its speed-wobbles but it's worth watching. Have you seen it. 



Poolside Memorial Gathering