Earth to Earth in Challenging Times

                                                            Pembrokeshire Beach

There was a weekend story about the discovery of extraordinarily well preserved skeletal remains on a beach in Britain. This is not one of the countless British murder mystery series we've watched during the pandemic. According to the Daily Mail:

Around 200 well-preserved medieval skeletons have now been recovered from one of Britain's best beaches, archaeologists say, including 90 in the last three weeks alone. The bodies, believed to belong to an early Christian community, are thought to date back as far as the 6th century and were laid to rest in the cemetery of a former chapel at Whitesands Bay in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

As someone who presided at hundreds of Christian funerals and memorials during my decades of ministry I notice stories about burial which stretch back through the centuries. It seems to be a very human trait to show respect for the dead, at least in times when societies are civil. When we become barbaric, as often happens in war, our rituals tend to be  abandoned. There are laws in most societies which make indignities to human remains a criminal offence.

I have actually been thinking lately about the countless thousands who have died during the pandemic, in many instances without the support of loved ones. And even when there has been a degree of dignity in laying the deceased to rest we have been forced to forego our usual practices and rituals for public safety. In some instances when people have defied restrictions, funerals have become COVID superspreader events. 

We just passed the first anniversary of the death of a seminary classmate and long-time friend. He deserved to be honoured through the gathering of friends and family but this became a "service to be held at a later date." Will these memorials every happen, I wonder? There is something about responding in the immediacy of loss which is profound, both in the remembering and in addressing our grief. In our Christian context we recognize our resurrection hope, even as we acknowledge our loss. 

I pray today for all those who have and will address loss without the comfort of the familiar words and practices of our various traditions.