We were driving by a church with a cemetery this morning and Vava asked why churches are always surrounded by dead people. Patrick told her it's to remind us that, when we participate in communion, we're also in communion with all believers who have ever lived and died.
And that gave me such a lovely frisson of the niceness of eternity (normally I guess I think of eternity as terrible because it's so unfamiliar and large and I can't wrap my mind around it). And somehow remembering that they're with us (any follower of Jesus, ever) gave me a feeling of longing and joy.
I'm in communion with CS Lewis, and Isobel Kuhn, and Nana and Grampie and our sweet tiny miscarried babies and Bonhoeffer and Corrie Ten Boom and Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln.
Yes - they were once where we are, and we will soon be where they are. It was a comforting feeling, full of warmth and togetherness.
Loss is keen at Christmas. When the heart is heavy with gifts you wish you could give but the recipient is no longer here, may their absence comfort you with the reminder that they're still part of us. They're waiting for us.
And when we join them, it won't be a leaving half so much as it will be finally going home.
Merry Christmas, friends.
Xo.
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