Witness to the Resurrection

 Light has been architecturalized in many ways in shaping sacred space and invoking the ineffable. Diana Eck

I am sharing something I wrote following the funeral for my daughter in law's grandfather.

I was tremendously moved by the service, its beauty, its grace, its hope. I also found myself gathering my own memories of loved ones and dropping down to another level of glorious grief, embracing the sadness as well as the joy. The experience seemed to be magnified by entering some fuller sense of being a witness to a Mystery filled with love and promise. 

To witness it to engage in a kind of seeing or perceiving, often ineffable. To witness as in this service was indeed to apprehend a sacred space, transformed by all the elements of prayer, music, memory and benediction. It was also to appreciate the role of the architecture: those floor to ceiling windows which caused the outside to come in and the internal to go forth.

So I am still pondering the word Witness and the great cloud:

Witness to the Resurrection

The memorial service had a name:
Witness to the Resurrection
Many of us recoil or run from that R word
It tests the limits of our faith
And too often pours discomfort on our earthly expectations
But here’s the thing:
As I sat there in the pew
trying to keep my body from heaving with emotions
I kept gazing through the elegant windows at the deep blue sky
attempting to enter the sanctuary
to complete the moment of eternity
And then it came to me:
It, the heavens,
And we, the mourners,
were One.
We too were that great cloud
of witnesses
Being made new
By memory and music,
By prayer and benediction,
We were indeed practicing resurrection!
Touching that eternity
which touches us.
Isn’t that what witnessing the resurrection is all about?
Living into the Story of life, then death, then something unfathomable
and sacred.
We are witnesses to a love which never ends.
Never.