Do Not Let Your Hearts be Troubled (funeral for Ginnie Deane)

 

“Do Not Let Your Hearts be Troubled”

Homily Delivered at the Funeral for Ginnie Deane

Feb. 23, 2018 10 a.m.

Trinity Episcopal Parish, Ashland Oregon

The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Job 19:21-27a; Psalm 91; Romans 8:14-19,34-35,37-39; John 14:1-6

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust God, and trust me as well.”  The death of a loved one is hard.  We miss them.  We wonder about how they are, or even whether they are.  The death of a loved troubles the heart.  And it troubles it for a long time. 

These words of Jesus are, then, a comfort:  “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.  Trust God. Trust me.”    Trust in the love behind, beneath, and driving the universe.  Trust in the God who once suffered on a cross and himself died.  Trust in the God who himself wept at his friend Lazarus’ death.  Trust. 

Trust is a matter of relationship.  And so is our hope for the dead.  As we get older, we gradually realize that more and more of those we love have passed on to death, what Shakespeare called that “undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveler returns.”  And we can either give up hope and joy forever, or give our hearts over to the power of love, of relationship, and God.  The great doctrine of the communion of the saints is all about this:  those who have gone on before are still here, but unseen.  For them life is changed, not ended.  And so we pray for them and ask them to pray for us.  Our relationships go on, though they are changed.  And it is all in the warm embrace of an all nurturing God who loves us and wills joy and salvation for all. 

Hazel Irma Howard, known to family and friends as “Ginnie,”  was born and raised in East Anglia, 60 miles northeast of London.  She kept her light East Anglian working class accent to her death.  Moving to London, she was a Girl Guides leader during the Blitz.  One day she returned to her troup’s Activity Center only to find it destroyed by one of Hitler’s bombs.  Moving to the U.S. after the war, she soon fell in love and married  Dudley Deane, her employer.     

Her life was marked by relationship and service.
She was open to a range of spiritual and physical training practices, from India, China, and Japan, and was one of the first U.S. Rieki masters.  She was known for her healing touch.  A popular poem used in Reiki circles tells of the gifts Ginnie enjoyed: 

Release my thoughts into the air,
I ask for guidance from above
That my hands might flow with healing love.
A touch that’s meant to reach the soul
To ease the pain that took its toll,
The mind and spirit to renew
As energy flows from me to you.

I only knew Ginnie the last six years of her life. Looking now on Ginnie’s family and friends, drawn together for this sad event, it is clear that relationship is still what her life is all about.   And that is what makes the event also one of joy, and hope. 

In the Father’s house, there are many dwelling places, Jesus says.  The word means stopping over places, temporary abodes on our journey in the eternities following Jesus.  There are many, not a few or one.  That’s because there are many of us, and a great variety of relationships between us and Jesus, Jesus is the way we follow in this great mystery.   Our relationship with him is what draws us on, whether we know him by that name or not.    

Ginnie led a full, joyful life, and was taken into the mystery of death quickly, without pain.  In that, there is hope and joy.  Let not your hearts be troubled.    Amen.