Homage to Stu Plummer. A kind of homily.

Psalm 139. Eugene Peterson translation:

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb.  thank you, Body and soul, I am marvelously made! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.

 

As we journey backwards through the layers that constitute ourselves, beginning with the wisdom acquired through work and relationships, we move through the various experiences of our lives.  Through the years of maturity, work and love, into the years of adulthood into adolescence with its turmoils and confusions, through the years of education, growth and becoming.  Deeper still into the times of toddlerhood, infancy, back through birth into that inchoate time leading to the joining of sperm and egg, that cosmic chemistry of love.

Now moving in the other direction from that mysterious mix that leads to the drive to connect, make connections and ultimately find meaning we enter the world as we find it.

But we can be lost or even fail to thrive if we are not able to attach to that maternal figure, who brought us into this world and sustains us.  This thread of living love continues through our movement intoCTG life as we know it, sustains us to the end and manifests that Cosmic love that holds the Universe together.

Gradually in spite of our fears, conflicts, and with the help and support of those, like Stu, when we can stay rooted in that amazing wonder of the world, simultaneously immersed and distant in the healing relationships, we come back to that Love which infuses all, undergirds all, and has brought life into this cold forbidding Universe. 

Somehow, that dialogue of DNA combining four letters of our Alphabet, (CTG and E) continues this process.   And nothing human, in the world as we know it, would exist without this.

But it can’t be taken for granted.  There are, in this world, no guarantees.

So let us take the risk to follow in the footsteps of those who have shown us that it is in understanding ourselves, with others, that we offer help and healing in this journey. 

May we open our minds and hearts to the source of all that is: that love which holds all together.

As we seek to negotiate the difficult confusions and anxieties of life, may we do so with courage, integrity and humility.

Give us the insight to recognize our hidden biases and misunderstandings.

Give us the strength to enter those parts of ourselves which hide our deepest fears and longings.

Give us the sense to see what is there, not just what we think ought to be there.

Give us the love to be human and relate to our fellow beings with compassion and justice.

May we have the insights to learn that conflicts heal through resolution.

Help us to learn to come to terms with ourselves, such that we are healers with those whom we teach and minister. 

Give us the energy and vision to build communities that benefit both the individual and the community itself.

Help us to remember that learning is dialogic, reflective, and continuously active.

Help us to know the open hearted wonder of our lives, in this miraculous Cosmos.

Let us rejoice in the presence of that Cosmic  love, that refreshes, encourages and sustains.

All this we ask in the name of those who opened the doors to that presence in our lives and in the world.  Amen