Putting the fun in funeral, putting the saints in all saints day.

Did you see that ice out there on Sunday morning?  It was craaaaaaaaazy.

For those of you who are in the Regina area, there's no way you could have missed it. It was bonkers.  Cars flying around like you wouldn't believe, cops directing traffic, semi trucks parked by the side of the road because they couldn't make it up inclines, all that.  If you would have been there, you'd know.

But this is that time of the year.  A time when winter gets going, and you realize just how at the mercy of the weather you are.  Oh sure, it seems simple enough when you're cruising along in the summertime when the living is hot, and it's all windows down and shorts.  But then all of a sudden, winter crashes in, and this is the time of the year when it does.

Now, we're at the time of the year in which winter is just getting going.  And it shows no sign of stopping.  And this is the time of the year when we as people tend to lose faith in things.  We tend to lose faith in the idea that it will ever be spring again.  We tend to lose faith in the idea that we'll ever just hop in our cars and just go, where you can go 50kph when the speed limit is 50.  Heck, you might even tempt fate and go 55!

But no.  Not now, not at the beginning of November.  You are stuck in the grip of winter, and it's not going to let go for half the year.  And it's just going to get colder.  It's summer for two months.  It's winter forever.

But then comes the curious story of what we in Calgary call the chinook.  You Saskies have probably heard of it, right?  The chinook?  It means 'snow eater' in latin.  But the chinook does something pretty precious for us Albertans.  It breaks winter up.

Now, to be absolutely clear for you Saskies who have no idea what I'm talking about, in this province, once the mercury dips below minus ten, it stays there for either six months or until the end of the world, whichever comes first.  And after a while, you start to feel as though ten degrees below zero is actually a pretty nice day.  And when you pile up snow all over your yard, you realize that it doesn't go anywhere, and you start to run out of places to stack it.  Because it doesn't melt.  It just stacks up.  And as Saskies, we spend half the year shoveling snow against our houses, and then a day furiously shoveling snow away from our houses, lest the foundation spring a thousand leaks come springtime.  But until spring, the snow just sort of hangs around.

In Calgary, you get a chinook.  And the temperature warms up.  Like, really warms up.  It gets super warm for about a couple of days.  And what happens when it gets warm like that?  People who have convertibles drive with the top down and the heater on.  Folks get outside and chip away at the ice on their sidewalks without wearing jackets.  And nobody in Calgary feels as though they have actually had spring arrive on January fifteenth, or whatever.  Nobody thinks that this warm spell is going to last for the rest of the year.  Everyone knows that the mercury's going to plunge again, no doubt.  But what the chinook does is to remind you that the winter doesn't last forever.  There is an end to it, and you get a little glimpse of it for a while.

And believe it or not, that's what a funeral service is, too.  When properly considered, that is.  Most of us think of a funeral as a time and a place to go and be sad.  And that would come as no surprise.  After all, we've lost someone incredibly important to us, someone who was a big player in our lives, someone who we're going to miss.  And it's like the onset of Canadian winter, the beginning of November, where you feel as though things are never going to be free and clear and easy again.  There's a hole in your heart all the way to China, and it's never going to go away.  It's going to be frosted over windows and plugging in the car from now to eternity.  The hole in your life is so big and so great and so immense, that nothing is ever going to make it better.

But then the funeral service happens.  And yes, you're sad.  But the point of the funeral service isn't to make you sad.  On the contrary.  It's to give you hope.  Think of the funeral service when your loved one passes away, as a chinook that enters the winter of your life.  Just when you think that winter's never going to end, just when you think that it'll be ice and snow and short days forever, all of a sudden, and out of nowhere, comes a reprieve. However brief.  What you do at a funeral service is not just talk about how great the person was who passed away, and I'll tell you why.

1 - You don't need any help remembering all the good things about that person.  It's all that's on your mind.
2 - Talking about how great something is that you've lost is a sure fire way to feeling even worse.

You know that's true.  Think about Canadian winters again.  You know how when winter really sets in, and someone always says the same thing:
"Remember in the summer when we were complaining about how hot it was?"
Yes, bozo, of course we do, and we are currently regretting it. Pretty much all you can think about when it gets to be about minus 30 is how cold it is.  It's all you think about, it's all people talk about, it governs your movement and your activity, your day is based around how cold it is.  It's all you can think about, until one day, when the brief warm spell happens, then you realize that there is a brighter day coming.  It's not here yet, but it will be soon. 

Not that kind of all saints day.

This is what a funeral is for.  It's not to make you feel more sad, it's not to forget about the person who just passed away, it's not for any of that.  It's that brief chinook in the middle of winter, it's the moment when, just for a second, the snow melts, and you can see the grass underneath.  It's the moment when you were sure that winter was going to last forever, and then all of a sudden, you could see the sky, a hint of green, the roads were safer and clearer and nicer.  Maybe just for one day, there was the promise of spring.  Winter was sure to set in again, but you knew it wasn't going to last forever.

That's what funerals, and all saint's day, are all about.  Not that our loved ones are standing right there beside us, or have risen from the dead on that day, but these are the days in which, for just a second, we can see the life beneath the death, the promise beneath the grief, the love beneath the sadness.  These are the days when we have the promise, the guarantee, that even though things seem more like forever than a Canadian winter, they're not. 

16“In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”


17Some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ 

and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?”

 18They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? 

We don’t understand what he is saying.”

19Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, 

so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said,

‘In a little while you will see me no more, 

and then after a little while you will see me’? 

20I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices.

 You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 

21A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her 

time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets 

the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.

 22So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I

 will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one 

will take away your joy. 23In that day you will no longer ask

 me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you 

whatever you ask in my name. 24Until now you have not asked

 for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

                                                   John 16:16-24.

And what is the little while?  Ah yes.  That is the mystery.  It certainly doesn't seem like a little while, but neither do the months between November and May.  But it is a little while.  And once in a while, we get a glimpse of spring, and the promise that winter isn't forever.

PJ