Elections and eulogies?
Well, it’s an election year. A lot of people will be saying a lot of things about a lot of other people. Some of the things will be true, many will be false, and a few will be open to interpretation. We’ll have ample opportunity to spend time worrying about things outside our control and arguing with people who are highly unlikely to be persuaded by our flawless logic.
I wouldn’t ask that we avoid all those conversations; I’d only ask that we be careful. There is right and wrong. There is good, bad, and better. It’s important that we stay on, and stand for, the side of truth. It’s just as important that we approach such discussions with much grace, something that will probably be sorely lacking in most circles. I’m praying for wisdom.
Speaking of people who talk to other people about other people, one exercise I’ve engaged from time to time involves writing my own eulogy. After I’m gone, how will I be thought of by people who knew me? What characteristics stood out? Will I be missed? Putting such things on paper gives them some weight, even if you shred the paper afterward.
The next step is to think about what you’d like to be remembered for, what descriptions you’d hope would be used. Does the hope match the current appraisal? If not, what would need to change to make it so? I found this reading of 1 Corinthians 13 from the Message encouraging in this regard. It might even be relevant to those tough conversations….
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.