This weekend honors and remembers those brave men and women who died in service to America. At church we also expand this to include all those that have touched our lives in someway and have since passed away its always a very special service for that reason. With the four year anniversary just having come around, I was thinking of my Nana, Ann.
Prior to the service you are invited to bring a flower with you and as you walk to the entrance of the sanctuary there are flowers for sale.
After a few announcements the band plays beautiful music and the congregation is invited to walk forward to the stage where about 30 vases are waiting to receive the flowers people bring. Each flower represents the beauty that person brought to your life, and that life keeps blooming. Kathianne suggested that they are never really gone and said on the way into church this morning she had glanced across a couple of lanes on the highway and realized that a person was looking at her as she looked at them...you've done that before right? I loved that she used this analogy to explain that when you want to remember someone that has passed over you only need look towards them, remember them..and they are right there looking back at you "from the other lane". Beautiful right? I loved it. Fortunatly they had tonnes of tissues so it was all good, and then they started the procession up to the front while a couple of ladies sang "Because I knew you"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UFpQtOuOnc don't listen to this unless you are willing to shed a few tears, but it was really perfect for this ceremony.
Nan, Because I knew you, I have been changed - - for good. I miss you every day.
After everyone had taken their flowers up front this is the beauty that was left:
We finished up by singing America the Beautiful as the closing song in salute of those who have passed away that were in the armed forces, it was perfect
Im so glad that I am part of such a great community at the Center for Spiritual Living. They do things just a bit differently, but different in an excellent way.
What a nice thing to do! Someday I will have to
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and I know my mom (3 years gone) is somewhere, over there, i can't see her, but that doesn't mean she doesn't see me and Oliver and Chelsea. Fiona, it doesn't less my missing her so much; i don't think that ever lessens, but I know i'll see her again. As you will your Nana. Christine H
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