Today I attended my first completely secular funeral service. It was for the son of a close friend who is an atheist. Instead of being held in a church or even a funeral home, the service was held in the community room of the apartment complex where the young man lived and had many friendships.
There was an informal service where his mom spoke and then several people came up and said a few words about how this wonderful young man had touched their lives. It was lovely and moving and I felt a strong sense of community around the fact that we all loved and cared for this many who had passed away.
But as a Christian woman who is deeply spiritual, it was challenging for me to sit there through this whole program where there was not a single mention of God, not a scripture was read, and there was no mention of how Jamaal’s eternal soul is now resting in the arms of Jesus and that the suffering that wracked his body in his final days was now over and he was finally free.
But I prayed for Jamaal in my heart, and I prayed for his family who will miss his sunny spirit and the special spark of life that he brought to this world. They will now carry that spark with them in their hearts forever.
I tried to comfort my friend, but the words I offered about Jamaal now being happy and free in heaven rang hollow for him because as an atheist, he does not believe in the soul, or God or any continuation of life after the body dies. He believes that death is the end of everything–that the body is it. This philosophy absolutely boggles my mind, but I respect his freedom to have those beliefs.
For so long I have taken my faith for granted. I have taken the comfort it gives me, and the peace if fills my heart and mind with completely for granted. I am so confident in the knowledge that I am a spirit, a spark from the Divine, that has come to inhabit this human form for a certain number of days and then I will lay it down. When this body dies, as the hymn says, “I’ll fly away.” My spirit will go into the light from whence it came and I will be at peace with God for all eternity.
To some degree I inherited my beliefs because I was blessed to be born into a family that loved God and brought me up in the church. But when I grew up I had a crisis of faith and set those beliefs aside to embark on my own search for meaning and significance. I guess you could say that I took a long journey only to arrive back at the place where I began. When I came back to the faith I was born into it was because no matter where I searched I could not find the unspeakable joy and peace I had found from my faith in and love for God.
But my heart is open and wide and I have plenty of room to love those who do not share my exact views. I figure that if God really wanted everyone to be a robot and only believe in Him, he could have wired our brains that way. But he gave us all free will–that is the option to choose to love Him or to turn away from Him. It doesn’t seem to make sense to give someone the option to do something and them penalizing them for exercising that option.
While I may never understand my friend’s world view, I can love him just the same. He is bereft at the loss of his son, while I am filled with joy that he has graduated from this existence and now lives in the bliss of heavenly communion. I was also stricken with grief just a few months back when my daddy passed away quite suddenly in his sleep. But now my mourning has turned to rejoicing because I know that he is among the angels.
So, my heart is filled with gratitude for the faith I learned as a child that comforted me as I grew up and that gives me strength each day. I will pray for my friend and feel a bit sad that he doesn’t know the blissful comfort that comes from being sure of the love of God. I wish Jamaal Godspeed and ask that he hold a place for me in heaven because I know I’ll meet him there when my time here is finished.
