Abiding Places — And here's why

So many people have been so kind in the wake of my aunt’s passing and so many have said how much my funeral homily meant to them, so I wanted to share it here for those who may have missed the service or those who want to revisit it. Thank you all again for your love for Aunt Pat and for our family. It truly has meant so much to us these past few days. This homily is based on Isaiah 40:26-31 and John 14:1-4, 27.

On behalf of my family, I want to thank you all for being here today. I know it means a lot to us. And I'm sure that Aunt Pat has been smiling down on us the past couple days, full of joy at seeing us together again. It's been a blessing.

You know, despite how beautiful it is right now, it's been raining these past few days as I've been trying to figure out what to say today, and it's got me thinking of that old southern saying, the one we all say whenever storms are in the forecast: Well, you know, we need the rain. After a dry spell? You know, we need the rain. During a flash flood watch? You know, we need the rain. It could be ark-building weather, and someone somewhere would say to somebody else, "Well, you know, we need the rain."

Rain is a part of life on this planet, a necessary part of life, just as sadness is. And there's some wisdom in saying of sadness, well, we need a little bit of that in life. Sadness can help us recognize how precious the good things in our life are. Sadness can remind us to reach out to one another. And sadness can even help us grow. But days like today, days like the past few days? Well, days like these, we’re under a perpetual flash flood warning and I think it’s safe to say that we don’t need any more rain, at least, not right now.

I wanted to name this sadness before we turn ourselves to prayer and to promises of hope and peace, because I think that some of us have had and will have moments when sadness is more real to us than any hope can be, at least for a while. Sadness, anger, numbness, frustration, exhaustion, these are all part of grieving a loss like this. It’s okay. It’s good. In fact, it’s holy. Sadness at a time like this is a sign of love and if she was anything, my Aunt Pat was someone who loved and is loved abundantly.

So feel sad, if you need to. Feel angry or lost, when those emotions strike you. Feel a tidal wave of emotions, if you need to, because these feelings are real and important, to us and to God. It’s not too much, for us or for God. We can carry all of this if we carry it together.

And so, friends, would you help me carry all of this? Would you pray together with me?

God who cast the stars in the sky and shaped the foundations of the earth and holds us in the palm of your hand still, we’ve gathered together to grieve our loss and celebrate the life of your beloved daughter, Patricia. Be with us in this time and this place. Comfort us by your Spirit. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” Some translations say “rooms,” I first heard it as “mansions,” but maybe the closest translation to the original Greek of John’s gospel is “abiding places.” Jesus is speaking to his disciples, gathered around the dinner table of his Last Supper, preparing them for what’s to come, and, as Jesus is wont to do in the face of pain and distress, he speaks comfort. “In the house of this Father of mine, there are many abiding places. There is room for all of us and I am going to make sure everything’s ready. If this weren’t so, would I have told you? You’ve been with me. You know this.”

Now, usually, I’m pretty envious of the disciples, because, out of all of us, it seems like they have the best chance of understanding what Jesus is talking about. They’ve walked a long road with him. They’ve seen and experienced so much. When I don’t understand Jesus, I get envious of the disciples. Even though they didn’t get it most of the time, they have a better chance of it than I do.

But I don’t feel that jealousy here and now, not with this verse. I don’t feel that way because I get it. I know exactly what an abiding place feels like: Aunt Pat’s and Uncle Teddy’s at Thanksgiving and Christmas, all of us cousins and parents and children and grandparents and pets and relations of all kinds packed into the house, each chair and couch and counter a place to sit and stay and talk to one another, meals to fill up hungry bellies and laughter to fill up longing hearts. And if the noise got too loud or the lights too bright, you could go out to sit by the fire in the backyard or find a quiet corner of the basement to curl up and crack open a book. But no matter where you were or who you were talking to, you were still a part of the celebration. You were welcome, and you were welcome to just be. That is what an abiding place feels like. A place where you are welcome and welcome to just be.

Aunt Pat was an abiding place, here on earth.

I should have seen it when I was a kid, maybe. I should have recognized that the woman who was there to see my first breath, here for my baptism, there to pick me up from ballet when my mom was in the hospital, there for graduations of all kinds, I should have recognized from the get-go that this woman with so much love to give was an abiding place, but I don’t know that I did. Like all kids, I took a lot of stuff for granted.

But I think I got a sense of it when I went down to visit Aunt Pat and Uncle Teddy at the beach after I graduated from seminary. Seminary is a marathon-length sprint and I knew I needed some time away, but I didn't really know how or where. When I arrived, though, I knew that this was exactly what I needed. I might not have been to this part of St. Helena Island before, but somehow, it felt like coming home. Walking in the door and sitting at the counter felt like all those Thanksgivings and Christmases. This too was an abiding place. Over that week, through our conversations and our comfortable silences, I learned that some people can bring abiding places with them, wherever they are. I learned to be thankful for that too.

And it's for that reason, and for a million others besides, that her death has left me with anger mixed into my grief. I want more time with her. I feel like I was just getting started. I was just getting started to know my aunt as an adult, starting to see the bigger picture of the person she was and beginning to have those deep and real conversations that come with a lifetime of familiarity. I want a hundred more afternoons on the beach. I want at least a dozen more seasons screaming at the TV during Carolina basketball. I want full dinners and lazy lunches and all the things I know I can't have with her because she's gone. I just don't understand it. How can someone be wishing you happy birthday one day and be gone the next?

I don't know.

This side of heaven, we might never know.

But what we do know is that even though her time on earth with us is over, she's not really gone, not for good, anyway. We have the hope that is spoken of in Isaiah, that the God who knows us each by name comes to us when we are faint and powerless and lifts us up on wings like eagles. If this is how God can love us in life, how much more, then, can God love us in death, lifting us up to the place that has been prepared for each of us and all of us? If God can strengthen and restore us in this world, how much more in the next? And I can't attest to what life after this life will look like, but one thing I do know is that if there's anyone I want going ahead to help Jesus prepare a place for me, it's Pat Brewer. I know that on that great day when we all be together again in whatever world comes next, we will be welcomed into an abiding place filled with abundant love, love like Pat gave so freely. I know that she will be there with open arms, gathered with all those saints who have gone before us, with all our beloveds who have gone before us, all those she missed in her time on this earth and those she has gone to join. What a beautiful thought. What a beautiful reunion that awaits us all.

It can do a soul good to rest on promises like these and if it does you good, I invite you to encourage one another with them. But, as we know, our hope doesn’t rest only in the world to come. We can find hope and healing here, in this place and with these people.

It has done my heart a world of good to see everyone who has come out to remember Aunt Pat. I mean, she couldn’t go to the grocery store without seeing someone she knew, but it has been amazing to see just how many friends she had. It’s not surprising, though-- as Montye said a couple of days ago, there wasn’t a person who knew her for more than five minutes that didn’t just fall in love with her. As the remembrances have poured in, we’ve heard person after person say that she was their best friend or their second mother. As one of the many, many kids who she cared for, because kids truly were her calling, I can speak for myself when I say that my life was immeasurably better because she was a part of it. And maybe she connected with kids so well because she wore her heart on her sleeve, though that wasn’t a trait that served her well during basketball season. Who knows. Maybe the Carolina coaching staff can hear you better from heaven, because goodness knows they took none of our advice from this side of the TV screen.

There is hope and healing in remembering. There is hope and healing in the stories we tell, the memories we share. I know that if you’re here today, Pat touched your life in one way or another. Tell those stories to one another. Remember her. In the days and weeks, months and years to come, keep her alive by sharing with each other the good that she brought into your life, as she brought good into so many lives. We will need these stories. We will need each other.

But most of all, keep her alive by loving one another as she loved you, or try to, anyway. Be an abiding place for one another. Love the best in each other and be proud of what those around you have accomplished. Hold space for one another and listen, as best as you can. Give your time and your service to one another freely and without regret. Love each other to pieces, my friends. It’s what she would have done for us. And when we do that, when we love each other as best as we can, that small part of her that lives in each of us shines through all the brighter.

I’ve asked y’all to tell stories and so, in that spirit, I’ll close with one of my own. One night, more than a decade ago, I found myself riding home from a game with my mom and Aunt Pat. I don’t remember exactly when, but I know that it was over winter break, because I had volunteered to play in the pep band at Carolina so that I could get guest tickets for the two of them. It was a pre-ACC season game and who knows if we won or lost, but the three of us had piled into the car to make the drive back from Chapel Hill to Hickory, talking away. Because it was impossible not to feel safe when Aunt Pat was around and because college students can and will sleep anywhere, I took a nap in the back seat, letting my tiredness and the fog lull me off to dreamland. Now, I don’t know how many of you have made this drive, but if you’re trying to get to 321 off of I-40, as we were, you need exit 123. Imagine my surprise, then, when I woke up to see exit numbers in the one-teens. We were most of the way to Valdese before they turned around.

Now, I know if you talk to my mother, she’ll blame it on the fog, but I have a sinking suspicion that these two sisters were just enjoying themselves too much to be paying any attention to something as insignificant as the exit signs. But despite the detour, I never felt worried or afraid. I knew that Aunt Pat knew the way home. I knew that we would find our way home.

And now I know that she’s found her way home one last time. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but I know that she did. Through all the fog of this moment, and through all the storms of emotion that may lay ahead, I know I’ll hold onto that thought: she is home. And when our time comes, she’ll be there to welcome us into the wonderful abiding place that has been prepared for each of us. And in that glorious, peaceful moment, by the promise of the God who raised up the mountains and set the boundaries of the sea, we will see for ourselves that in the end, all will be truly be well. We will be together, and there will be love and life abundant, and all will be well.

Amen.