Memorial
MEMORIAL CEREMONY
Prepared by Rev. Bettie Barta, Indianapolis, IN
Friends, We are prayerfully gathered here today in memory of this loved one_____________that we may free our thought of_____as inhabiting a fleshly body and lift our vision to the new experience upon which____has entered. It is our soul's sincere desire that from now on we may never think of____as dead, but always think of____as a living soul, continuing on the pathway of eternal life....and always in our heavenly Father's wise and loving care.
In Unity, we do not have a public eulogy. Let us each one take into our heart the memory of when our lives have crossed with _________.
May this service bring a measure of peace to the hearts of________loved ones. May they feel the tender, loving presence of our heavenly Father, so strongly, that His peace which passeth all human understanding may fill their heart.
In my Father's house are many mansions; we are still in this earthly mansion, and our loved one has passed into another. But we are all together in God's house of life. We speak of death as a mystery, but it is life that is the great mystery and death is one of the least understood experiences on the pathway of life. Life is conscious growth toward God, and death is but one of the stages of this growth.
Let us take into our soul some of the words of the Holy
Scripture:
"For I am persuaded, that neither death, or life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
"Let not your heart be troubled, Ye believe in God, Believe also in me."
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man commeth unto the Father, but by me."
"For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
And as you read further into the chapter you find these reassuring words:
"For he has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man's mind. Whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has made it so. (Ecc. 3)
Let us pray: "Our Father in whom we live, move and have our being, and from whom we draw every breath of life. hou who art life, Spirit and Truth....quicken anew with Thy Spirit of Truth our hearts and minds that we may know the Truth concerning life; that we may know that life alone is real and true and eternal. In as much as we are partakers of Your life shall we have life everlasting.
Gracious Father, bless and be consciously with us all in Your promise, "I will not leave you desolate. Lo, I am with you always." In the name of the living, eternal Christ....Amen."
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It is never an easy experience when one who has been very close to your heart...one who has shared so very many meaningful experiences in your life; sheds the garment of flesh that clothes the soul and spirit and goes on to new experiences in which we cannot presently share.
I know, and you know of the asking "Why" and the wishing it were different.
We would be less than human if we didn't think back to times of happiness and joy we shared together, yes even the rough times of life have a special meaning because we shared them with our loved one.
(Example--hold up two fingers and pretend to wrap a string or ribbon around them so they would always move together then for an unknown reason they are cut apart, feel the separation...separation hurts...but God heals in time, healing surges up from the body and each regains the strenght. So is it with heart hurts...God's love heals, and restores wholeness to each.
It is not our purpose to make less of death. The purpose, responsibility, joy, is to help us see death from a higher viewpoint....Death has to do with the body only. Each of us is a three fold being: Spirit, Soul and Body.
Spirit in us is the image-likeness of God in man...the Light that lighteth...the Christ within of which Paul spoke when he said, "This is the mystery that has been hidden for ages and generations." The Soul of a person is that uniqueness that makes him different from any other person. It is the inner man, that which the person has understood and unfolded of the Christ within.
It is the Soul that we know and love.
It is the soul expressing through the garment of flesh that made the experience we shared together so meaningful and productive of good.
The reason is never perfectly understood, but the soul sheds its garment. But it is only the end of the garment, not of the person, not of the Soul
Spiritual vision sees death as a transition, a change, a graduation, not an abrupt end. (Example: moving thru grades of education; kindergarten ends, first grade begins; grade school ends, high school begins, etc. onward and upward. So when life seems to end it is really graduating to a higher experience. The experience of a loved on going on can be a rich spiritual experience if we meet it with a knowledge of Truth. It is a time to look forward and ask ourselves, "How will my life be different because our lives have touched." It is a time to think about and pray for a greater understanding of Eternal life.
Everlasting life, Eternal life....We sometimes think of these terms as poetry instead of very meaningful words and ideas. We should each have our own understanding of these words...and sometimes nature is a better teacher than the intellectual words of a human teacher.
For example: Have you ever stood and watched a sunset from a seashore or hilltop? As you look toward the west the sky is streaked with beautiful colors of blue and gold--a beautiful sight--but it symbolizes the end of a day, the end of a task.
The next time you stand watching a sunset--remember--at that same moment in time and looking at the same sun, but from another point of view --the opposite side of the earth-- a person would be watching what? A sunrise.
A sunrise symbolized a new, a new opportunity, a new adventure. But if we would go as high in the sky as we possibly can go; from that highest point of view, we would see that in reality there is no sunset or sunrise. The sun just perpetually shines.
Even so, from our human point of view there seems to be birth and death (and there certainly is birth and death) but from the highest point of view running through the two like a golden thread...is the Truth....that life is eternal. The experience of death is as natural as the experience of birth. It is the fear of death that is to be overcome. This is done by faith...faith in life; faith in each other and faith in God.
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Prose from James Dillet Freeman the Unity poet. Exactly what is on the other side of death we do not know but we may be sure that it is life. Life is on the other side of death as it is on this side. Death is not evil. Neither is it good. Is the turning of a page good or evil? Is the rest between two notes of music good or evil? Is the opening of a door good or evil? Death is an incident. It is a part of life, as sleep is a part of life, as nightfall is a part of life. Sleep gives way to waking. Night turns into day. So death is but the passage from life to life. Death is a door through which we pass into another room. It is a rest between two notes in an unfinished symphony. It is a page we turn to a new chapter in the book of life. It is not the end; it is a new beginning. It is not the fall of night; it is another dawn.
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Let us be still in prayer: In God there are no endings, only beginnings. This is true even when a life appears to have ended to human sense. We cannot know the soul's whole journey; we only know it in part. But we can know that the journey is always toward God, always toward Life. We will not grieve because we cannot see beyond the present for ourselves or for our dear one. We find comfort and peace in the realization that wherever we are, wherever our dear ones are, there is only one Presence and one Power, God the good; there is only one Life; God Life.
Let us say to our dear one: "I am at peace concerning you." Let us give thanks that the Soul knows no endings. It is always beginning again." Read Twenty Third Psalm