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Dear Inner Circle,
I'm
at the fountain cafe enjoying the extraordinary light that such a day
brings.
The world looks crisper to me in the morning. A well dressed man
sitting next
to me is just finishing the pint of beer that he's having
for breakfast.
A woman opposite me is reading the paper and chain
smoking.
There is a skinny girl wearing next to nothing, using the
reflection
that she can see in the telephone booth to make herself
beautiful and ready
for the day. The few clothes that she is wearing are
all black and against her pale,
sickly looking skin and gaunt figure,
it looks a bit sad. I expect she will wander
off shortly looking for
customers. If the man next to me has another beer for breakfast,
she
might be in luck.
One
the worst drunks I know asked me to bury his mum. I told him that I'd
be
honoured to stand with him in this moment, provided that he could
stand.
He arrived at Wayside, very drunk but still able to stand.
"Stand" isn't quite
the right word; "dignified wobble" might describe
his best effort. On the way
to the graveside he begged me to stop at
every pub we passed for a quick drink.
I refused his requests and when
we arrived at the graveside, the undertaker was
already waiting for us.
Before I could say a prayer, my friend burst into a
drunken rage. He
thought the nursing home probably switched bodies and it probably
wasn't
the body of his mother in the coffin. The undertaker was more than
mildly
annoyed and refused to open the coffin to settle the matter.
There is no such thing
as reasoning with a drunk and so eventually the
undertaker opened the coffin so
the man could see that it was his mother
and not some interloper in the coffin.
From this rough beginning to
proceedings, I gave this dear old lady the most
dignified funeral that I
could. I understand that she'd lived a remarkable life.
Indeed my
drunken friend is fluent in three languages and travelled the world
with
a successful career many years ago and in his own way and from his
drunken fog,
he loved his mum.
Yesterday,
I did a funeral for a lady that has been part of Kings Cross for over
30 years.
Her son told me that his Mum had the capacity to be angry, sad
and funny in the
same moment. Someone else told me that she thrived on
Kings Cross gossip and that
she was the master of disseminating
information, confidentially. There is no doubt that
she was a woman who
loved people and our Chapel filled yesterday with people
she had loved.
It is an unspeakable honour to be invited by people to step into
their
lives at a time like this. I see my role as helping people find words
that are right
for them in this moment of parting. Tears are right and
appropriate. Cheers are
right and appropriate. There are no rules for
saying good bye and it seems like families
learn the lesson that "love
lets go" in their own way. Yesterday was an open coffin
and I was
surprised by how many people kissed the deceased person on the lips.
I
make no judgement but it's not what I would do.
I
must have lacked oxygen at birth because I have never understood
anything
about sport and yet all my brothers and my sister seemed to be
interested and
able to speak that language. In Adelaide once, one of my
brothers dragged
me to a baseball match. I was keen not to go but that
never made much difference
to any of my brothers when we embarked on any
activity. At one stage the guy
on the field, hitting a ball with a
toothpick, slammed a ball right out of the ground.
Everyone around leapt
in the air with joy and astonishingly, I leapt into the air with joy.
While in the air I learned that the bloke with the toothpick was on our
team and
somehow this home run had covered us all in glory. The
achievement of this one
person had somehow made us all look good and he
walked off the playing field
to standing ovations. This moment has
remained with me at every funeral that I've
done since. That dear lady
yesterday had lived a life that packed in a lot of care
and love for
people. This week she hit a home run and in the process, covered
a lot
of us in glory. There were tears by the bucket load yesterday but there
were
also plenty of cheers as this lady walked off the playing field to a
standing ovation
at our Chapel.
The
Wayside Warrior of the Week Award ...(drum roll)... goes to the four
young people
who ran a fundraiser last night as part of the challenge to
climb Mount Kilimanjaro
for Wayside next year and raise money for our
work. What an awesome night as so
many people worked together to
generate some money for Wayside. I sat next to
David Wenham who is a
genuinely humble man as well as a giant talent. Someone
paid $4,000 to
have lunch with me and David. On the way out, someone suggested
that the
price might have climbed if I'd offered not to come! Someone also paid
big money to have lunch with me and Claudia Karvan. While money was
flowing
impressively, the most amazing thing was to behold how many
people were prepared
to make an effort to make this world a better
place. Indira Naidoo spoke beautifully
and said amongst other things
that, "No one says 'no' to Graham". I was sitting
between my wife and my
daughter at the time and not game to utter a word.
There is so much to be thankful for, not least that you are part of our inner circle,
Graham
PS.
I'll be speaking at a Sydney Open talk next Tuesday, 11 September on
the
role of worship in the life of our city. We'd love to see you there.
It's at the Historic Houses Trust from 6pm. More details here.
Rev Graham Long
Pastor and CEO
The Wayside Chapel
Kings Cross
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