Self-eulogizing

 

This is an exercise that many of us have done at one time or another.  It's a favorite with seminar leaders and motivational speakers, to get you thinking about what's really important in life.  A couple of Sundays ago, the pastor at EnCompass did it again, just in a little different context than I'd heard it used before.

 

His current sermon series is taking the metaphor of a home remodeling project and extending it to your personal life.  Essentially, it's this: when you establish a relationship with God, it is not a static one.  God takes you as you are, yes, but doesn't leave you there.  Implicit in the relationship (or explicit, depending on how you came into it) is that God wants to make you a better person, more righteous, more selfless.  It's kind of like a remodeling project - but in your heart, soul, mind and behavior. 

Theologically, some see God as doing all the work with nothing but stubborn resistance from you, while others see you and God as sharing both the planning and the labor. I prefer the latter.

 

So, the first sermon was on the remodeling plan.  What will the finished project look like?  Each of us is unique, wired differently by God.  So the end result of a spiritually-remodeled life will look different for an ESFP than for an INTJ, different for a musician than for a statistician (unless, of course you happen to be both!)  But with a little imagination, each of us can probably envision what the "ideal me" might be like - the cleaned-up, optimal, best-that-I-can-be me. 

 

One way to exercise that imagination is to mentally "drop in" on your funeral, and listen to what the speakers are saying about you.  Who is giving the eulogies?  Spouse, sibling, child, pastor, co-worker, a friend, an "ex-" of some kind?  Yikes!  What might they say?

 

But the point of this exercise is not what you THINK they'll say, but what you WANT them to say.  What you want them to say is, in fact, your notion of the "ideal me".  It's the blueprint for the remodeling job.  And it might not be TOO far off from what God wants for you, either.  God does give us a sense of the ideal, of what matters in eternity, even though we can't always grasp it fully.  (Eccl. 3:11)

 

So, okay.  I went through the exercise.  (I know, I'm narcissistic.  We've covered that already.  You don't have to keep bringing it up!)  The result is a little bit different from the last time I did it, a few years ago.  Evidence that I'm changing, I guess, as we all do - reacting to life and learning about ourselves and others as we go.  Here is the outline, at least, of what I would like to have said when, as the old hymns say, I have finally crossed that chilly Jordan river, into that Bright Land where we never grow old.

 

 

 

"I am better off for having known him.  He left me better than he found me.  He made a difference in my life - for good."

 

"He was a Renaissance Man, in the best sense of the phrase: rational but romantic, a sensualist, a man of the eyes & ears, a man of taste & smell... and touch.  He loved beauty of all sorts, and saw God as present in the beauty: whether in art, music & poetry, or in mathematics and pattern recognition.  He was always learning, becoming competent at something new, from theology to winemaking to golf & tennis to community theatre to distance running to jazz singing to cooking to teaching.  You could say he was a serial obsessionist, and was always throwing himself into something new."

 

"Both an idealistic and a practical guy, he saw multiple sides to life, and could see multiple sides to an argument.  At times these two parts of his nature fought desperately with one another, but over the years he somehow kept them in a sort of tenuous balance."

 

"He was restless, with an internal tension and a measure of unease common to the artistic temperament, but he was also pleasant to be around.   He was often happiest alone, but also knew how to reach others.  Whatever demons he wrestled with internally, on the outside he was always, always, tender-hearted and kind." 

 

"But at the same time he was firm, and resolute when needed.   He was once described by his pastor as "a brick wrapped in a velvet sleeve."  He could intimidate with his voice and his eyes, but was somehow never frightening.  The same voice and eyes that could freeze you in your tracks, could also melt a frozen heart."

  

"All his life he struggled with rejection and alienation, and often doubted himself, but never abandoned his responsibilities.  He was faithful in whatever roles he had chosen (or been given).  You could depend on him, whether he really wanted to be there or not.  But when his responsibilities overlapped with what he loved doing... alienation faded, confidence grew."

 

"He was, finally, a man of faith.  When at the lowest points of his life, he never doubted his relationship with God, and that the grace of God was directed toward him.  The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' parables, Solomon's Ecclesiastes and the Psalms of David (esp. Ps. 51) were the anchors to his faith.  The God he knew was the God King David also knew."

 

 "There were flaws in him, to be sure.  And failures of all sorts, of which he was always painfully conscious.  He felt that he, not St. Paul, should be called "chief of sinners": he saw himself as a man who was given much, but who never truly honored the Giver in the way that he lived.  So it was fitting that he chose King David as his patron saint: another gifted and flawed man who was aware of his failings and clung to God for hope.  They were alike in many ways, in their raw nature and in their vascillating but honest walk with God."

 

"He was a man of hope.  In whatever discouragement he faced, he always looked for, and found, the hopeful parts in it.  And eventually, all things, even wrong things, pointed back to God for him.  Whatever distracted him from God was but for the moment.  In the end, he would see God in the midst of those distractions, directing, calling, waiting.  His focus always returned to the God who made him, and who kept on calling him into relationship.  And that relationship... brought him the hope to which he clung."

 

 

 

So... what is your "ideal me"?  What would you like to be known for, when it's your time to go?