Dust Into Which God Has Breathed Life

by Kelly

So this semester I've been taking a class in Pastoral Care and Bereavement. One of the books on our reading list is Accompany Them With Singing: The Christian Funeral by Thomas Long. I highly recommend this book. It's seriously amazing. My classmates and I have now reached the point where we are learning to plan and preach for funerals, so while researching for my final project (a funeral service for the fictional Mrs Cecelia Baker) I came across a section called "Our Bodies Shunned and Our Bodies Raised". In it, Long mentions this poem:

"Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep" By Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain,

I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush

Of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quiet room.

I am in the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there. I do not die.

This poem is a very popular staple of contemporary Christian funerals. I hate it. Tom Long hates it too. His reasons are better. He writes, "I am a thousand winds that blow, I do not die" is certainly a far cry from "Death has been swallowed up in victory... Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:54,57)"

If you spend enough time with me, eventually the phrase, "That's not theologically sound!" will pop up. I am always concerned with what is "theologically sound", almost to a fault. My classmates often point out that it is sometimes detrimental to my pastoral care, but I'll get to that later... The point is, this poem is not theologically sound, so why do so many Christians find comfort in its words?

I once heard this theory (an urban legend) that the human brain cannot comprehend its own death and this is why when you're having a nightmare, you do not die within the dream. I seriously doubt the validity of this statement, but I am curious about our ability to comprehend death. It is the great mystery, a journey from where no one returns (except Jesus). But have we gotten to the point that death is such a mystery that we pretend it didn't happen?

When I read the line, "I do not die." I want to yell, "Yes you did! You died, and it's horrible and heartbreaking and those you left behind wonder how they will go on without you here, but you died." I don't find comfort in the idea that someone does not truly die or cease to exist. Where I find comfort is in the Christian promise, the resurrection. We die... but we are so loved by God that not even DEATH can separate us from our creator. God can defeat death, the scariest, most permanent part of our "being". That thought is comforting, it is Truth with a capital T. But as a matter of practicality, when can you say this to a grieving family? Is this Truth (capital T) insensitive? The number one rule of pastoral care is: a crisis is no time to change someone's theology. So... can I tell someone that they can't use this poem?

Long talks about the neo-platonic tradition of referring to someone as "their soul" and treating their body as "just a shell". The relationship between body and soul is one I have struggled with. What goes to join God in heaven? Does the real me survive and the shell die? Long would say that my mistake is to think of myself in two parts. Christians do not have bodies, we are embodied. In Genesis, "God creates the first human being not by snatching some immortal soul out of the air, sticking in a body and forcing it to work in the garden." Instead, God took dust, breathed life into it and loved it. Long calls human beings "Dust into which God has breathed life." I think this is perfect. And the more I think about it, the more I think of the liturgy of Ash Wednesday. As ashes are spread on our foreheads, we are told, "remember you are dust and to dust you shall return." We are dust, not an ever present soul wearing a dust costume for this world.

I am an embodied creature. When I die, do not look at my body as the shell of what I was. This body was baptized, these lips professed faith in the triune God, these arms held close those I loved, these feet ran, jumped, and sometimes stumbled. I do not understand the mystery of death, I do not know HOW I will join God, only that I will.

I know I asked a lot of questions, but what do you think? Should I cut this poem some slack?

Accompany Them with Singing--The Christian Funeral