Martha Middleton

A Reflection on the Occasion of the

Celebration of the Life and Death of

Martha Darden Middleton.

All Saints Church, July 8, 2014

Thomas E Wilson, Rector

Revelation 21:2-7

One of the problems with being a Parish Priest is that I always have next Sunday’s lessons and service hanging over me. This coming Sunday has one of the lessons having to do with “birthright” on what do we inherit from our parents.  So I am thinking about this when I talked with the family about who Martha Darden Middleton, born on September 13, 1936 in Washington, DC and died July 3^rd, 2014 on these Outer Banks, passed on as her birthright.  

The family and I had a good discussion and Blair wrote down some thoughts which he wanted to share.

“Today we mourn the loss of but more importantly celebrate the life of Martha.

Martha, Mar, Mom, Grandma,

She was all things to everyone that knew her.

In this self serving, ME ME ME world, She was the epitome of generous.

Whether you walked on two legs or four, if she thought you needed it, she'd get it for you.  If she didn't have it, she'd order it from LL Bean and have it shipped to your door.

Several times I told my Mom that she looked through life with rose colored glasses.  She simply told me, very politely and gently, that I'd learn in time.

Now I realize.  They were not rose colored glasses.  She chose to see the positive side of life, the joy of life.  The other side simply did not matter. 

The first thing I got from my Mom is perspective.  There is more to life than work.  There is more to life than money.

Sometimes, the greatest joys of life come from sitting at the dining room table sharing a meal with friends and family.

And yet, sometimes the greatest joys come from sitting on the beach with a good book, with family close by.

Going forward, I hope I'll be able to see the world more through her Rose Colored glasses.

The second thing I got from my Mom, I hope, is her strength. 

When my wife was in the delivery room with my first child, and I was beside myself with emotion as I waited in the Father's changing room,  I called her. 

Her words were delivered in the perfectly calming, quiet tone that I needed.  "Blair, it will be alright.  I'm right there beside you, even if I'm not with you.". And she was right, as she usually was.
Strength when needed.
She was loved by all that knew her, and will be truly missed.
I will miss her every day.

Let's celebrate the joy that she brought to all of us.”

It is my theology that God is the giver of Gifts and all of creation is a gift given by a loving Creator to us. Since we are in the image of God; we join as co-creators of the universe in which we live. As God shaped us with the divine hand from the humus of the earth and made us humans, we are also to take each gift that is given to us and treasure them and pass them on to others. That is what Martha did as a teacher- she took the children she received and she tried to pass on to them the love of God for them, she tried to pass on the concern of another person for the wellbeing of each child, she tried to pass on a treasure of learning, she tried to pass on they were part of something much greater than themselves, she tried to pass on how to love others and how to love God.

She got paid to be a teacher and to do lesson plans, but what she did was to pass on to them the soul of Martha Darden Middleton. Our life is about passing on our souls to a world that is desperately in need of souls connecting. We live in a broken world in which we made a big deal of pointing out differences. Looking at the news for today, we see Congress and the Administration facing off on differences, we see Muslins Sunni and Shia facing off, we see Christians facing off, we see Russians and Ukrainians facing off, we see the North Carolina legislature facing off, we see Conservatives and Progressives facing off, you name it we can find differences and yet there is a deeper connection if we can understand that the person with whom we disagree is a gift from God.

That is why Martha is important not for what she did as a job but for who she is in her daily life. What did I inherit from Martha? She taught me by how she lived her life, compassion- that ability to feel the pain and joy in another person. She taught me that work is a gift and we are to work hard to bring about completion of that gift. She taught me that there is never a time when we were not to continue to grow in mind and spirit; no matter how young or old you are; we continue to grow deeper. She taught me that you don’t have to show off and impress people with what you do, but you quietly show up and radiate who you are. She taught me that when everything is going wrong in your life; you face it one day at a time with courage and appreciation. She taught me that being  a friend meant that you can be counted on . She taught me that being a member of a family meant that you belonged to something other than yourself. These are the lessons we need to be taught over and over again and Martha taught us, not with words but by her sharing of herself.

When we live into these lessons we become what the writer of the Book of Revelation sees when he announces that he “Saw a new heaven and a new earth because the old one is passing away.” The outline of the Book of Revelation is a series of dreams by a community about the world in which they lived. These are dreams and visions of the world of the past, present and future and how it is changed when the Spirit of the Risen Lord comes and lives within us.

Martha died but her soul, the essence of who she was created to be by the Lord who loved her, now lives fully in this new creation now. In this life, Martha quietly shared her soul and was part of the changing of the world. If you want to remember Martha; then quietly be part of that new creation.