Reflection for Milt Countryman

A Reflection on the Occasion of the Celebration of the Life of Milton Emerson Countryman

April 9, 2015               All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores N.C.                Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

There is a small sign  on the front entrance of Milt and Donna's house announcing “Welcome” to all who come to visit, and then there is a smaller sign underneath it that states “ all because two people fell in love.”

It all begins with love. At the beginning of creation, God, in an act of love, spoke a loving word and that word caused an explosion which hurled debris, creating stars, solar systems with suns, and planets. Through this creative force of God, which we call Christ,  all things were made.  This flow of energy caused God's Holy spirit to be in all of creation, and being made in the spiritual image of God, spiritual beings were generated. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 20th Century Jesuit , Philosopher, Paleontologist, Geologist, Priest and Mystic wrote: “We are not so much Human beings who have a Spiritual experience but Spiritual beings who are having a Human experience.”

It all begins in love. Humans are conceived in love; they are born, they work, they love, and then they die.  That is the nature of being human. The Christ, God's creative energy, emptied out God-self and became human and lived, loved, and died to remind us how to be fully human. The resurrection reminds us that we are also fully spiritual and, at our death, we are set free from the limited human cocoon to be one with the energy of the universe. We believe that this life is not a test to see if we pass being human. We are what we are and we are given the opportunity to love. Some are able to love in  such a way that their human life points to a Holy Space between themselves and others. It is not about church attendance, it is not about temptations avoided, it is not about how many toys we have at the end of our lives, or honors earned; it is not even about being a nice guy - although that last one does tend to make the world a better place. The whole point of human life is to love and in loving show the nature of God.

It all begins in love. Jesus called his disciples and he gave them one commandment - that they love one another. Out of that love the disciples and apostles founded the church as the Body of Christ to bring healing and the message of God's forgiving love into the world. But, we have this unfortunate attitude in churches about needing to have impressive institutions, as if “right” theology, or staff, or buildings, or furnishings, or clerical hierarchy, rituals, and attendance is the “be all” of our existence. The church's main job is to point to the presence of Christ in all the world and the Spiritual power that is available to make the world a better place. Churches get so busy doing “church stuff” that we forget that the purpose of working with people is not to make them better church members but to help them be transformed to be loving servants of God's creation.

It all begins in love and yet love does not end. Love does not mean having a lot of liking for another person, place, or thing. Love is not approval. Love goes way beyond our simplistic definitions. When poor couples come to me to go through pre-marital counseling, I give them a series of assignments – they do all the work; I just ask them to look deeper. One of the most important exercises is to set aside one moment every day. The couple will sit in chairs facing each other and close their eyes and hold hands and breathe. Breathing in and breathing out, they breathe that which they cannot produce themselves - oxygen. The oxygen goes into their lungs, through the capillaries into the blood stream, cleaning out built-up toxins in the blood, then carbon dioxide is exhaled and a new fresh breath is brought in.

The Biblical words for breath in Hebrew (Ruach) and Greek (Pneuma) are the same words for wind and spirit. In the first chapter of Genesis, God's spirit, wind, breath, broods over the waters of creation. In the 2^nd chapter of the creation myth in Genesis, God fashions human beings  from the dust of the earth.  God breaths life, spirit, into them.  When Jesus rises from the dead in John's Gospel and meets with his disciples, he breathes on them and says “Receive the Holy Spirit”. In the Acts of the Apostles on the Feast of Pentecost, the Divine Wind from God comes into the Upper Room and drives the fearful disciples into the world filled with the Holy Spirit.

The purpose of the exercise the couple is assigned is to make it a practice each day to see that there is a Holy Space between them where God is present, as Jesus said, “Whenever two or three are gathered in my name, I will be in the midst of them”. This Holy Space filled with the spirit of the divine is where they will need to go in the hard times that are ahead of them. Buddhists bow to each other to acknowledge the Holy Space. Hindus say, “Namaste” which means “Peace, tranquility, the God in me meets the God in you.” Jews say the Hebrew word “Shalom” acknowledging the connection of God's peace between them. Muslims say “Salaam” and Christians exchange the Peace of Christ. Native Americans breathed in the smoke from a Calumet, what we call a peace pipe, to be aware of the Great Spirit's presence in their lives together. It is universal to be aware of sacred space.

Erasmus had a saying: “Summoned or not, God is present.” Milton Emerson Countryman died, but the breath, the spirit, the presence of the sacred he shared with us - be it in church, on the beach, or the golf course - is still here. Today, if you want to give thanks to God for the gift of Milt, just breathe deeply and tell a story. That is what we will do after this service is over as we gather at the club to have some refreshments and  tell stories and breathe in God's presence. It all begins in love.