All Things Are Passing: On Death and Dying for the Music Minister

This article first appearing in the GIA Quarterly in the Fall of 2022

I had not experienced a teaching style like Professor Richard Fragomeni’s prior to my graduate course on the Anointing of the Sick and Marriage. What seemed at the outset to be an odd and hefty pairing of materials meant to be covered in the same semester’s-length breath was only the beginning of a whirlwind of ideas and emotions, sometimes elicited by the daily poem or prayer which began each class, delving into dialogue on themes that would seem almost to have nothing to do with the subject matter, but would land solidly in the crux of Paschal Mystery. If you’ve been a student of his, or a workshop attendee, you know that Professor Fragomeni oftentimes presents as a one-man-show, artfully delivering his address with the finesse of a well-rehearsed orator, and suddenly pitching pointed questions at an unsuspecting listener. It was an arresting experience, filled with equal parts terror and delight, and while the class work often left me challenged to hold all its ideas in a single train of thought, I have to admit: this is the class that most opened my imagination, that left me most inspired to see a persistent and grace-filled hand in the work of God’s people, through ritual and the ineffable experiences of our sacramental life. To me, death and dying had never felt more alive.

One of the pivotal lessons in this course came via the documentary called “Griefwalker” (https://www.nfb.ca/film/griefwalker/). Filmed over the course of 12 years, Torontonian palliative care-worker Stephen Jenkinson shares some of the wisdom he gained at the bedside of thousands of people, sometimes including "a wretched anxiety and an existential terror" even when there is no pain. Part of Jenkinson’s mission is to change the way we think of dying, to turn the act of dying itself “from denial and resistance into an essential part of life.” I think often of the fruits of his wisdom that quite honestly changed my perspective on many parts of my own life. One of my favorites: “The cradle of your love of life is the fact that it ends.” Not success, not reward. Not happiness or comfort. The truth of the temporary.

For me, reflecting on the impermanence of earthly life changes the way I think about how I use the time that I have. I think it’s what early Christian thinkers meant when adopting the phrase “memento mori,” or, “remember you will die.” Not so much as a macabre sentiment about the finitude of our being, but the idea that we have only a little while here to do the work of loving one another that we proclaim in our baptismal vows, the way that one made in the image and likeness of God does honor to that privileged manifestation of creation. 

The only constant is change…

I don’t need to rehearse the litany of losses of these past years, the nearly one million lives claimed by a virus, the distance and hesitant re-emergence of our congregations. Perhaps even the loss of the ability to make choral music with one another led us into a bit of an identity crisis: “Why didn’t we sing more when we had the chance? Who are we when we cannot gather? How can we remember not to take this absence for granted?” 

The truth, as Saints like Teresa of Avila remind us, is that all things are passing. Nothing is permanent, nothing is forever. This raw and real truth has maybe never been present the way it is now, certainly not in my lifetime. Loved ones have gone home to heaven at a pace we never imagined. We’re needing to grieve much bigger and more frequently than ever before. Psychologists tell us that we do not even possess the cognitive ability to immediately unpack all the losses we are wading through, but that we are pushing aside what we can to make room for what’s essential now. We will process things over the course of our whole lives. 

Among these losses are policies that once kept us safe and orderly that no longer resonate with our socio- political contexts. Remarkable, persistently, and with loud voices, people are speaking up about it. I even find my 35-year-old self leaning into that timeless, catch-all phrase, “when I was a kid…,” almost as a way to relieve my mind of the current stressors. “It wasn’t always like this.” That’s right, it wasn’t. And it won’t always be like this. For better, or for worse. The best I can do, that we can do, is handle the current changes with as much grace as we can muster, discerning the times to speak with a prophet’s voice and the times to open our hearts, unclench our fists, to let go, to lean into the sometimes painful reality that is “not my will, but yours, God.”

…though God does not change.

It is still a time of great unsettling, a time of many deaths and losses. It is a time when our vocation to music ministry resembles that of a palliative care minister, accompanying one another from one chapter to the next, from one life to the next, whatever it may be. Sometimes that means our very selves are the ones that are the object of loss. How many of us have lost our job, our income, a part of our identity in these crushing years? Let us lose with dignity. How many of our parishes have now become clustered, broken, redefined, shuttered? Let us let go gracefully. How many of us can no longer sing our favorite songs? Let us sing a new song, even if our voice shakes. How many of us know the heartbreak of the end of life? Let us accompany Sister Death with the same dignity and love we have embraced the gift of life. 

Ecclesiastes reminds us that before we can build up, we must break down. Before we can harvest, we must plant. And if we love to birth into being new life in its many forms, we must remember that that precious gift comes with an end. Perhaps we can learn to love that, too—to love the end for what it is, and to love it for how it helps us to treasure our vitality. There is Good News here, too, amidst our growth and change: God is, was, will always be. God does not change. Perhaps our understanding of God or God’s will changes—but not God. Perhaps the place from where we stand changes our perspective of God’s message. But God is there, faithful, true. 

Let us make the most of our time. Let us be brave, even in the face of hatred, when we have discerned God’s ability to work through our voice, in our place, and our context. Let us grow soft and gentle when the best way to use our life is to show how blessed the endings can be, that holy and necessary part of making way for God’s new life to flourish. Let us be amazed by the beautiful whirlwind of life’s teachers that take our very green and spongy humanity on a dazzling and confusing journey through death and resurrection, landing squarely in the heartbreaking, heart-making love of our Maker.

So… 

I don’t know what happens next, what variant or scandal or terror or delight is around the next corner. But I know I love being on this journey with you, for as long as my time might be. I know that I want to make the most of the time that I have, and that we do that best when we are listening to and learning from each other, my music-making family. I know that there will be more good than bad, that there is a time for everything, that all things are passing, but that our constant, faithful companion is always at the center. And since that’s true, I know we’ll be ok, in both terror and delight. Keep going.