A Celebration of the Life of Lisa Marie Martin
Many people who visit this blog know that my first responsibility is not to the community of people who read this blog, but to the people of the rural Wisconsin countryside where I serve as a pastor. I do not see myself as the pastor of a bunch of churchgoers, but of an entire community. As John Wesley said, "The world is my parish." So it happens, because I maintain a public presence, that I am called on to take care of things in the case of people who have little or no connection with my congregation. Below the fold, the funeral sermon I am about to give. It is 6 p.m. The service is at 7. 51 college students from Iowa have just arrived. Since 3 p.m., a steady stream of hundreds and hundreds of people have been coming into the sanctuary to pay their respects to a beautiful young woman who captured the attention of those around her with the ease and glory of a monarch butterfly shining on a milkweed in the noonday sun.
It’s no fun celebrating the life of a 19 year
old who died in the prime of her life. It is a senseless tragedy, a terrible
loss that no words can take away. Like everyone else I know who knew Lisa, I
can’t think of her except as one of those people who convinces you that we live
in a wonderful world because there are people like Lisa in it.
Lisa lit up whatever room she entered. She
wore her heart of gold on the outside, for all to see. I cannot forget her love
of life and empathy for everyone. I’m going to break down and cry more than
once during the next few minutes. Please put up with me.
The passage from the Bible I just read, 1
Corinthians 13, celebrates the things that matter most in life. Lisa embodied
those things by word and deed more often in 19 years than most people do in 70
or 80 years if that is how many years God gives them. How is that possible, you say.
Keep on listening.
Lisa’s life was short, but it was full.
She knew how to get the most out of everything. She made things happen. She
knew how to get her way. She seized the day. Not only that, she had a clear
sense of life’s limits and possibilities.
Our Town is three-act play by Thornton Wilder. It is the most frequently
produced play ever written by an American playwright, and rightly so. Lisa was
an avid reader, loved theatre, and knew as well as anyone that all the world is
a stage. In her own words, this is what she wrote about Wilder’s play for her
high school Dramatic Lit class:
Wilder is saying how every part, every smallest detail of life is
important. It took Emily until she died to notice how special even the smallest
things were. We take so much in our lives for granted. It’s not always about
the biggest things or how much money you have or what you look like; it’s about
living every day realizing how precious it is, keeping loved ones close and
getting the most out of everything.
Diane Luedtke, her English teacher, asked for a response to this statement: “Time goes so
fast. We don’t have time to look at one another.” Lisa replied, less than two
years ago. She was 17, perhaps 18, at the time:
I know that I am going away to college in Iowa and Cindy is going into
the National Guard so we try to spend lots of time together and learn even more
about each other before we have to leave. I think it’s important to connect
with everyone you love, especially when you never know if it will be the last
time you’ll see them.
That is very hard for all of us to hear,
because we know we have seen Lisa for the last time, until we have faces, that
is, until we shall know God and each other fully, even as God knew Lisa fully,
and knows each of us fully, here and now.
Some of you have read Mitch Albom’s The
Five People You Meet in Heaven. The main character, named Eddie, dies in
the beginning of the story. He had spent his whole life working at a pier near
the place he was born and raised. When he dies, he goes to heaven feeling like
his life was absolutely worthless. Once he’s there, he meets five people whose
lives had intersected with his in some way he might not have known. Each of the
five people has something different to teach him and together, they show him
how meaningful his life actually was.
Lisa understood Albom’s book on the fly. It
spoke to her, because life and meaning were two words that
belonged together for Lisa. Here is the final paragraph of Lisa’s review of
Albom’s book:
When it’s finally Eddie’s time to go to his Heaven and wait to be
one of someone else’s five people, he is at last content knowing that his life was
meaningful. He knows what really happened in his life and why those things
happened. He now knows that, “Deep down, the human spirit knows that all lives
intersect.” Everything happens for a reason and everything that happens to
someone, affects someone else. We are all one. One of the most important things
to know is. “ . . . All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at
the time.”
So here we are. Each of us. We have come to
an ending. It is also a beginning. In the next few minutes, I want to help you
make the best of the rest of the life God will give you.
Lisa was born to her parents Amy and John,
not long after they married. At the time they lived in the Chicago area where John is from. She was a great baby, and her
parents tried to make their marriage work, but it was not to be. Amy made her
way back to Wisconsin, married again, and she and her husband Jerry had a son
Jacob, Lisa’s brother. It was clear very early on Lisa had an enormous gift I’m
not sure was ever sufficiently recognized. She was in kindergarten and she
already wrote and directed a play and organized her classmates and baby brother
into performing it. In kindergarten in Hartford, she was tested and found to
read at a 6th grade reading level. 6th grade in kindergarten! The average
adult American reads at an 8th grade level, and Lisa was almost there
in kindergarten.
She made friends easily and already found a
friend for life when she was in Christian preschool in Fond du Lac. That same
person, then only a teenager, became her teacher years later when Lisa was a
student at Theresa elementary school.
Lisa was born to be a princess, and she was. She
loved glitter and gloss and whenever she wore a crown, a tiara, you knew it was
meant for her. She loved to dress up and would dress up her brother Jacob in
girl clothes with great delight when he was small. How much she wanted a
baby sister! But it was not to be. Jacob was and is a 100 per cent boy. You can’t
win them all.
It is no wonder that Lisa was Fire Queen and
Winterfest Queen and loved Prom and parades and waving at the crowds. She had
the personality. She basked in the light of other people’s affection, and she
was affectionate herself.
Lisa always needed to know that other people
loved her, and as long as she knew that, she was happy. That’s how we all are,
isn’t it? She was an extremely independent person and would announce her
intentions to her parents and do whatever she intended to do, day after day. There
was no stopping her. Where did she get all her self-confidence? No one knew. It was a gift.
Even as a small child, she loved gymnastics
and dance and was part of Kids for Kicks in West Bend and traveled all around
with her team. She was an excellent cheerleader, going down to Florida to
perform at half-time in the Capital One Bowl two summers ago. Even in these
last weeks, she worked hard to establish a Dance Team at her alma mater, the
University of Dubuque in Iowa.
She was a leader, a great bosser, always
thinking of things to do and getting people to do them. She excelled in
everything she did. I got to know her not long after coming to Lomira three
years ago. We started a food pantry here in church. The High School quickly
pitched in and made the food pantry and the Compassionate Fund part of its
mission. Lisa was one of the school’s first representatives on the Board of
Directors. She was a mover-and-shaker and got other students involved. Whenever
we talked confidentially about someone with emergency needs we wanted to help,
she was all eyes and ears because she cared about everyone. She was an
empathizer. And since I am an empathizer, I worried about her a bit. Here’s
why.
I worried about this beautiful and caring
girl, that she would find a boyfriend who wasn’t her equal, someone she thought
she might rescue and take care of, just like she loved to take care of many
other people, was already a nursing assistant adored by all the patients who
had her, and was training to be a nurse.
I worried about Lisa, that she might pick a
boyfriend because she knew he needed her. So I was overjoyed to hear from Lisa’s
mother that just a few months ago, she found someone who was her equal, who
shared her same love of life and like her wanted to dedicate his life to
helping others. That person is Eric Mayher of New Holstein. They met at St. Agnes
Hospital this summer, where Lisa worked as a CNA. Eric is a firefighter and an
EMT, and has already had the experience of delivering a baby. They met one
evening and began talking and did not stop talking until 5 in the morning. “I’ve
never met someone I have so much in common with,” Lisa told her Mom. The two
fell head over heels in love, and would take turns, Eric going to Iowa for a
weekend, and Lisa coming back here, to be with Eric, his family and friends,
and her family and friends. Eric, you were given a great gift. A gift many
people never have in a whole lifetime. I am sure you will cherish Lisa’s memory
forever and she will watch over you when you care for others just as she cared
for those God placed on her path.
This is what I have to say to Lisa’s
girlfriends, many of whom are just like her, as beautiful and caring
as she was. Pick a boyfriend, pick a spouse, with whom you share common goals
and who is your equal in every way. Pick someone who, very emphatically, does
NOT need you. Then, from that position of strength, comfort, and rest, you will
be able to help many and rescue those in need. Because that is why we are here,
and Lisa knew it.
Lisa may very well have saved a man’s life
this summer. It was just after the floods in Fond du Lac, and the hospital was
not working like it normally would. At a road construction site, a tar-making
machine blew apart and a man covered with hot tar was rushed to the Emergency
Room. He might have died, but Lisa, just a CNA, took charge. Supplies were
lacking. She got on the internet right away and discovered that butter might
help in the situation to remove the burning tar from the man’s body. So she
ordered butter on the spot and the man was saved.
Lisa’s patients loved her at St. Agnes. They
should have remembered being sick and feeling terrible during their stay at the
hospital. But they more likely remembered having a princess as a CNA during
their stay. We have no idea, I’m afraid, of how much good we can do just by
holding someone’s hand and giving them our full loving attention when they are
all alone and not so sure what the future holds.
It is often in simple, routine ways that we
help people the most. Lisa excelled at this. She loved hosting AFS students who
came from other countries to the Lomira High School. She believed in community
service, and while in High School, she conned, coaxed, and bullied other 18
year olds into coming to church here whenever a Blood Drive was going on. She gave
blood and so did they. When Lisa asked you to do something, it was hard to turn
her down. Her enthusiasm was infectious.
I have talked to Shannon Stein, the High
School Principal, about this already. It seems to me that a great way to honor
Lisa is to make sure that from now on, all eligible 18 year olds at the High
School get themselves down here every time there is a Blood Drive, and give
blood. I trust that the High School will find a way to make this happen. You
all know that if Lisa were put in charge of doing it, she would make it happen.
Now it’s up to you. She can and will live on through your response to this
invitation.
Lisa died in a motorcycle accident in a
head-on collision with another vehicle. Lucas Chase, with whom she was riding,
survived, thank God, and is making progress in an Iowa hospital.
There is a passage in the Bible most of us
have heard, and it goes like this: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the
ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” We think
of Jesus when we hear this passage, as well we should. He died, and the example
of his sacrificial love has borne fruit ever since, challenging and inspiring
people of all ages, nations, and races to live as he lived, putting the needs
of others before their own. He bore our sins and contradictions in a way he
alone could do.
But this passage also applies to Lisa. She
died, and her heart soon thereafter went to save the life of someone else. A
lung saved someone else, and it won’t be long before her kidneys or liver may
save someone else’s life. Once again, you say you love Lisa. That’s why you are
here. Well, prove it. Don’t be an idiot. Sign up to be an organ donor. You too
may save the life of a fellow human being on the day of your death.
So, what do you think matters in life? How
long you live? Don’t you believe it. Lisa packed more into her 19 years of life
than most people do who live to 80 or 90. It’s not about how long you live. It’s
about seeing your life and your death as a seamless whole, and knowing that
everything happens for a reason. Lisa talked with her family about death when
Pat Geelan died, a death many people here will remember. She decided then and
there she was going to be an organ donor. You too can follow Lisa’s example.
She decided that she was going to live each day to the fullest, never missing an
opportunity to help those in need and enjoy life at the same time.
“Someday I will wish upon a star.” Lisa loved
that phrase. She had it tattooed on her leg. I know others have done the same,
or are planning to. If my legs weren’t so hairy, I might try it myself. Be glad
that I won’t do it. But I have other ways I will remember Lisa, and I hope you
do as well. At the University of Dubuque, at the chapel service in her memory,
her friends wore t-shirts with that phrase, and Lisa’s name on the back.
“Someday I will wish upon a star.” Lisa was a
star. She is a star, and if you have eyes to see, you will be able to look up
at the night sky on a clear, cold winter’s night, and you will see her twinkle
in the dark.
Lisa attended the University of Dubuque. She
chose the University because it has an excellent nursing program with brand-new
facilities and most of all, because people come first at the University. She
fit right in with many other students and faculty who are the pride of the
Midwest and the whole world. We are all thankful to the Presbyterian Church – USA, a
sister church of the United Methodist Church, for establishing and supporting
such a fine institution.
The University’s President, Jeffrey F. Bullock,
had this to say upon receiving the news of Lisa’s death [slightly edited for the
purposes of this service]:
“It is with sincere regret and sorrow that I share with you news of the
death of Lisa Martin, a sophomore pre-nursing major from Theresa, Wisconsin. She
is the daughter of Amy Ruppel of Theresa and James Martin, Chicago, Illinois
and is the sister of Jacob, also of Theresa.
“Today, our community is called to come together as we mourn the passing of
one of the University’s luminous lights, Lisa Martin.
“In a note from UD dance instructor Deanne Hohmann she shared that, ...the
past few weeks Lisa rallied a group of girls together for a dance team of which
she is the captain. We hold practices
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:45 a.m.
In addition, she has served as a resident assistant in Cassat Hall and
is highly regarded by the students with whom she lives and works. In both of these ways, she exemplified the
student leadership which we, as a University, prize.
“In the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, we are reminded that those who have
gone before us surround us in a huge cloud of witnesses to the life of faith
and we are challenged to run with endurance the race that God has set before us. Lisa has joined the Spartan section of that
cloud of witnesses that now cheers each of us on in our race. We honor her and Grant before her by
dedicating our lives to running our race with care, love, compassion, and
service to others.
“Now we return Lisa to Him who has known her before she was born, trusting
again in God’s unfailing mercy and care.”
So, what are we going to do with the rest of
our lives, now that Lisa has left us? The apostle Paul in the 13th chapter
of 1 Corinthians tells us all we really need to know. Everything – everything will
pass away – but these three things abide: faith, hope, and love, and the
greatest of these is love …..
Let us pray.
Beautiful, John. We are preparing to bury my wife's sister-in-law on Thursday. I wrote elsewhere that "there is little that one can write in the face of grief that will make much difference in how we experience today - one only hopes that the words and stories and memories we share might be revisited and retold, that they would be seeds of hope and redemption that are planted and grown for tomorrow’s memories and generations." Your tribute is a worthy seed that I pray will bear much fruit for those who hear it.
Posted by: ElShaddai Edwards | September 23, 2008 at 08:59 PM
ElShaddai,
My prayers are with you and your family.
The best part of the service here, I think, was watching 200 twenty year olds thinking through a bunch of stuff they, like everyone else, often forget. So many tear-streaked cheeks. The number of teachers and adults whom Lisa touched was also amazing.
No one will ever be able to convince me that 1 Cor 13 isn't absolute truth if there is such a thing.
Posted by: JohnFH | September 23, 2008 at 09:17 PM
Surely when John Wesley said "The world is my parish" he didn't mean that his duty was to the worldly as well as the spiritual people of his parish, but that his parish was not restricted by geographical borders. So it is when you are blogging for a worldwide audience, not when you are serving a local community so movingly, that you are being true to Wesley's intention with these words. But then each minister of the gospel has his or her own calling, and yours, to being primarily a local pastor, is different from Wesley's.
Posted by: Peter Kirk | September 24, 2008 at 01:27 PM
Peter,
Judging by your comment (which I think in this case is a poor index of your true thought), you misunderstand both Wesley, and by implication, Jesus.
Both tussled with peers who thought their primary or only obligation was to people who walked through the doors of a synagogue/church. For Wesley, the worldly were precisely part of his parish. He was a follower of the one who came to save sinners, not the righteous.
As far as I'm concerned, the Holy Spirit blows wherever believers leave their place of worship and go out in the streets and byways and invite in that context. It seems to me that your church, the Church of England, has pretty much given up on this.
Insofar as it has, it is not only sub-evangelical. It is sub-Christian.
Posted by: JohnFH | September 24, 2008 at 05:41 PM
John, as usual you totally misunderstand me, first by accusing me of being a socialist because I dared to question the weakest to the wall philosophy of many US Republicans, and now for being sub-Christian because I dare to correct your reading of Wesley.
If you had actually read my comment you would have realised that I was totally supportive of your ministry to the unchurched people of your parish or community. I admire the way you responded to this particular situation.
My only complaint here is that I think you are misusing the famous words of Wesley. You need to read them in context, as given here (http://www.wesley-fellowship.org.uk/WesFelQuart050713.html):
"In a letter written on May 28, 1739, [Wesley] said, ‘I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right and my bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear the glad tidings of salvation.' It is not certain to whom this letter, defending his itinerant ministry, was sent but there is good reason to believe it was a former member of the Oxford ‘Holy Club,' the Rev. John Clayton."
In other words, his point seems to have been that in his itinerant ministry he was not restricted by parish boundaries in preaching the gospel. He wrote this to justify breaking the rules which required and still require Church of England ministers to get permission before working in any parish other than their own.
Posted by: Peter Kirk | September 25, 2008 at 08:33 AM
Peter,
I think you often leave yourself open to misunderstanding. Part of it is because you have a habit of being uncharitable toward those with whom you do not see to eye. For my part, I apologize if I over-react to this at times.
I think you continue to give Wesley's words less scope than the letter you quote allows. I imagine you are right that the specific reason Wesley said what he did in context is as you state. But his words are a legitimate description of the broader Wesleyan emphasis on "declar[ing] unto all that are willing to hear the glad tidings of salvation."
For this reason, Wesleyans have used and continue to use the phrase "The world is my parish" as short-hand for an invitational stance toward those in need wherever they are found, next door, or half way around the world.
Posted by: JohnFH | September 25, 2008 at 09:59 AM
Thanks, John. I understand that the exegesis of "The world is my parish" is not simple! I thought I had tried very hard to be charitable in my first comment, for example by adding an explicit sentence affirming your local pastoral ministry.
Posted by: Peter Kirk | September 25, 2008 at 11:45 AM
John, I caught up with this belatedly. What a wonderful address. I almost felt I not only knew her, but was bereaved by her passing.
Posted by: Doug Chaplin | September 25, 2008 at 04:19 PM
Many thanks for sharing your moving words.
FWIW the claim that all the residents of a parish fall within the pastoral care of the minister was (and is) a commonplace within the Church of England. Indeed it is essentially tied to the established nature of the Church of England. (You might imagine how such a theological claim could be used critically of an itinerant non-parochial ministry).
Wesley's statement, in context, is ISTM a defense of a non parochial ministry.
That isn't to say that it can be put to other profitable uses.
Posted by: No.5 | September 28, 2008 at 09:36 PM
No. 5, that is just what I was trying to say.
Posted by: Peter Kirk | September 29, 2008 at 12:58 PM
The Methodist movement represented a far deeper break with the mores and rigidities of the C of E than No.5's comments let on.
One might guess from No. 5's comments that it was commonplace for all C of E ministers to preach in the open air, as did the Methodists, to carry on ministry in prisons and bedlams, build up small groups that included people who might attend worship in any number of denominations, and otherwise be present in the life of "all residents of the parish."
Such was not the case then, and is not the case now.
The words of John Wesley are now quoted and honored around the world. They are interpreted in the light of the entire witness and inner dynamic of the movement that began with him, not the specific and more restricted sense the words had in the original context.
We interpret the words of Bible, the Constitution, great speeches like the Gettysburg Address, not only and not merely in terms of the historical sense they would have had under the specific circumstances in which they were first uttered, but in terms of the entire tradition of life and thought they helped put in motion. That's what we do with words we live by, and rightly so.
"The world is my parish" understood as a motto for the Methodist movement's inner dynamic reads like a terrible judgment over, not only the C of E and its lack of faithfulness to Matthew 22:1-14, but over the Methodist churches themselves, insofar as they have abandoned the impulse the motto has come to stand for.
Posted by: JohnFH | September 29, 2008 at 04:09 PM
Indeed there is more to the Methodist revolution than a refusal to be bound by parish boundaries. But Methodists started preaching in the open air only because they were denied use of the pulpits in Anglican churches. Whether in those days Anglicans preached in any particular prison etc depended entirely on the preference of the incumbent of the parish it was situated in, who admittedly didn't usually bother but there were some outstanding exceptions.
As for whether Anglican ministers today are neglecting the kinds of ministries you list, do you have any data to show that they are worse than any other ministers, or are you assuming things in order to promote your own denomination?
Posted by: Peter Kirk | September 29, 2008 at 04:52 PM
Peter,
Necessity is the mother of invention. It is often said based on the book of Acts that the first Christians would have stayed close to home rather than make disciples of all nations if persecution had not intervened.
It's quite possible, for all I know, that in England, the Methodist Church has abandoned Wesleyan distinctives to such an extent that they are now just as un-Wesleyan as is the C of E.
If so, that says more about the degree to which British Methodism has departed from its own heritage than it does about the degree to which the C of E is Wesleyan in spirit and in practice. But I would love to know about counter-examples to what I think everyone recognizes to be the general trend.
The C of E's sister church here in the US does have a reputation for being less faithful to Wesleyan distinctives than the Methodist churches proper (UMC, AME, AME-Zion, Wesleyan, etc.). Except for evangelicals among Episcopalians, there is almost zero interest in Wesleyan distinctives among Anglicans this side of the pond.
The churches nowadays whose ministers actually read Wesley and seek to put Wesleyan distinctives into practice are more likely to be Pentecostal, Nazarene, and free Wesleyan than they are to be ministers in old-line denominations.
Posted by: JohnFH | September 29, 2008 at 08:12 PM
Thank you, John. The Church of England is very different from the US Episcopal Church or at least the majority of it, as has become painfully clear over recent months. I would think that a good proportion of C of E ministers in practice embrace many Wesleyan distinctives without explicitly recognising them as such. They remain bound by the parish system but often only reluctantly so, and as I reported at http://www.qaya.org/blog/?p=470 even the church authorities are beginning to sound its death-knell. There is not much else to separate British Anglicans and Methodists (except for bishops, but then you US Methodists have them!), and that is not only because Methodists have been abandoning Wesleyan principles but just as much because Anglicans have been moving in a Wesleyan direction.
Posted by: Peter Kirk | September 30, 2008 at 07:01 AM