A funeral and wholeness

This morning I went to a funeral. It was not a sad funeral because I  think that most of the people there would be grateful that the man was now relieved of his suffering. I do not know how old he was but he was not young - maybe in his 70's. As I was listening to the story of his life given by his friends and colleagues and family, a new realization came to my mind.

The thought had to do with how we are known in life. There were a number of young people at the funeral and they can only have known this man as an old and quite emotionally and physically frail person. Others there would have known him from middle-age on and a few, particularly his colleagues would have known him since he was a young man setting out on the adventure of his life. His family only, I suspect, knew him from childhood - from the beginning.

So, what struck me was, where or who is the whole person? Who, in our lives sees us all the way through? Unless we die young, there are very few who have journeyed all the way with us. The young people there will remember only an old man - was that the whole man? The family will recall much more but they were not there when the colleagues were. It seems then that each of us is in some ways known only in the pieces of our lives. Who knows the depths of us, who knows the inner us? For me, as I listened to the funeral service, I was grateful that I believe in a God who has journeyed all the way with us and who, alone, knows the whole us. 

We do long for human depth of knowing too, but possibly it is a rare thing and can, I think, never be as comprehensive as our God's knowing. In our world right now, because the awareness of God is not part of the lives of so many, there seems to be an often profoundly sad search for that perfect human relationship that will fill the void in our hearts and bring the pieces together. Is that why there is so much casual sex? is that what material things are meant to answer? Do they satisfy? I believe not. But a funeral is a special time to look at someone's life and to some extent, put the pieces together for everyone to see and hear. Maybe that is one of its best gifts.