Funeral Directors

One of the interesting parts of being is pastor is that you do funerals and you then get to know funeral directors.

I like to ride out to the cemetery with the funeral director and over the years have had some wonderful conversations with these men and women.

Yesterday I did a funeral and our drive to the cemetery lasted about 30 minutes and I got to hear the story of Don's recent illness coming home from vacation which started with eating a bad hamburger in the Dominican Republic and ended with 9 days in the hospital in Atlanta because he was too weak to fly home. On our ride back to the funeral home we talked about church life and the changes in the funeral business over the last 20 years.

That is just an example of the blessing of getting to spend this time together. I remember one time as we drove to a cemetery the funeral director shared with me that her father had just died - a suicide. And I ended up doing pastoral care and later gave her and her mother a reiki treatment.

Last week I did a funeral in the morning before we went to the doctor to get the result of the biopsy on Chuck's tongue. I shared that with the funeral director who I had never met before. He told me about his wife's illness and I talked about Chuck. And imagine my surprise when that evening he called me at home to find out how the tests came out.

I write this just to say that God continues to give us all kinds of interesting ways to make connections with other people. And for a minister, these friendships that come along with funeral directors - who are involved in a very similar ministry to ours - are often a blessing.