January, 2007 Calendar In This Issue: Twelve Days of Christmas & Epiphany Saint A's Gets Greener New Adult Class Forming: A Rule of Life? Newcomer's and Inquirer's Class Forming Now Stewardship: A "Last Word"

by The Rev. Dr. Gregory H. Rickel, Rector, St. James Episcopal Church, Austin, Texas

Editor's Note: "Stewardship" far too often is associated only with money giving; what is often known in churches as the Fall Beg−a−thon. But stewardship is larger than this: it involves the totality of our responsible caretaking of all that God invests in us. The best synonym for "steward" then is "manager." As I approach the sixth decade of my life, my thoughts turn from time to time to the question of generativity, of what I will leave behind, of what will live on after I am gone and the need to invest in these things now. The following article, offered at the dying of 2006 and the birthing of 2007, lifts up these questions for our reflection. It is entitled: "Things That Will Last." − Hartshorn

I want to address something we all want to avoid, and yet is one of the only things I can guarantee awaits us all: death… In a sense, from the day we are born, we are dying. And if we think about this long enough, we most often think about our legacy. What will it be?

The word legacy means, literally, "1) money or property left to someone by a will, and 2) anything handed down from, or as from, an ancestor." When we hear legacy, it means to us something that will live on after we die, after we are no more − no more heartbeat, no more flesh, no more breath. It is the mysterious spirit we believe in as Christians, the great cloud of witnesses, the other side that we only know now in faith. And although we believe in that, and have faith we will be there, we also have a longing to give back to this material and fleshly life we live now.

The most important legacies do not require money. We can be very thankful for that. The legacy we leave to those we love is a legacy of integrity, honesty, fairness, laughter, and joy. These things are priceless and yet, for them to be legacies we leave, we must invest. For if, in our fleshly lives, we have not lived in a way that supports that memory, we can be assured that any legacy to which might be attached those great attributes above will be shallow at best, and a lie at worst; and most of those whom we leave behind will know it. No, to leave a legacy such as described above means that we have to be conscious of our lives, thoughtful, and present in the moments. A legacy is only real if the life lived for which it points was also real.

A study years ago of octogenarians − people in their eighties − revealed that most of them, when asked the question "What would you do differently with your life?" replied with really just three things, things which were said in some different ways but mostly fell into three categories. They said, "I would have played more, worried less, and done more things that would last after I was gone."

It is the same idea that Stephen Covey used to try to impart in his workshops on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He asked folks to imagine that in five years you would die, and you are going to witness your funeral. "What would you want them to say?" He would have participants write down their answers. What would you want them to say? Most people wrote things similar to the list above: honesty, integrity, joy, peacefulness, helpfulness, loving. There were very few who mentioned monetary gains or possessions. And yet we spend much of our time and energy on those.

A life of legacy is one where we put all of that to use. We are proactive with how we live our lives and how we treat those with whom we come in contact, whether they are the dearest people to us on earth or the person we meet at the post office. Though that legacy does not require money, how we do − or do not − address our material belongings and our money is also an important part of the message and legacy we leave behind.

When I was a Curate, right out of seminary, a man came to our community and asked us to bury his son. He was not a member of our church. He came to us because his own church found the diagnosis of AIDS and the fact that his son was gay too abhorrent to allow them to bury him. And so our church said yes. Several years passed and we never heard from this man again, but after he died we did. He left half of his estate to the AIDS Foundation and half of it to our church. In that story is the collection of all the best of how we wish to live and leave a legacy.

This man had connected with a community of integrity, and by doing so had gotten truly in touch with what is important in this fleshly life. The legacy he decided to leave was born out of the harsh realities of life and the really irrelevant categories that we sometimes adhere to and that are sometimes imposed on us.

This thoughtful contemplation of how and where all your worldly goods are to be distributed is a great act, perhaps your last tangible one. To accomplish it is to be proactive and intentional about how your resources are treated in your death. These resources can not only be given good use in our world, but can also be one final teaching, to your family and friends, of just what it is to be a steward of all we are given in this life.

And one more thing. What I have found is that most people that are intentional about three things − getting their wills in order, getting their funeral plans in order, and telling their families about both − find that the life they live after doing these things is transformed. The reason is that this act is not only a lesson to those who will experience it after you die; it is a lesson for anyone who risks it today as well.

It is equally a lesson to each of us, and a reminder, that we are here for only a short time, that we are mortal, that this is a fleshly life that is not eternal, and yet the legacy of our lives, which live on in this world, is based for good or ill upon what we do today. We will remain a part of all that goes after us. That deserves our attention and our care, and the sooner the better.

One is never too young to consider death, for what a blessing it is to get this awakening at a young age. Additionally, through we all wish for a long life, we know that some do not get it. It is better to live whatever life we have being thoughtful about how we want to leave it, and reaping the benefits of that discernment, than to leave it to chance.

Let us live so that, when we look on from the next life, we will know we truly lived this one, and so that we might say we laughed more, we worried less and we left a legacy that lives on.

Copyright © 2007 St. Augustine by-the-Sea