ministry: life

I met with a family yesterday to plan a memorial service. On Sunday I'm performing a wedding. Ministers are invited into the most intimate times of people's lives, both the joys and the sorrows. It's quite an honor. And it's especially interesting when the big joys and sorrows come so close together. But it's all life.

I was telling this to a friend of mine at the Gay Mens Chorus Last night. It was our dress rehearsal for the concerts we're doing this weekend and he told me his story of joys and sorrows coming together.

When his lover died he had asked to be cremated and then have his ashes dropped from a hot air balloon. So my friend set out to fulfill this wish with he and another friend booking a hot air balloon. Unfortunately, it turned out that a young couple in love had booked the same hot air balloon for a romantic trip, so they had to be discrete with what they were doing. When they were up in the air at what seemed the perfect spot, they brought out the box of ashes and started to spill them over the side with appropriate solemnity and silent prayers, just as the young man of the couple turned to his girl and proposed.