The Good Goodbye
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
Take a moment to remember someone you loved who has gone on from this life. In what ways does that person’s life live on with you?
Intention, even toward the end of our lives, is intention well spent. It honors the whole of who we are as beautiful children of God.
- Rev. Daryn Stylianopoulos
You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.
- Frederick Buechner
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Food for Thought
I am currently pastoring a church that has decided to move toward closing. It has been a very intentional four-year process of discernment, prayer, and thoughtful consideration. The decision is ultimately rooted in our trust that God is calling us and our resources into something new and beautiful for our community and for our own journeys of faith. We have approached this ending with an understanding and deep desire to end well.
In hospice care, that idea of ending well is often held as sacred - that with time, intentional planning, and palliative care, the life and legacy of what has been can be honored and celebrated. Decisions can be made toward future promise. Even in the midst of sadness and pain, there can be relief and assurance for the bereaved, knowing that their loved one was cared for and honored, and peace for the dying in knowing their life ended well.
Ending well as a church requires that we keep things alive long enough to make the crucial decisions necessary for our love and legacy to live on and to serve the community we love in meaningful and life-giving ways. In this process, we have learned the importance of the hard yet important work of planning toward our ending, so things can end well, so our legacy can be honored and celebrated, so that there can be a good goodbye. The opportunity to do so is a privilege and a gift of sacred time.
In an ideal world, every ending could be carried out with intention and care. But as we know all too well, this world is not ideal - it is full of brokenness, injustice, and pain. Jesus’s own death on the cross is evidence of the worst of what endings can be in this world. In Jesus’s words from the cross - as we hear the things he longed for in his death - we find some considerations toward what might be helpful to others navigating endings of their own - or to us as we navigate ours:
“Father forgive them for they know not what they do”
Allow for grace and forgiveness to be a part of endings. This is not the time to hold grudges - it’s the time to be reconciled, to forgive, to have grace for people who are learning as they go, and to have humility enough to recognize the mistakes that are there along our journeys as well.
“I thirst”
Jesus needed something to drink that wasn’t vinegar. For those navigating an ending, offer something that is life-giving and encouraging, pure and good. Show up with something that is refreshing to the people doing the hard work, navigating the change, making difficult decisions toward the end.
“Woman behold your son” and “behold your mother”
Do what you can to ensure that people are cared for, and that opportunities for community and support exist beyond the ending.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”
We all need the reminder that God has not left us, but is in this with us through every hard moment, even death. Be a source of this reminder.
“It is finished”
The only thing that never ends is love. Endings are a part of who we are - they are a part of life, a part of journeys, of jobs, of ministry, of family, of friendships. Sometimes saying “it is finished” is the most faithful thing we can do.
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”
We can trust that whatever happens, God holds us. We can entrust ourselves and the future to God’s care and provision.
“Truly, you will be with me in paradise”
We can trust that something life-giving and good can come on the other side of this transition, as awful as it might be. We humbly join in celebrating the promise of what God can do beyond the ending that awaits us, beyond our understanding of things, even beyond the cross.
With faith, hope, and love above all else, we continue in this faithful journey to the end, believing that in our ending will be revealed something of God’s glory which we’ve been longing to see.
May it be so.
“The Good Goodbye” Journaling Page provides seven daily thoughts of reflection and journaling prompts that tie back into this week’s story! You can print it, forward it to a friend, use it as inspiration for your own journaling practice (or group conversations), or maybe just use it as food for thought in your own quiet time!
Each day is met with a new beginning and each day has its own end. Consider what it means to honor the end of each day by giving thanks for what that day held. Then allow yourself to move forward to the next day.
Blessing
God of our endings and our beginnings,
We give thanks for the many moments that make up our days and our lives. Help us to live with intention and care, leaving in our paths a legacy of love and light, honoring the ways that our moments move from the closing of one chapter into the beginning of another.
A little Table Talk for your table...
Write the name of a beloved person who has left a legacy of love with their life. What are a few of the ways this person embodied the phrase “a life well-lived?”
Our lives are filled with beginnings and endings. Consider some of these transitions in your own life. How can you live in a way that allows the endings to be meaningful?
Is there someone you know who is dealing with a difficult ending? How can you offer support during this time?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
Discuss the various beginnings and endings we encounter in our lives - the start and finish of each day, each book, each school year. What are some emotions we feel around beginnings? What are some emotions we feel around endings?
Take time at the end of each day to honor the moments that day held - and then give thanks for the way that day leads you on to the next.
Talk with your kiddos about people you know who live in a way that leaves a trail of love behind them. Then list together ways you can also lead lives of love.
Meet Our Welcoming Voice!
Rev. Daryn Stylianopoulos is originally from North Carolina, but has called Boston, MA home for the past eighteen years. She is a graduate of Wake Forest University and Boston University School of Theology and serves as a Baptist pastor in the Boston area. Daryn is an advocate for the marginalized and works against injustices in her community. She believes in creatively cultivating a spirit of cohesion, welcome, and healing in the world. A lover of art, music, gardening, and, most of all, family, she often looks to these for inspiration in her work and ministry.
To hear more from Darynthroughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!
If you have a story that you would like to be included as a Reader's Write feature, we would love for you to send it our way! You can email us directly at thewelcometableco@gmail.com.
Here are Five Things to Remember When Setting Your Own Welcome Table!