50+ Lifestyles

Sending out a Love Message

By David W. Deuth, CFSP
President, Weerts Funeral Home

“Give me oil in my lamp, keep it burnin’
Give me oil in my lamp I pray,
Give me oil in my lamp, keep it burnin’, burnin’ burnin’
Keep it burnin’ til the break of day….”

Like many others, I learned this sing-song chorus as a kid. The melody was fun and catchy, it could be sung in a round and it had a good message.
It’s pretty safe to say that the magnitude of the message in this simple song was not completely realized when we sang it as kids; perhaps, as with many things in life, it was just as important to let it sink in and percolate over time – ground work, perhaps, for future a-ha moments.

Indeed, some things percolate in this manner for many years before they bubble over, so to speak, as certain things occur in our lives. This thought certainly runs congruent to the encouragement in the Scriptures for parents to “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Good counsel, to be sure.
I’ve always appreciated the brevity and the sincerity and the wisdom of the insights shared by Mother Teresa (1910 – 1997). I recently came across one such insight that I had never before heard:

“If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out.
To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.”

What do you suppose was the very first thing that rattled through my mind when I read this? To no one’s surprise, I’m sure, it was the long-percolated memory of that sing-song chorus I had learned as a kid…..“Give me oil in my lamp, keep it burnin’….Give me oil in my lamp I pray….”

Decades later and filtered now through my subsequent life experience (which now includes my funeral director’s lens), I find another congruence between what Mother Teresa referred to as a “love message” with the very essence of a funeral or memorial service. What a beautiful word picture to illustrate why we gather to reflect, remember and honor one who has died! And further, what a powerful reminder that this message must be sent out in order to be heard! Perhaps this thought will come to mind the next time you attend a funeral or a visitation.

Mother Teresa’s words not only recollect that sing-song chorus I learned with similar words so many years ago, her words also take me back to a different time when the percolating bubbled over enough for me to have a different sort of a-ha moment: when I better understood that, although we gather when someone has died, and for all the right reasons, we gather all the more so because they lived. The difference between the two may at first seem nominal…but indeed, when thought through at any level, the difference is nothing less than vast.

So, in this month of September, let us always remember the lives that were claimed in the September 11th attacks. Let us always remember that their lights continue to shine brightly as beacons for the cause of Freedom. Let us also remember that there is a love message in the lives they lived. And let us also remember that “if you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out.”

Next month, we’ll take a look at what it might mean to keep putting oil in your lamp.

Until then, do your best to let your own light keep burnin’, burnin’ burnin’ brightly in the lives of others….and
Remember Well.