Funeral Service
Our loss
Is gain in other times.
Our hopes on future bent
Must then depend on incidents like these.
For bodies wear
And in
The fine grist mill of time
Are spent in service such
As yours
And go, our time by smallest time
Into the yesterday wherein began
The conquest of Eternity.
What did we know
When yesterday we wept?
What grip upon us had our ignorance
That we in our conceit did feel
That all of us were mortal here
And lives once led were spent
And wasted on our selfish selves?
How narrow is such scope
To feel that we
Should be eternally
The goal of all the toil
And wretchedness
From birth to death
And like a play
The curtain dropped
And left an empty stage.
How dull of us to feel that we
Were all the target of this strife
And that we lived but once
And living then did reconcile
The whole in one brief life.
Oh no, a wider drama here
Was planned and staged
And we with narrowness of mind
Did overlook the plan.
We said that all is
Mortal flesh
The spirit just a thing
To send, for pence
To some strange heaven
There to waste its skill.
Or, had we not the price,
To some deep other place
To pain, and waste again
The life.
To what dark depths
Were dropped our minds
To feel that flesh
Is capable of love or trust or livingness,
To feel that fingernails and masks
Are all we need to dream?
To what deep place
Did our love go
That mass could recompense?
Anxieties that ruled our years
Were nurtured here.
And we
Made blind and numb
By other greed
Spanned down our lives
To One.
What waste!
To feel that all our love
Our work,
Our gifts,
Our knowledge and our
Sighs
Were meant
To be consumed
All in one
Breath and flash
And by one name?
Today, come wiser now
The chains gone weak
And tyranny of cult
Gone tired with the years,
We look
We find we live
Not once
But on and on
From body’s birth to
Body’s grave and then
To birth again
And yea to grave again
So to dispose possessions
Oft come undone
With livingness.
From century to century
From age to age and on
We go in march along
The path that leads
Forever up the countless
Ticks of time.
We crawl, we walk, we fly
We win
From here and evermore
The heritage of all our lives
And spend it once again.
Why this is no sad and
Bleakish look,
No sorrowed thing
This life.
This an adventure pure
Where without knife or
Provender we leap
Aloft into eternity
And span forever in a breath.
This is adventure where
We step from tie to
Body tie
And go
Our way.
Our suff’ring is
Self-centered here
For we have lost,
In truth,
The smile,
The touch,
The skill and happiness
We gained
From (person’s name)
Who gave to us
From (his/her) past
Ability to live
And fare against
The tides and storms of fate.
It’s true we’ve lost
(His/her) shoulder
Up against the wheel
And lost as well (his/her) counsel
And (his/her) strength
But lost them
Only for a while.
(He/she) goes
Not with the dismal roll drum
But with a whisper like
A Faery’s sigh
To smooth the way
For when we come.
(He/she)’ll be in some good
Future time
And future place
(His/her) smile
(His/her) touch
(His/her) skill
Invested there to make
A way for life.
True, true we may not
Know (him/her) then and
Only know (his/her) work.
But still
If we sent not ahead
Our vedettes into time
We would not have
A race.
And so, branched off from
This
Genetic Line
And into some new
Corner or new world,
We’ve sent you, (person’s name),
And there there’ll be
We know it now,
A smile,
A touch,
A happiness for us
And you
You could not find
On Earth.
And so it turns,
The day, the year,
The age.
And so we go
With banners furled
And quietly
Upon our way.
But now we know
And now we’ll find
The Way.
Into the dark
Has come the light
Into tomorrow
Enters night
Into heaven
Go no more.
Into life our
Spirits soar
Conquering ever
Wisdom’s store
We do not tremble
Faced with death
We know that living
Is not breath.
Prevail!
Go, (person’s name)
And take
The life
That offers now
And live
In good expectancy
That we
Will do our part.
Go, (person’s name)
You can control
That which you must.
Our loss
Is gain
In wisdom and in skill
To future dates and other smiles
And so we send into the
Chain of all enduring time
Our heritage
Our hope
Our friend.
Goodbye, (person’s name).
Your people thank you for having lived
Earth is better for your having lived
Men, women and children are alive today
Because you lived.
We thank you for coming to us.
We do not contest your
Right to go away.
Your debts are paid.
This chapter of thy life is shut.
Go now, dear (person’s name), and live once more
In happier time and place.
Thank you, (person’s name).
All now here lift up
Your eyes and say to
(Him/her)
Goodbye.
(Congregation) Goodbye.
Goodbye, our dear
Goodbye.
We’ll miss you, you know.
Let the body now
Draw away
To be consumed to ashes
And to dust
In earthly and in cleanly fire
To be no more, no more.
And that is done.
Come friends,
(He/she) is all right
And (he/she) is gone.
We have our work
To do. And (he/she) has (his/hers).
(He/she) will be welcome there.
To Man!
L. Ron Hubbard
