AIDS Memorial Service 2000
Reading: Revelations 21: 1-5

On July 29th of this year Stanley Kunitz was appointed Poet Laureate of our nation. The Worcester, Massachusetts born poet assumed this new post at the age of 95. In the closing lines of a poem written on his 87th birthday, Mr. Kunitz reflects:

The way I look
at it, I'm passing through a phase:
gradually I'm changing to a word.
Whatever you choose to claim
of me is always yours;
nothing is truly mine
except my name. I only
borrowed this dust.

Stanley Kunitz is keenly aware that he, like all of us, is passing through this world. Sooner rather than later, he will be among those who are remembered but are no longer among us.

Most of those whom we remember this evening did not live anywhere close to the number of years given Mr. Kunitz. In fact, most died all too young. They passed through much too quickly. They became "a word" before they had the opportunity to write out in full the sentences and the paragraphs and the chapters of the life they dreamed of living to the full.

AIDS does not have a history of rewarding its victims with the luxury of time. Although for some, even many but far from all, recent breakthroughs in medical treatment have extended both the length and the quality of life for those inflicted with that cruel disease.

Still we are all passing through.

What we do during the time granted to us matters. It counts and it counts for a lot. Where we are going is important too. It is not just our end-of- the- journey destiny; it is a vision and a force that can inform and inspire our entire journey.

St. Paul in writing to the Church at Rome reminds us that "the life and death of each of us has its influence on others." Each and every one that we remember this evening has touched and transformed others, ourselves included. Individually and collectively they have influenced many changes in the perception and understanding of the illness that took their lives. We are in a very different and far better place than we were when our first brothers and sisters began to be cruelly taken from us by AIDS.

Each and every one of us here this evening has been and is an influence on others. We have touched and transformed the lives and the deaths of those for whom we have cared, for those on whose behalf we have worked and struggled. We have touched and transformed other individuals and groups by our work and witness. Many wanted to understand, to accept and to embrace the challenge of AIDS. Many others far too man others resisted and were slow to hear, to see, to respond. But they have in great part been moved on. They too are in a different and better place.

All of this: the lives and deaths of those we remember, our lives and the lives of so many other sisters and brothers in all walks of life, all types of relationships; sisters and brothers in so many diverse and varied places and circumstances --- all this affirms that God is making good on the promise proclaimed in Scripture this evening.

There is a new heaven and a new earth in process. God's Spirit is doing it and we are a key, a crucial part of this project. And all those whom we remember this evening have contributed much to building this "holy city, a New Jerusalem", something straight out of heaven from God.

The collective testimony of the victims, the survivors and the caregivers, has allowed the epidemic to become an epiphany: a manifestation of something that is not magic but is an awesome mystery: AIDS has shown us that God still dwells with the human race. God continues to make so many who seem the least likely to be his/her own preferred people. God has been with so many pushed to the margins of life's page and God has been with them as their God.

God has been there with us and for us as well, wiping tears and ushering in the final new age when there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain.... No more of what has been all too much a part of our daily lives for all too long.

We come this evening still robed for mourning those we miss; whose loss we resent. But we come knowing that the old order is passing away. All that is judgmental, moralistic, racist, sexist, ageist, homophobic and xenophobic is coming to an end.

We come because we need to remember those gone from us; those who have passed through. "The ties of friendship and affection which bound us together in life, have not been broken by death" as the Church's funeral rite so sensitively states.

We come because we need to remember ourselves, our pain, our peace, our need for healing, and our need to be cared for even as we continue to be care givers.

We come because we need to remember to where we are passing through. We come because we need to let the vision of the new order shape our perspectives on life and set our agendas for the ongoing, uphill battle which we must continue.

We come because we need to remember that what we do, or do not do, will have its influence on the lives of others. Others, who suffer, others who seek support and understanding, others who continue to hold back and hold out.

I will close with one of Stanley Kunitz's poems. I want it to give voice to the determination that lies within us and which we ask God to strengthen. I want it also to be for us the voice of God who has been with us, is with us, does not tire of us, will not give up on us. The One who says to us this evening: "Behold, I make all things new."

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.

  *  *  *  *  *

In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

Ed. note: The full text of Stanley Kunitz' poem "The Layers" (excerpted above) is available online, with accreditation, at the website for Thirteen/WNET New York, with their production of Fooling With Words with Bill Moyers.