What I've Learned Standing at Gravesides

There is a moment in almost every conversation when someone tilts their head and asks the question carefully, like they are not quite sure if they might accidentally offend me. “So… what do you do now? ” This used to be an easy answer. Depending on your faith background, I was a pastor, minister, preacher, or sometimes priest. Then I retired from the United Methodist Church and suddenly the answer got a little complicated. Now I have to think about it. I usually start by saying I am a celebrant, which means I then have to explain what a celebrant is. Yes, I officiate weddings and funerals, but it is different than being a minister. I even wrote a blog to explain that part of my life. It would probably be smarter if I just smiled and stopped talking, but I usually add that I also help families with final expense planning. That is often the moment their expression turns into polite confusion. People understand weddings and funerals. But final expense? That phrase floats in the air like a balloon nobody is quite sure who should grab until someone finally says it out loud. “So… are you a life insurance salesman? ” I smile and nod. Short answer: yes. Longer answer: yes, but not the version you are picturing. When many people hear “life insurance,” their brain pulls up the image of a pushy salesperson with a stack of forms ( think Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day ) and a conversation nobody wanted to have in the first place. I understand why that picture exists. I really do. But my version of this work did not start like that. It began in churches and funeral homes, in living rooms where families were exhausted, at kitchen tables covered with paperwork, and in quiet conversations that began with the sentence, “ We didn’t realize how expensive this would be. ” I officiated hundreds of funerals before I ever helped anyone buy a policy, and there was a pattern you could almost set your watch by. Some families were grieving and remembering, telling stories that somehow held both laughter and tears in the same breath. Other families were doing math. Hard math. The kind that sends people checking account balances and calculating what can wait and what cannot. Those are two very different kinds of grieving, and they lead to two very different funerals. I will never forget the first time that difference really hit me. A widow told me, very quietly, that she had managed to scrape together enough money to bury her husband. She said it like someone describing a marathon they had barely finished. Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “Now I’m not sure how I’m going to pay the rest of the bills.” That moment followed me home. It sat with me at my desk and rode shotgun in my car for a long time, because grief is already heavy. Watching families carry financial stress on top of it felt like watching someone try to carry groceries, luggage, and a piano all at once. Something in me kept thinking there has to be a way to move the piano ahead of time. Final expense planning is not really about death. It is about the people who will still be here. The spouse who should not have to start a GoFundMe while planning a funeral, and the adult children who should be able to focus on saying goodbye instead of opening credit cards. It is the quiet gift of leaving things a little easier than we found them. I sometimes call it the Last Love Letter. Not the poetic kind, the practical kind. The kind that says, “I thought about you. I prepared for you. I wanted to leave you one less burden.” These days I talk with people who requested information, sometimes months ago. I make a lot of phone calls, leave a lot of voicemails, and send a lot of texts that begin with, “Hey, this is Marty…” Often they do not answer. Sometimes they hang up. Sometimes they say no. Sometimes they say, “I’ve been meaning to take care of this.” And occasionally someone says, “I’m really glad you called.” Those moments matter more than the rest combined, because every once in a while a future funeral gets lighter, and that feels like a continuation of the same calling I have always had, just from a different angle. When I was a pastor, I walked with families after a loss. Now, sometimes, I get to help them before one. The tools look different, but the heart behind it does not. If you ever find yourself wondering whether this is something you should think about, I am always happy to have a conversation. No pressure, no scripts, just a human conversation about taking care of the people we love.

Jason, a good friend on the team, has a mantra he shares with me when I am hitting a point of frustration. He smiles and simply says, “ Manifest it Marty! ”. He hasn’t said it just once, and when he says it, it isn’t meant as a joke. It really might be his mantra. Sometimes I wonder if I visited him in his home in South Carolina if those words would be hanging in the kitchen, the living room, and his office. Nike has their slogan. Jason has his. Just Manifest it! I’ll be honest. The first few times I heard it, I didn’t know what to do with that sentence. My theological side thought it sounded too much like the prosperity gospel. You know, if you have enough faith blah blah blah. It seemed to treat God and the universe like a giant vending machine. Put your money in, press B7, and get the outcome you ordered. But I have sat with too many families in funeral homes, in hospital waiting rooms, or simply in my office as they share their grief, frustrations, and pain to believe God works that way. The life I know about is too messy. Too hard. And yet, this other part of me couldn’t just roll my eyes either. Because I have seen the power belief has to change people. It doesn’t change them instantly or magically, but the change is real and too hard to ignore. I have watched people who believed they were loved begin to live like they were loved. I have watched couples who believed their marriage could heal start doing the small, uncomfortable work of healing. I have watched grieving families who believed they would make it through the worst season of their lives take the next step. Belief didn’t remove the pain. Belief didn’t erase the struggle. But it did change how they moved through it. It changes posture. It changes tone. It changes attitude. And over time, those small decisions quietly change outcomes. I have discovered that belief changes behavior. It changes the choices we make when no one is watching. It changes what we try. It changes how long we keep trying. And over time, behavior has a way of changing outcomes. But I still needed to understand better. And as I was mulling over Jason’s mantra, it hit me. My brain started thinking about a movie. Not just any movie, but probably one of my top ten of all time: The Shawshank Redemption. When people talk about manifesting, they picture vision boards and affirmations. My brain pictured a Raquel Welch poster and a rock hammer. If you know the movie, you get the image. If you know the movie, you also know the tension between the two main characters. Red believes hope is dangerous. He says hope gets men hurt. Hope, according to Red, has no place in prison. But Andy sees it differently. Andy believes that, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” And because of that belief, Andy lives like a free man long before he becomes one. He writes letters asking for library money. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. He helps the guards with their taxes and helps inmates get their GEDs. He plays opera over the loudspeakers because beauty still matters, even in prison. And at night, when no one is watching, he chips away at a wall. One tiny piece at a time. For decades. Andy doesn’t sit on his bunk visualizing freedom. He behaves like freedom is possible. As I thought about that movie, I finally could reconcile the idea of “ manifest it ” with my theological understanding. Maybe manifestation isn’t about magic or the prosperity gospel. Maybe it is about living like the story is not over yet. Because if we are honest, most of us have a wall somewhere. Maybe it is a situation that feels stuck. A time in our lives that feels heavy. A future we cannot quite see yet. Or maybe, like me, it is a phone call we are not sure anyone will answer. It would be easy to decide nothing will change. Close the book. Roll the credits. But Shawshank hope says keep showing up. Keep doing the small things that move life forward one inch at a time. Hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is action. It is the quiet refusal to believe the story is finished. Sometimes hope looks like prayer. Sometimes it looks like a phone call. And sometimes it looks like a man with a rock hammer, patiently chipping away at a wall. And maybe that is the Unlikely Altar hiding in plain sight.