The Memorial Service for Errol Milner Clifford

I simply cannot get beyond this day. There must have been 700 people to come to Wait Chapel. A little boy truly worked, and is working miracles. As hard as it is for me to see, as his uncle, and as hard as it is for his dad to see, Errol is still working miracles. His first miracle was his first day of life. Every day since, he has pumped joy and life into everyone in his gravity field.

I am tired from an emotional day. I am tired because of all the talking with all the people. And yet, as much as Errol brought us together as community, I once again have fallen back into wondering about the tension between solitude and community. I am so aware of the tension between the large community gathered, and my own solitary experience at this computer terminal. I see, in our country, and, mostly, in me, a total depravity of community. I have never experienced a less "connected" place than the United States. And I see within my own heart, a real yearning towards loneliness. There is something terribly comforting to be alone with your own mind and your own thoughts. In that space we can convince ourselves of anything. That is the danger. In that space, we can imagine anything. That is the danger. In other words, without community, we die.

And I think that is truly captured by today, when my relatives flew in from Boston, Florida, and Tarboro, NC just to bless and be blessed by a little boy. In this time, in this season of Epiphany, My prayer is that I will be willing to allow the commuinty around me to support me and nurture me just as I have supported and nurtured Jonathan, Cary, and Owen on this day. It came to me in a flash once, when I was a pastor doing mission work. Community is like the scaffolding and unseen architecture of a great cathedral. Without the underneath architecture, the structure cannot hold in place. Without friends, without family, and without the "other," I literally cannot and should not function. I think Errol revealed a deep longing within my heart, and the heart of the community in Winston, to be deeply connected to something infinitely larger than the spheres we inhabit. Imagine.