Funerals, as Kathleen Norris’s friend suggested, “blur the line between this world and the next.” Part of the power of a funeral is that we can see so clearly “the rest of the community,” that we are connected in worship to the one who has died and to those who, having died before us, now worship God in that land toward which we are traveling. In other words, at a funeral we become sharply aware that this worship involves the whole communion of the saints.
