[Oe List ...] Marge Kloepfer

Tue Sep 26 10:18:56 EST 2006

Thank you Mark and Jenelle for sharing some of your experiences with Marge
with me.  John and I had just attended our Mother, Ruth Kloepfer's memorial
service a couple weeks prior to Marge's death. Asking the questions you ask
at a funeral allows one to see that person's life (including their death) as
a gift and enables them to experience their own resurrection especially when
the actual death is also experienced as a gift.  The same applied to those
of us who experienced Katrina - and the "death" of our homes, jobs, friends,
life styles, etc.  Only after one sees Katrina as a blessing, is the new
resurrected life experienced!  

I was also blessed to be present as Marge took her last breath.  What a
deeply profound experience that was for me.  I experienced the awe-filled
wonder and ineffable beauty of the inimitable grace and peace of letting go
of one's physical body.

Jean Watts
504/913-7828 cell & business
504/865-7828 home & fax

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Subject: OE Digest, Vol 29, Issue 9

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Today's Topics:

   1. email address (Nancy Lanphear)
   2. Re: Marge Kloepfer (MJDOVE at aol.com)

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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:09:17 -0700
From: Nancy Lanphear <nancy at songaia.com>
Subject: [Oe List ...] email address
To: OE Community <OE at wedgeblade.net>
Message-ID: <8716515cacf68ea386409b68edad784c at songaia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

Dear Ones,
I sent an email to Jim and Judy Weigel but it came back.  Hey out 
there!  Please send me your real address! Thanks.

Nancy

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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 05:30:43 EDT
From: MJDOVE at aol.com
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Marge Kloepfer
To: oe at wedgeblade.net
Message-ID: <333.12bca200.324a4d43 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Jean,  Thank you so  much for sending the letter concerning Marg's life, 
death and resurrection.  Marg is a significant part of three defining
moments in 
my life.  In 1969 she spoke to a group of clergy in the Cincinnati area
about a 
course that was going to be taught in Cincinnati called the RS-1.  I was so 
impressed with the presentation that I recruited a couple from the church I
was 
serving as pastor, Friendship Methodist Church, to attend that RS-1 and 
evaluate it for our church. (That couple was Bob and Joan Knutson).  When I
went 
over to their home after that week-end, and asked them to tell me about
their 
experience, they assured me that the only way for us to really talk about
their 
expereince was for me to attend the PLC course for clergy that was coming up

the next month.  I went that that PLC and my life was radically changed!
Marg 
and Roger soon became members at Friendship Methodist and together we 
recruited about 85 persons from the congregation to attend the RS-!.
Twenty-three of 
them joined the symbolic Order of the Ecumenical Institute.

The second defining moment was the occasion of Roger Emig's death.  Marg and

I were on a recruitment trip to Louisville, Kentucky when word came of his 
death.  I officiated at his funeral.  The evening before that service a
group of 
about 50, members of the family and close friends gathered at the church for

dinner.  A conversation was led by one of the persons who had come down from

Chicago.  During that conversation, when the question was asked, "What gift
was 
given to you by Roger?", a 10 year old boy stood and said that the gift
Roger 
had given to him was a sense of how important he (the 10 year old boy) was.

He went on to tell of the time that Roger was having a conversation with him

and an adult came over and tried to get Roger's attention.  Then the boy
said, 
"Mr. Emig finished his conversation with me before to talked the to adult.  
That made me feel important."

As a result of the conversation at that dinner, I came to realize the power 
of leading a conversation at funerals, for they transformed them into
powerful 
celebrations.  For the rest of my ministry, when the family gave me
permission 
to lead a conversation as a part of the funeral service, I led one.  It 
included questions like, "What was one of the earliest encounters you had
with 
...?"; "Share a time when ....brought laughter into your life?"; "Share a
time 
when ....... occasioned awe in your life?"; "When was there a time when
..... 
occasioned your being irritated?";  "What was the one gift .....  gave to
you?"

The third defining moment was when Dougie died.  After the funeral 
celebration many of us gathered at the Cincinnati Religious House across the
river in 
Kentucky.  Ed Shinn came up to Marg and said a few things and then ended
with, 
"Marg, your most important job now is to be able to talk about the gift of 
Dougie's death in your life."  When I heard this, my first reaction was,
"How was 
that helpful???"  On further reflection I came to realize that until you
could 
get to the point of talking about the "gift" you were still holding on to 
your anger.  When you  could articulate the "gift" you had in fact
experienced a 
resurrection in your own life.  What a help that was to me after the death
of 
our daughter, Shelley, to leukemia.

Jenelle and I visited John and Marg on several occasions when they were 
living in Pitcairn (sp?).  We always left those visits with a renewed
commitment to 
celebrate life as it is and not as we wish I would be.  What a legacy she
has 
left to all of her family as well countless others, including me.

Thank you again for sharing with us all, about your sister-in-law, Marg.  
Grace and peace,  Mark and Jenelle Dove
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