March Höfe – Funeral Service – The path that usually leads so close to home today never ends!

Prayer and Meditation

A winter evening still and cold. Three children are hiking through the forest. They have often walked the path alone. Today the moon is shimmering with crazy light. The path that usually leads so close to home today never ends in the forest. The little legs are advancing. The dark pine towers up there. They run back and forth, unable to find their way in the snow.

The little ones are crying, they have gone far astray. Cold is the night and bedtime! Look there, under the roots, a dry hollow, where the little sister is laying them both well. Carries moss and leaves to her rest and covers her with her own handkerchief. The night is cold, illuminated by the moon, the stars twinkle in the sky.

She was sought with shouts and shrines, she was found in the morning light. The two little ones, they are sound asleep, snuggled together in the warm nest. One arm was full of leaves and moss, and the other was found motionless. So she lay in the snow - her cheeks red, they had been kissed by icy death.

Funeral Service - March Höfe

To be or not to be, that is the question here. Whether it's nobler in spirit, enduring the arrows and slingshots of raging fate, or arming themselves against a sea of plagues. Through resistance they end. Die - sleep - nothing more! - and to know that a sleep ends the heartache and the thousand shocks that our flesh inherits - 'tis a goal.

To be wished sincerely. Die - sleep - sleep! Maybe dream too! – Yes, there it is: whatever dreams may come during sleep. When we shake off the urge of the earthly, that forces us to stand still. This is the respect that makes misery come to old age. For who endured the ridicule and scourge of the times, the pressure of the mighty, the abuse of the proud. The pain of scorned love, the postponement of justice, the arrogance of offices, and the disgrace that proves the worthlessness of silent merit. If only he could retire himself with just a needle! Who would bear burdens and groan and sweat under life's toil? Except that the fear of something after death.

The undiscovered land from whose lands no wanderer returns--mistakes the will. That we would rather endure the ills we have than flee to unknown ones. So conscience makes cowards out of us all. The innate color of resolution is ailing the pallor of thought. And undertakings full of strength and vigour, steered off course by this consideration, lose their name to the action.