This blessing by Henry Van Dyke was included in the funeral service for John Johnson who died Marh 19, 2011 in Asheville. John was an inspiration to many hundreds if not thousands of people because he embodied the spirit of true compassion which was strengthened by his own struggle with addiction. He died of cancer.

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of strength and beauty. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come to mingle with each other.



Then someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone!'



'Gone where?'



Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.



Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: 'There, she is gone!' There are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: 'Here she comes!'



And that is dying"



We know that even as we celebrate the life of a loved one here today, and mourn the fact that we can no longer feel there arms around us and feel sad that we have to say, "He is gone", friends and family were jumping up and down on the next shoreline shouting , "Here he comes! Here comes our beloved!"



Here are a few more favorite sayings that John used to quote:

• God doesn't love us because we are good. God loves us because God's good.
• You want to make God laugh? Tell her your plans!
• Happiness is a choice.
• Be the love.
• Life is but a series of ever increasing moments of NOW.
• There are no great teachers-only great students with great questions.
• Look around and ask yourself what is wanted and needed here.
• If it wasn't for good luck I wouldn't have any luck at all.
• Be the man your dog always thought you were. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
• There is something I don't know, the knowing of which could change everything.
• There is only love or fear.