Marilyn Hansen

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
April 30, 2022

Marilyn Hansen 

          “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”  The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a time and place for everything, and the writer gives us a fairly exhaustive list-from planting and plucking to weeping and laughing to tearing and sewing- most of which Marilyn could have accomplished by lunch time.  So long as the activity was in some way about serving others, Marilyn would take it on.  She was on the Woodridge School board for 42 years, caring deeply for students, faculty, and staff.  She was a swimming instructor for 20 years, and on ski patrols for over 60 years.  She served in countless ways at Christ Church doing everything from serving as treasurer to running the dishwasher after funeral receptions.  She donated 49 gallons of blood during her lifetime.  For reference, there are about 1.5 gallons of blood in the human body.  Marilyn was passionate about the employees at Hudson Extrusions and I cannot tell you how many times she stopped in my office with a new idea for helping other people.  At the age of 88, Marilyn Hansen had amazing energy for getting things done, as well as getting down the ski slopes.  Even from her hospital room in her last weeks, she showed up on Zoom to pray for peace with us, kept up with the church project to send brownies to our college students and made sure we did it right, and ran Hudson Extrusions.  When we would exchange text messages, pretty much up until she was sleeping all the time, she would always end with “Have a great day.”  I don’t think she was just being nice and hoping I had a great day.  Those words were a command to have a great day and I took them as such.

          So we gather today to celebrate this remarkable life, lived to the absolute fullest until just days before her death.  I think Marilyn would agree with the writer of Ecclesiastes who wrote “I know that there is nothing better than for them to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in their toil.”  Marilyn wanted to make sure that everyone can feed their families.  And Marilyn could find happiness, even joy, in some great challenges, challenges that would floor most of us, and she took pleasure in all of her toil.

          As much as we gather to celebrate, we also gather to grieve.  Even though Marilyn was 88 years old, her death came as a shock to most of us and maybe even to Marilyn.  The reading from Revelation promises us a time when God will wipe away every tear and death shall be no more. But that time is not here yet. So we wipe away each other’s tears, comfort one another, pray for each other, and remember that even Jesus shed tears when his friend Lazarus died.  We gather to be together as we live into this new world where Marilyn is no longer physically present with us. 

          As much as we can say about all the things Marilyn did and accomplished during her life, as much as we can say about her courage and tenacity and the way she worked to change the world around her, the most authentic thing we can say about Marilyn is that Marilyn was a person of deep and abiding faith.  She was in church on Sunday and at Bible Study on Monday like clockwork- unless she was away skiing. Whenever we at the church were up against a challenge, Marilyn would encourage us to have faith that everything would work out.  And, typically, everything would work out.  We gather today to proclaim that faith, to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and bear witness to our belief that, in the words of the gospel reading, where Jesus is, there Marilyn is also.  In her baptism all those decades ago, Marilyn was joined with Jesus in his death and resurrection.  In her death on March 7, Marilyn was raised with Jesus in new life.  In the reading from Revelation, God says “See, I am making all things new.”  Today Marilyn would want us to find comfort in our faith that she has been made new in the death and resurrection of Jesus and she is in that place where there is no pain or grief but life eternal. 

                                                                             Amen.