"Christoph Keller, III has mastered the formula for combining mind and heart into what he composes. This is especially true of his funeral sermons, where the heart almost always takes the lead through his homiletic journeys toward resurrection. Keller writes about a dear young man he baptized as an infant who died an early death. He has homilies for both of his well-known parents. He writes about beloved parishioners. He presides over the funeral of a talented physician who committed suicide. He preaches on the death of someone he has known since childhood. . . . Keller's funeral sermons simply best represent Frederick Buechner's description of preaching in Telling Secrets. 'It is to try to put the Gospel into words not the way you would compose an essay but the way you would write a poem or a love letter-putting your heart into it, your own excitement, most of all your whole life.'"
-The Rev. Joanna Seibert, MD, deacon and author
"Christoph Keller, III has a literary sensibility, an appreciation for pop culture, and a theologian's intellectual heft. Joy and grief coexist in these pages, along with faith and hope, light and sacred meaning. I loved these heartfelt, vivid portraits. May we all be remembered with such attention and care."
-Eliza Borné, editor emeritus, Oxford American
"Christoph Keller, III is adept at showing in this volume of evocative sermons preached at funerals that theology is 'faith seeking understanding'
. . . Effortlessly moving from the temporal to the eternal, this slim volume helps assure us of that ultimate reality: we are all on a journey to our ultimate home. No doubt comforting to the families and his listeners at the time, the collection now offers hope and courage in the wider context of all our own journeys to any reader fortunate enough to pick it up."
-The Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd, III, Ninth Dean,
Washington National Cathedral
"'Death is but a middle point between two lives, ' wrote the seventeenth-century bishop Jeremy Taylor. Preaching at a funeral or memorial service requires attention to both lives: the life of the deceased as we have known them, and their birthday into eternity-that larger life that awaits us all. With great care and sensitivity, Keller's sermons honor both lives [offering] the comfort of remembrance and the conviction of the life to come. As such, they are models of what such preaching should be, and also provide rich fare for reflection."
-Frank T Griswold, XXV Presiding Bishop,
the Episcopal Church
