St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, Epc

"With Me in Paradise"I rewatched the great animated movie Coco this past week. Studying Jesus’ Famous Last Words in Luke 23, I just couldn’t get the main song out of my head: “Remember Me.” In the film, that refrain is an expression of a major plot point: those who die can live on and revisit us as long as we are faithful to honor their memory. Metaphor becomes reality for a young man who accidentally reverses direction (guided by a certain “Dante”), visiting his great grandfather in the underworld instead. There, everyone is either enjoying the gifts that come with being remembered, or anxiously awaiting the second death that comes when the last candle held for them is extinguished. The theme seems a bit macabre for a family film, but they really manage to pull it off.  This idea that existence depends on the attention or memory of another mind was championed by the philosopher George Berkeley in the early 1700’s. He was an Irish Episcopal bishop, very concerned about the materialism arising within Enlighten