This is another post totally feelings-driven, not theology-driven. As in, these are sort of my gut feelings, not tempered by what I believe, beyond what I feel, to be true. Maybe I'll have a post soon about what I know to be true, but in the moment, you're getting more feelings. These days, I have a lot of them.
Today I cried (with much effort, silently) through a funeral, while thinking also of another funeral for a dear friend that I won't be able to attend. I would vastly prefer to cry by myself in a closet where no one but Jesus sees and knows about it. I really resist the public-ness of memorials and funerals, though I was glad to be there today. I keep seeing all these little details of life and being disturbed by the way life intersects death.
There is something about funerals that makes everything seem (at the least) irreverent or (at the most) obscene. Here are a few examples, some from today, and some fresh in my mind from other occasions.
Getting dressed--is it wrong to wear eyeliner to a funeral?
Nirvana on the radio, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," on the drive to the church.
The sun shining on a beautiful day.
That family walking their dogs behind the sanctuary--don't they know someone died?
Cookies in the hallway, the smell of sandwiches and too-bright yellow of lemonade.
Discussing traffic with fellow late-comers.
"How are you doing?" Well. I'm at a funeral, how are you?
Chapped lips.
The body inside the coffin just below the podium where people spoke about the person who is, and is not, inside.
Dragonfly tangling briefly in my hair on the way back to my car.
It seems so inherently wrong for there to be laughter or a sunny day or to eat cookies or for people to be driving 70 on the highway past a church where a young man's life is being memorialized. And yet, life continues on, with only the briefest pause for remembrance.
I sort of wish for the sackcloth and ashes type of mourning, where I could rend my garments and put ashes on my head and people would leave me alone. Our mourning these days means dark clothes that don't look much different after a funeral to the man selling newspapers at the store, where you might have to stop to bring home dinner.
All this, too, is part of God's plan, that life would be going on all around death. Maybe to remind us, maybe to point us to him and to a larger plan. Maybe to give hope that when we are ready, we can rejoin what is already and still moving forward all around us.
Still, the juxtaposition always seems jarring to me--the way life is never far from death, even at a funeral. Today I thought about both, and about two young men who have joined their heavenly Father, yet left so many behind.
I have KNOWLEDGE of the comfort of Christ ready and waiting, but for now, I just FEEL heavy.
I feel for you, that heaviness is hard to feel. I have often thought of the times that the world stopped spinning in my life and yet all was well and routine for those passing by. These men's lives were cut terribly short but i can't help but notice the new connections that you alone are drawing to their lives by caring so much that you can convey the heaviness of the loss to people, like me, that only know them through this post. Something about that makes me feel that the memorial is only the jump off point of the remembrance rather than simply an afternoon event.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this comment. Yes, I think somehow in the sharing of events like this, people can make connections that kind of extend beyond. It is hard to watching things move on when you are in a hard place, but I do think there is a purpose in it. Not that it isn't hard in the moment.
Deletewoww great post good luck
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