The Cash of Symbols

     As I wrote in my blog "Bury Me Not in a Mason Jar", I prefer to be buried, rather than cremated, when I die.  This is a preference, not an ultimatum (as if I could enforce it) and is dependent on the money available for my final expenses, but I prefer it for the same reason I prefer to take communion with unleavened bread--the symbolism.  I believe burial best expresses our hope of the resurrection of the body, just as unleavened bread best symbolizes the sinlessness of Christ. Obviously, there is a much larger price difference between burial vs. cremation than unleavened vs. leavened bread, and I am open to, and have, taken communion with leavened bread when visiting other churches. It is never a good idea to be pickier than God about issues that do not affect our salvation.
     I do not believe God needs the remnants of our earthly bodies to build our resurrected ones, that would be as ridiculous as thinking God needs us to use unleavened communion bread in order to keep Christ sinless.  That is backwards reasoning.  The type is not dependent on the symbol.  I am not even very good at perceiving symbolism, but seeing how seriously God took treatment of the symbols of the tabernacle, ark of the covenant, sacrificial system, etc. in the old testament, and the penalty for irreverent use of the Lord's Supper in the new testament, I am highly motivated to use symbols correctly.
     Besides, burial gives me one last chance to give my testimony, and I could never resist having the last word.  If the testimony of my burial can outweigh my lifetime tendency to buy the next-to-cheapest product available, those who know me as the ultimate bargain hunter will understand the significance of the splurge. To hammer in that testimony, I have written the story of my salvation to be read at my funeral and have selected hymns and scripture passages I would like included. If finances necessitate cremation, I hope enough money will be available to buy a gravestone, because that is where I can have the final word.  I had previously selected Is. 58 because it is my favorite passage and the phrase from verse 12, "Restorer of Broken Walls", but perhaps that is too obscure. I am now considering a verse on the resurrection and the phrase "to be continued. . ."

Last Rights

     There were no undertakers near the homesteads of eastern Montana in the 1910's when my great grandmother died in childbirth with her tenth.  Teenaged Elsie, washed her mother's body and placed the stillborn baby in her arms for display on the family table.  As difficult as that would be, I'm sure there was also great solace for family members who did with their own hands what they could for those they loved and lost. In the past I have had ambivalent feelings about some of our culture's death rituals, especially the embalming, beautifying and displaying of the corpse. It seemed pagan somehow. But I found solace in those customs when my mother died.  It was a comfort to see her face looking at rest in a way I had not seen for decades.  It was a comfort when guests told stories about mom from the years before schizophrenia, an honor that they cared enough, after all these years, to come and share them.  It helped me to know that my quiet dad and housebound mother had still made an impact beyond our family.
     Now, of course, there is an entire funeral industry. Washing, clothing and displaying the body of the deceased is handled by professionals. Nevertheless, it was a comfort to help select a casket that suited mom, clothes she liked to wear, her favorite color for the casket spray.  Those were the things I could still do for the mother I loved and lost, and lost again.  In great grandma's time it was customary for someone to keep vigil with the body from the laying out until the burial.  I suppose this might have originated in the time before embalming to make sure the person was dead and not deeply unconscious.  Reed and I kept vigil the last hour of visitation when the rest of the family had gone home. I did not stay for the sake of potential visitors, I stayed because of mom. I knew, of course, that my mother was no longer in the small body in the coffin, but it was the last place she resided and staying to the end seemed the right thing to do--the last, right thing that I could do for her.
    
     
    

Twice Removed

       Last Friday my mother died. One week later we learned it is time to put down our beloved 15 year old Lab, Garth.  Mom's death was both expected and unexpected.  Her strength had been declining gradually since the first of the year, then alarmingly, a few weeks ago, when dad said she couldn't lift her legs into the bed or even shift them into a more comfortable position. But I expected a slow decline from nursing home patient to hospice patient, from sleep to unconsciousness, from unconsciousness to death.  Instead she was busy cutting out recipes when Dad came to check on her Wednesday, had a good visit with her senior companion Thursday, and died Friday morning.  Schizophrenia took away my mother 50 years ago, death merely finished the process.  My mother, twice removed.
     Garth also declined gradually, from long walks to short walks, from barking at anyone who knocked on the door to deaf slumber by the door, from treatment options to grim expectations. The same spinal disc deterioration that makes it hard for him to lift his hips is causing bladder weakness resulting in infections.  But we did not put Garth to sleep that dark, one-week-after Friday because the vet could not get to him for two more hours and he was terrified to be there.  We took him home.  The inevitable must happen, but it will happen in the place he loves with the people he loves.
     What I call the beautiful economy of God is the way He uses one circumstance for many purposes. God does not waste suffering.  The simple tears I shed at the thought losing Garth, brought with them the sorrow of the slow, complicated loss of my mother.  Those were unknown emotions I was afraid to feel, sorrow I didn't know how to express--until now.  In the beautiful economy of God, even mourning can be a two-for-one special. Loved ones, twice removed.
    

Jousting with Job

     Job was another one of those Old Testament saints to which I planned to apologize when I got to heaven because I didn't like his book. Something along the lines of, "Sorry I didn't study your book, but you have to admit it was kind of a downer." Ezekiel was another such shunned saint until I studied, and actually enjoyed, his book last summer. That left Job.  I am relying on my beloved homiletics to help me joust with Job's joyless journal and wrest principles and applications from it. Nine chapters in, I have found a couple overarching themes.  The first is, most of the book would not even be necessary if Job's fickle friends had not presumed to know the mind of God.
     The paradigm through which his discomforters interpreted life is summed up in Bildad's speech in Job 8:20, "Surely God does not reject a blameless man or strengthen the hands of evildoers."  Since that was their underlying assumption, they denied what they knew to be true about Job's righteousness in order to make the facts fit the conclusion. God was punishing Job, therefore he must be sinful. Secretly sinful.  Altering facts to fit the paradigm brings to mind my favorite gory story from Greek mythology--Procrustes bed.  This homicidal host would offer his bed to travelers, then lop off or stretch the sleepers' bodies to fit the bed.  We see this all the time in the scientific world, where the prevailing paradigm is evolution. Questionable findings which are viewed as supportive are stretched while contradictory facts are lopped off Darwin's bed.  Besides that, our human nature tends to believe ill of people, even when we know better.  We would rather believe they are secretly sinful.
     The problem is, Job's friends were partly right.  The general principle that the godly are blessed and the ungodly suffer is true.  Do not be deceived.  God cannot be mocked:  A man reaps what he sows.  (Gal. 6:7)  The secular version is also well known--What goes around comes around. A missionary friend told us that after Brazilians trusted Christ they generally had a higher standard of living, not because they got a better job, but because when they were no longer spending their money on drugs, alcohol and gambling, they had more to spend on their family. Job's friends were right about the principle but wrong about the application.  Job was not being punished, he was being tested, and not because of his sin, but because of his faith. 
     This distresses me because it means I have to think instead of assume.  Thinking is hard. Making assumptions and whacking people with biblical principles is easy.  At least Job's comforters went to the trouble of insulting him in poetic form.  My version might be:

     You're suffering bad

     sorry you're blue.

     You must be sinful.

     Glad I'm not you.

     My fear is that most of the remainder of Job will be rehashing the same theme.  If so, that means God wants me to learn it but, at this point, I am not making any assumptions. I'll just keep jousting.