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.

Prime Directive

     As any Trekkie knows, the "Prime Directive" on Star Trek was not to interfere with the natural development of an alien culture--unless that culture was doing something wrong (they always were), in which case the crew seduced their females and/or threatened to blow up their planet. Kind of like the United Nations, but with less bribery. However this illustration is interfering with the point I am trying to make, that I, too, have a prime directive--FEED PEOPLE.  It doesn't much matter who.  If an axe murderer came to my door, I would probably fix him a last meal before he executed me. I think I get this from my grandparents, eastern Montana farmers who stuffed visitors with food as if their next stop was Sudan. It was impossible to get hungry at grandma's house. There simply wasn't enough time between bites.  A hearty breakfast was followed by an equally hearty mid-morning snack.  Snacks at my grandparents' house differed from meals only in the size of the plates.  Mid-morning snack was followed by lunch, then 4 o'clock tea time snack, dinner at 5:30. By the time evening snack rolled around, so did we. Carrying on the tradition, anyone who wanders within a quarter mile of our house is offered food.  If they say they've already eaten, I reply, "What's that got to do with it?"  Appetite has no bearing on my prime directive.
     So it has been very frustrating for me here in Butte, celebrating another working holiday at our daughter's house, to be unable to fulfill my prime directive. Outside of the cookies I brought with me, I have been unable to feed people. Admittedly, part of the problem is that I have been spoiled by having luxury items like running water and countertops in my own kitchen.  Since my daughter's kitchen has been dismantled for remodel, her kitchen has been a sink and microwave in the laundry room.  Since we've been here, the kitchen cabinets have been assembled and hung, the microwave installed and a very nice sink is setting on the floor, but only the refrigerator has running water. 
    Since I possess both by nature and by choice, no building skills (more skills lead to more work), and it would be wasted effort to do much cleaning at this point, I have made no contribution to the work here besides that of my good company.  I have not fulfilled my prime directive.  On Star Trek that would lead to demotion, but it would be hard to find something lower than my unskilled labor position on the family work crew. And, as soon as I'm back in a working kitchen, I have every intention of interfering in the natural development of alimentary culture.

Oh Bleep!

     I have been a Christian for a long time and seldom use even the minced oaths acceptable in Christian  circles, even when in traffic with sadists, or when the person ahead of me in the bank drive through is taking so long I can only assume it is their first time handling money, or the shopper I am behind at the checkstand wants to pay for their groceries with a two party, out-of-state check. Such are the foibles of human existence, not worth fussing about. So please insert an acceptable Christian word for the bleep. As I mentioned in my "Giving Up" blog, understanding who Jesus is is a very inconvenient truth. Unspiritual as it sounds, that can be an oh bleep moment. Spiritual warming requires complete reorientation of our lives and unlike one politician's "Inconvenient Truth", God's truth cannot be half baked.
     But my oh bleep times happen when God reveals some service He wants me to do for Him and I don't want to do it. Early in my Christian life I thought such decisions were up to me, so my primary considerations when asked to do something in my church or community were my natural abilities, schedule and comfort.  Then, through my Bible study, I learned God is not concerned about any of those things. He rarely calls us into areas of our natural ability because then we are less likely to depend on Him and, since God equips those He calls, our abilities are not needed. God also adjusts the schedules of those He calls so our current schedule is of no concern. I experienced this time expansion aspect of serving God often when I led a prayer group that I was sure I did not have time for. We are concerned with comfort, God is concerned with obedience. Obedience brings a joy more satisfying than comfort.
     One of my vivid oh bleep moments was when I was called into BSF leadership--for the third time. The first two times I was asked to pray about leadership, I survived unscathed. The third time I had barely begun praying when I could tell by the pounding of my heart and unwelcome certainty in my mind that I was supposed to say yes. Oh bleep! I was not a natural leader, not even an unnatural one. God did not care. The same thing happened when I was asked to speak at a ladies' retreat. I knew I was supposed to say yes despite having no idea, beyond a general topic, what I would say. God supplied all the ideas, I was not nervous and actually enjoyed the experience.
     I do not agree to serve God because I am spiritual, I obey because I have learned resistance is futile.  I am spiritual enough to know when God is calling me, but unspiritual enough for it to feel like the clammy hand of death has grabbed me. Getting an assignment from God feels less like being touched by an angel, than being tazered by the Spirit, a startling sensation that can make even a seasoned saint say "Oh bleep!"                         
    

The Promise and the Pit

     One of the questions in our Bible study of Genesis 37 was, "Why do you think God gave these dreams to Joseph?" They certainly did not help his relationship with his family. They even precipitated his brothers' betrayal. And the contrast between the dreams of exaltation and the reality of the pit must have been bitter to bear. I believe God gave Joseph the dreams so he would have something to cling to in the dark times to come. The dreams strengthened the hatred his brothers already felt toward Joseph, but Jacob had been fueling that fire for a long time. When circumstance took everything from Joseph, the dream remained.
     I, too, have had those pinnacle to pit experiences, times when the Spirit has directed me, not through the soft illumination of his word or the subtle nudging of circumstance, but a personal message, just for me, impressed into my mind, foreign and unflinching. The first of these came after a women's Bible study I attended as a young mom. The message was that God had something new in store for me. I was excited and afraid. I thought maybe God would call us to the mission field. Instead He called me to three and a half years of depression. During that time I got a lot of bad information both secular and Christian, doubted and was doubted by others, but I knew one thing. I did not fall into that pit by my own deficiencies. Depression was the something new that God had promised me. It resulted, among other things, in a deeper walk with Christ, but I learned that walk during years spent in a dark, lonely pit.
     Another incident happened five years ago when our spare son Lance was still with us. He had violated his parole, but was released on bond to stay with us until time to serve his sentence. When Lance had come to us two years earlier, God's guidance for me to help him was as clear as if He had pried the roof off the house and dropped Lance into my arms. Still I wondered how I would know when I had accomplished my part of what would be a lifelong reclamation project. When I came home from my first week of BSF of the year, I got my answer. God thundered into my heart for several hours, the knowledge that I had finished the part God wanted me to play in Lance's life. God would take it from here. Lance would be okay. I did not know at the time, that when Lance left that Thanksgiving I would not hear from him again. That was five years ago. God gave His promise to sustain me in the years to come. By then I recognized the pattern of the promise and the pit.
     A personal promise from God is too obvious to ignore and too precious to dread, but when there is a promise, it will be followed by a pit. By God's grace, He gives us the promise first. By grace also, He gives the pit.