Email received. . . .
"The funeral service for Rich Kirkness has been changed to Wednesday, May 31st. The time is 2:00 p.m."
The evening of the same day:
My perfectly unconscious reaction
To: (various people in my Lutheran church congregation)
I'm just randomly copying a selection of church taste-makers. That is why you received this email. I assume we talk about this, whatever. Crazy idea.
I suggest Trinity host a small fruit desert bar at Rich's funeral. He was quite excited with the frozen Three Berry Blend from Costco. Unsweetened Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries. Almost ordered me to get some. Hey, plastic cups and spoons. Or nice stuff. Melting punchbowl of fruit, dipper. Paper napkins. Waste container. Good with whipping cream, whipped cream, sugar, chocolate sauce - like liquid box of chocolates with the Hershey chocolate sauce. Seriously good in small doses. Have not tried honey. You will know anything else.
Might work served in the narthex at the church before the funeral service, Let's think about not policing the sanctuary. Letting people sip on something so intensely Rich might help them feel better. We're talking adults here, not spilly children. Not expensive, not lots of trouble. Fabulously hospitable.
Pure Richard Kirkness Bliss. He will get such a kick put of it. Amen.
David
The next morning:
Perhaps just save the desert idea for my own funeral
(To the same recipients, having considered the absurdity of the previous.)
The iced fruit with chocolate sauce must be one of those deserts God is served after a particularly fine day. Certainly the Mormon God, physical body and all, would appreciate this treat.
Currently, on a promise to my Daughter, reading the BoM. Unusual style, somewhat hypnotizing when listening through earbuds. Too strange to read for me, raised on King James. The style in 2 Nephi is almost recursive. Takes the longest time to go the smallest distance. I'm making embarrassingly slow progress.
Perhaps it's all feeling, that is why no one inside notices the peculiar things. (All religious literature has claims that outsiders find peculiar.) Consider the practice of re-experiencing full immersion baptism in proxy for one's ancestors under dramatic circumstances. Repeatedly. A full-sensory religious experience. Not just tucking your head under the bathwater. What do others make of this? Must make my way through more apostate literature.
I also better understand how quickly every Saint is reduced to choking up when delivering their testimony. Don't think William James reported this. Must reread "The varieties of Religious Experience."
Also, James goes through the full logically persuasive case for Christianity in "The Will to Believe," pretty much fails entirely, and his conclusion turns on how it just "seems so right." Logically impervious. A stumbling block to we Greeks indeed. Faith does not consider what you fix it on. Just works. How can we think to know anything?
We must be heading for another Great Revival in America. So much social anxiety. Perhaps we are there, just not seeing it for being in the middle of it. Martin Marty's project on Fundamentalism says fundamentalism shows up necessarily during highly uncertain times. What, no work in the future? About as uncertain as possible.
Thanks for following along.
in Christ, David.
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