Speaking of Funerals

I hate the fact that life doesn’t play itself out according to the script that I am continually writing. It’s that control factor that I continually seek and never find. You know what I mean. Lists and plans are drawn up in anticipation of the day or week, and whammy whammy, stupid life happens and all my plans are for naught, or at least postponed.  It reminds me of one of the favorite Homer Simpson lines. Homer takes a header and falls flat on his rear, and exclaims, “Stupid gravity!”

That would be pretty much my exclamation. It’s a bitch to understand the world intellectually and yet emotionally want it to be quite different. Psychologically speaking, I like surety and control. I want to be in charge. I like to direct outcomes. I like the world to be predictable. Intellectually, I know this is a bunch of phooey of course. I know that the Buddha was much closer to the mark. We live in a constant state of change. That is the norm, not surety.

Never get too comfortable with the way things are, they are sure to change, and usually when it is least convenient or not expected. Lots of people complain about that, but it does no good of course. Ranting changes nothing, change occurs, marching to its own drummer.

So insecurity is a fact of life. God helps a lot with that, if you let him. But at least I am never quite serene no matter how much I “let go and let God.” Nice words, good to live by, if you can of course. Of course, it you can’t, well, too bad, change is happenin’ when and where it wishes none the less. Sooner or later, the sane person accepts this, and moves on, the insane don’t. I’m usually more sane than not, but I do have my moments of sheer table banging nuttiness as I rail at the unfairness of it all.

Why it might be unfair is of course another whole question. “I never promised you a rose garden” as they say. Nobody has a right to assume that things won’t change. NOBODY. So the whole issue of complaining is moot. Suffering in silence is appropriate, the adult thing to do. Do you think that most people are living lives of quiet desperation as Thoreau suggested? I do. Most people put on a brave front I suspect. I do, and I don’t think I am wildly different than most. Just more opinionated perhaps and not the least bit afraid to expose my warts to the world.

I read once or twice that when you worry about what other people are thinking about you, you should immediately remember that you are not important enough for most people to think about at all, ever in fact. And if they are, so what? I mean you can definitely drive yourself quite batty thinking about what somebody else might be thinking. I have enough in my brain case to contend with, I don’t have a lot of time to worry about what somebody is kicking around in their cranium.

Of course, that is a lie. I’m as self-absorbed in my own importance as the next gal. And I want you all to have a good opinion of me, even though I shall not meet the vast majority of you. Yet, I intellectually realize how dumb this is. That seems to be the problem, having to constantly referee these two opposing element that constitute me. The emotional idiot and the intellectual adult.

I’m reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer right now, and he talks about cheap grace versus costly grace. Cheap grace is the type where you realize that God’s gift is freely given, not in any way merited, and go off to life your life as you wish, safe in the belief that your sins are forgiven for the asking. Sin away, and ask forgiveness tomorrow. Costly grace, the only real grace according to the saint, is a complete giving of self in return to the gift. It is Peter getting up and leaving his nets to follow. No questions, no let me stop by the house and tell the missus. Just go, do it. That allows, says Bonhoeffer the possibility of faith. The opposite is the fellow who asked Jesus what he had to do to secure eternal life. “Go and sell all you have, give to the poor and follow me.” Or the dude who said, let me bury my father first.

You take the cross by rejecting your agenda and following without question. God takes care of all. Isn’t that what all people of faith are grappling with? The constant question, is this following or is this doing my own thing, and then reciting the confession each Sunday to get back on track? Bonhoeffer claims that the Catholicism posits that only a special few can actually give up all–the monks, the religious. Most of us find such a life too harsh and difficult, to say nothing of what do about population should be all be celibate. Bonhoeffer suggests that that is what is wrong with Catholicism. They invest the vast majority in cheap grace.

It seems to make sense to me, so far that is. I’m inclined to believe that for the most part we are engaged in an internal war with ourselves, most of the time. Who will win today, this hour, this minute? Ego Sherry or Spirit Sherry? Most of the time it is undoubtedly the former. Most of the time, I am holding back the full giving of myself, protecting myself as best as I can with what can only be described as an insane ego. All egos are insane I believe, but no matter.

Which all comes down to today, and the latest assault on my time management issues. A call last night, a cousin of my husbands has died, in the next town over. A funeral tomorrow. Flowers to order. Small towns make this somewhat easier, but still a pain. A brother-in-law flying in from Chicago. A dinner, small talk, all that crap to be endured. Upsetting my plans, my notions of what is familiar.

My life seems disjointed a lot these days. We, as I have announced, often spend months alone, not even getting off the land. Suddenly, its church and meetings and VA appointments and now a funeral. My days are not my own, but then they never were. Still it doesn’t help a lot to know that. I pout, being too old for a good old-fashioned temper tantrum.

Mostly I try to carve out time when I just refuse to think about the lack of control I’m not immersed in. That’s a cop out no? Childish to just not think about what we don’t want to think about! That makes it go away! NOT. I should be processing this better no doubt. But my fingers are flying across the keyboard, so perhaps I am in the last analysis. Processing my feelings, processing my plans, processing the obsessive but not yet compulsive tendencies to organize my life. Life is not organizable I’m finding. It’s a messy thing, and the messy life is as good as the rigidly ruled one no doubt. It’s all good. Life is better than any alternative after all.

So, tomorrow, I’m not blogging probably, because I shall be off somewhere making small talk, listening to some Rev from somewhere telling me about the wonder life of a woman I may have met once. And we shall return home finally, glad that that is over, ready to revamp the future so it can be ready for the next assault of reality. That’s life. God must find it all amusing no doubt, watching us scurry and fret. It’s all rather meaningless when you examine it. But we don’t examine it too often, because we need the fauxsecurity of it all. At least I do. It’s time no doubt to try to pick up that cross, and weigh the heft of it. I think I could manage, if I just didn’t have so many things scheduled for tomorrow!