Death is always close

 

Today I went to a memorial service.  He was 3 years older than my father.

The air outside is filled with the death of millions of trees far away.  I can't be outside and breathe well.

On Sunday I went to the grave of a child who died several years ago.  There is still no headstone, just a fading laminated sign somehow still attached to its wooden stake.

I didn't get the job I was desperately hoping for.  I didn't even get past the resume round.  

But the hostile and toxic boss I was going to have to start reporting to later this month moved to a different part of our organization, so I won't have to report to her.  She will still be in the group, still poisoning the other managers in the group against me, but I won't have to try to interact regularly with her 1:1.  Some of my desperation to get that job is removed.

I randomly came across some notes from my last actively hostile toxic boss, and, wow.  Things are so much better with my current passively toxic boss.  He doesn't do anything, but he doesn't lie about it, and he doesn't get mad at me when he messes up.  He also doesn't seem to get mad at himself and try to improve either, but . . .

I found out about the death of the man 3 years older than my father yesterday.  I knew him through the church I went to for a while in graduate school.  I was in the chancel choir with his wife.  I saw him every year at the State Fair.  Much of the church's budget comes from running the dining hall at the state fair.  He was in charge of organizing the massive effort of volunteers and a few paid staff to keep the dining hall going.  I would also sometimes see him at my local Whole Foods where he worked part time in retirement because he could.  He was a pretty magical guy.  He made the dining hall fun while also acknowledging how bonkers it could be.  I didn't see him last year, but I figured it was because our shifts just didn't overlap (he had stepped down from leading it some years ago).  I had no  idea it was because he was dying.

His family had lots of notice.  They had time to prepare during the year+ that he was in-home hospice.  And his death was a month ago.  But I just found out yesterday.  The grief for me is raw and fresh.  

I am always rubbish at memorial services.  I just cry.  If I lived in a culture where weeping at funerals was a respected profession, I would be a champion.  But I don't, so I just feel awful.  I can't bring comfort; only sadness and tears and being so choked up I can't even speak.  I feel like I'm a burden to the bereaved family.  I don't want them to spend their limited emotional energy comforting me.  

But sometimes I feel like I NEED to go.  To acknowledge and make space to just be sad that I will not see that person again this side of heaven. (And be happy remembering the good times.)  To carve out that space and time.  

"He wasn't a religious man, but he believed in community," his brother said.  And the community that gathered to celebrate his life was the amen.

I am crying now.  The tears are always close.

I wonder if I should approach the child's family about the headstone.  I know they have the money because there was a fundraiser for it, and they said at the time that they had enough but just didn't have the wherewithal to finalize the headstone and installation.  I fully understood that.  But it has been years, and they are finally getting their feet under them again.  If I bring it up, could I help get it done and take some of the burden off of them?  Or will it just churn up the guilt cycle?

It's been a week. Death is always close.  People are dying.  People are being treated as less-made-in-the-image-of-God than others.  People are treating others badly.  The grief feels close.  The tears are always close.

Love anyway.  Love God.  Love your neighbor. Love yourself.  We're all walking each other home, as the song says.  And love, as the Bible says, is strong as death.  

Somehow.

What to keep: giving to charity and what I could get instead

Now that I'm back home and have some energy and physical ability to organize my space, I have been thinking a lot lately about what to keep and what to give away.  My colleagues younger than me are taking sabbaticals at work for months with no pay and going to expensive and exotic places and doing things they've always wanted to do.  I couldn't do this, and I've been thinking about why.

I suppose it's possible that they are independently wealthy and just working for fun.  More likely they are not living alone on a single income.  One of them lives with his parents still.  One of them is married.  Neither of them are dealing with chronic health shenanigans.

Or maybe, my brain suggests, all of the money I donate, if put into a savings account instead, would allow for this type of activity and travel.  It would have certainly allowed my to completely pay off my mortgage over the past 10 years, which would have freed up LOTS of extra money to save.  

Financial planners everywhere discourage donating so much to charity.  They recommend saving and paying down debt and only then donating, when it is responsible to do so, when it is wise from a point of financial stability and self-sufficiency.

And that is not what God calls us to.  Sure, we're encouraged to be responsible with our money, but more than that we're called to be responsible to our neighbors.  Not because it will get us more in the end, but because it is right that those of us who have been given more should use it to help those who have been given less, those who have less, those who need.  And we all need at some point, even if most of us would rather die than admit it or ask for help and put others out.

When I was in a much worse financial situation, my church gave me money to cover my deductible after my car got totaled in an accident.  Several times, church members helped me move when there was no way I could afford professional movers.  An assistant pastor came over once to separate tiny plastic things for a medication when my hands weren't working well enough to do it.  (My church small group members also did this a non-zero number of times.)  Church members brought me distilled water during the pandemic when it was as hard to find as diamonds on midwestern roads.  My churches over the years have given me the chance to sing in choirs and make beautiful music for free.

Many of the other places I give money have no direct connection with me. Lots of justice work here and around the world, child sponsorship, clean water for communities, food for the hungry, free press: I don't "get" anything from them.

I've heard some people say that if you give to God, He will reward you with more money.  That's always felt a bit gross to me.  It's not what I read in the Bible. It's not about God as vending machine.  It's about love and need.  It's about faithfulness.  It's about obedience.  Not because I have to.  Not because I get something from it.  But because God wants to use what I have to bless those who need.  Because I love and want to obey.

Sometimes that's harder than others.  I sure would like to travel.  I sure would like to rest for a long time and get this organizing and cleaning done.  But if I'm going to love the way God asks me to, I can't right now.  So.  I guess I'll just have to feel the envy and walk myself through it each time and hopefully conclude that obedience is more important to me than self-gratification by other means.  

I will keep giving "too much" of what God has given me to others.