“Ever since my Mom died three years ago, he’s been saying, ‘Why can’t I die? Why can’t I be with her?’”

I heard this from the daughter of my aged Stake Patriarch last night at his viewing. It made me very pensive and sad — but mostly for this reason: Why would one waste the here-and-now for a future that doesn’t exist?

Faith is a great thing that differentiates we humans from [most] animals and I know that it’s comforting to think that we will see our loved ones again; that this life is merely a precursor; that the trials and tribulations we face now are but a tiny piece of eternity.

Personally, my faith leads me to make the most of this life, of relationships with people, of seeing, experiencing and enjoying this beautiful world. I understand why we want to imagine that there is more and that we are not finite, but the sad truth appears to be just the opposite.

Another of his daughters said this to an older couple in the receiving line:

“Dad is up there with Mom working hard right now, because as you know, there is even more to do there; it is a busy place.”

I’m looking forward to a rest — the final one.

When we’re done, we’re done.

Tonight I attended the viewing of the man who gave me my patriarchal blessing the year after I was baptized, in 1974.

Later, after my family moved to Laramie, Wyoming, I became good friends with his daughter who was my age — and eventually several of their six daughters. I have kept in touch with the daughter my age ever since that time, but had not seen her in perhaps 30 years, so it was especially nice to be able to be visually reacquainted with her and her sisters again tonight.

The Asplund family were stalwarts and yet very down-to-earth. The one my age has never married, which in several ways is kind of sad (not the marriage part, but the relationship one). She is at peace with it and explained that has a familiar relationship with a friend whose “husband is a jerk”. She lives with the family and seems to be a buffer between the couple and a surrogate mother for the children.

Families are made up of more than many in the church would have you believe. Here is indeed more proof.

Easter — that largely Jewish holiday (aka “Passover”) that Christians pre-empted in the 2nd century A.D. as their own — is being celebrated today.

Here’s a nice little quote that sheds some light on its first origins:

Pagan origins of Easter:

Many, perhaps most, Pagan religions in the Mediterranean area had a major seasonal day of religious celebration at or following the Spring Equinox. Cybele, the Phrygian fertility goddess, had a consort, Attis, who was believed to have been born via a virgin birth. Attis was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the period MAR-22 to MAR-25.

Gerald L. Berry, author of “Religions of the World,” wrote:

“About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill …Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection.”

Wherever Christian worship of Jesus and Pagan worship of Attis were active in the same geographical area in ancient times, Christians:

“… used to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus on the same date; and pagans and Christians used to quarrel bitterly about which of their gods was the true prototype and which the imitation.”

Many religious historians and liberal theologians believe that the death and resurrection legends were first associated with Attis, many centuries before the birth of Jesus. They were simply grafted onto stories of Jesus’ life in order to make Christian theology more acceptable to Pagans. Others suggest that many of the events in Jesus’ life that were recorded in the gospels were lifted from the life of Krishna, the second person of the Hindu Trinity. Ancient Christians had an alternative explanation; they claimed that Satan had created counterfeit deities in advance of the coming of Christ in order to confuse humanity.  Modern-day Christians generally regard the Attis legend as being a Pagan myth of little value with no connection to Jesus. They regard Jesus’ death and resurrection account as being true, and unrelated to the earlier tradition.

He not busy being born is busy dying.
–Bob Dylan

A really good friend of ours died Tuesday night of a sudden and unexpected heart attack.

H. Francis Sellers was an artist, inventor, inveterate tinkerer, musician, traveler and unconditional friend. He was a stellar husband to his wife Patrice and a father without peer (and artistic mentor) to his 13-year-old daughter Frankie.

Harry always has a ready story or joke and even though we had heard many of them multiple times, there was as much entertainment in his telling as in the actual content.

We always laughed at his stories of learning how to smoke pot at BYU in the late 1950s.

He avoided hypocrisy, religion and crippling belief systems that he felt served no one well. A friend said, “he was true to himself”. I think that hits the nail on the head.

We’ll miss him.

The iconic founder of Apple died today at age 56.

Live life like you mean it and leave no regrets.

Check.

Over the weekend I watched a PBS documentary [A Family Undertaking] on my Netflix queue about ‘home funerals’. It was a pretty interesting concept, though I suspect that for many, some parts wouldn’t be so palatable.

Personally, I like the ‘no embalming’ part. I like the ‘make your own’ casket (or get a cardboard one and decorate it). I like the cremation, though if I lived in the country, I would go for the ‘bury on your own property’ part.

I really like the fact that I live in a state that allows one to bypass the funeral industry — which I consider predatory.

I’m wasn’t so sure about the home body preparation or the lying-in in my home theater room.

I attended a home funeral in Brazil 30+ years ago. A church member had died of cancer in his home. We were there as his wife washed and prepared his body. Later that day, a casket was brought and a wake was held that night in their home. The next day a graveside funeral was performed and it was done.

The documentary speaks of the greater grieving experience available to survivors when the body is not taken away to be prepared by strangers. I suspect that there is a lot of truth to that — though I don’t expect to be aware — or to care — what will be done with me.