Graves Ain't What They Used To Be
There were pictures in the local paper today featuring the latest in tombstone fashions. And it depressed me. Lots of Dale Earnhardt stones and favorite pro sports team monuments and carved likenesses of yourself with the message "Ken's Gone Fishin'".
It depresses me because worse than death is to trivialize death. And I long - nay ache - for centuries past when their stones shared a favorite verse of Scripture. A whole lifetime summed up in a verse. (I'm currently liking "by His stripes we are healed".) It's cool to think that you can speak to people even on your tombstone, maybe have some influence. It certainly is more dignified, perhaps because our relation to God is what gives us dignity. Not our hobbies. I think that's why it's sickening to me to see Earnhardt etched in marble, it just seems an absurd reduction, a waste.
I don't think about Heaven much for a couple reasons. One is that it likely won't be my first stop (i.e. see Purgatory) and I have a tendency to focus on the next leg of the journey rather than the finish line. Two, I can't fathom it, so attempts to do so seem painful, like off-key notes. Whatever heaven is, I can't imagine it involving Nascar races or the Bengals winning games. And even though I'm Irish I'm not a big fan of harp music. Maybe that sounds overly gnostic - God made bodies and we're going to have them again and so I shouldn't be so off-put about earthly things and of a new earth. The best I can figure heaven is the closest you ever felt to God on earth magnified a hundred times or so. And serious unconditional love. Beats them seventy-six virgins the Muslims get, don't it?
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