A Pie Plate Pilgrimage

  Chapter 17 - The Funeral

  Luke never wore a suit to work. A shirt and tie most of the time, but never proper black pants with a matching jacket. It came as such a surprise to Lydia that when she saw him, she asked without hesitation, “What’s with the suit?”

  “I’m going to a funeral in the afternoon, and I didn’t want to go home in between.” From the way he spoke, Lydia wasn’t sure what he thought was a greater inconvenience, having to go home in between or going to the funeral in the first place.

  “Who died?”

  “Just a family friend,” he said dismissively, “nothing for you to worry about.”

  Lydia was only asking to get an idea of what kind of grief Luke might be experiencing. She didn’t need to be told not to worry, but something seemed odd about the way Luke dismissed her question. He emphasized some things he expected to happen in his absence and then Lydia went back to her desk and Luke gathered his things and headed out the door.

  When she opened her inbox she saw a new email from Oscar. Their ongoing conversation about the book and religious stuff played out as often through emails as it did through phone or face-to-face conversations so this came as no surprise, but the content of this particular message, left her speechless. The text was plain enough:

  “Hey Lydia, Not sure if you knew about this already, or if you’re going, but I figured it was worth passing your way.” - Oscar

  Below that was a link, and when she clicked on it, she saw a familiar face that brought a smile to her lips. That smile soon disappeared when she realized what kind of website she was looking at.

  Beneath the photo of Gerald’s mother, a woman Lydia had only met a few times, was her name, her date of birth, and her very recent date of passing. It wasn’t that long ago when Lydia had talked to her, and despite the persisting cough she still seemed to be quite full of life. The obituary included details of her family, the organizations she had been a part of and where she had lived, but there was no information about how she died, only the name of the hospital.

  The funeral was listed as being that afternoon. When she got over the initial shock, she began thinking about what would be involved in attending. She realized that this was almost certainly the same funeral that Luke was already going to. She had no interest in travelling there with him, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that he likely didn’t want her to go either. Now she understood why he’d been so intentionally ambiguous about whose funeral it was and why he’d placed so much emphasis on the tasks to be done while he was away. In his defense, Lydia admitted to herself that he couldn’t have known what her interactions with Mrs. Simmons meant to her, and there really was a lot of work to do.

  Thinking back to her two encounters with Gerald’s mother, Lydia couldn’t remember a time when this woman and Luke would have even exchanged glances. She figured this was at best an unspoken company obligation or at worst something Luke was doing to increase his standing in the company. Either way it didn’t seem likely that he would let her go if she asked. Even if he did, she was quite sure the skirt she was wearing was inappropriately short for a funeral. The last line of the obituary scared her off more than anything. It read, “Reverend Joseph Ballard officiating.”

  After half an hour of work, Lydia realized that she wouldn’t be able to get the funeral out of her mind. She decided to give Oscar a call.

  She was about to hang up when he finally answered the phone. He tried to pretend he hadn’t just woken up, but Lydia knew better.

  “So how well do you know her?” he asked after Lydia explained the situation.

  “I only met her twice, but I feel like in a small way that if it wasn’t for her, this project wouldn’t be happening, and even if it was, I wouldn’t be in charge of it.”

  “Well, I say if you feel any connection with her at all, and if you can spare the time, you should go.”

  “I don’t know, my boss is going and I don’t think he wants me to go.”

  “What’s he going to do? Fire you? For going to a funeral? Come on, he can’t be that big of a jerk.” Oscar was trying to be reassuring, but his counter-evidence wasn’t doing a good job of helping Lydia to see Luke in a rational light.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Did you even ask him if you could go?”

  “He had already left before I found out.”

  “Where is the funeral anyway?”

  “It’s at St. Alexander’s Cathedral,” Lydia said, reading from the obituary page still open on her computer.

  “That’s perfect,” he shot back. “That’s really close to your office and it’s a really big building. You could easily zip over, slip in, sit somewhere near the back and zip out when it’s done. No one would even have to notice you were there. What else is holding you back?”

  “It might sound pretty minor, but I didn’t come to work today dressed for a funeral.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “And I’ve never gone to a funeral by myself either.”

  “You’re right, that is pretty minor,” Oscar said unapologetically. “You should just go.”

  When Lydia was finally convinced that she should go, she began to calculate what would all be necessary to be done before she could go. There was too much work to be done for her to leave the office for any length of time. There certainly wasn’t enough time to go to her apartment for a change of clothes. If she could convince Oscar to help though, it might work.

  “If you’re so insistent on me going, can you do me a huge favour?” Lydia asked.

  “Sure,” he said, with less enthusiasm than Lydia was hoping for.

  “I have some clothes at the dry cleaners. If you come here, I’ll give you the tickets so you can go pick up the outfit I need. Could you do that for me?”

  “Well, I do need a reason to get out of this house. Anything else I could do today involves confronting members of the Evangeline support group, and I’m not sure I’m up for that just yet.”

  “Okay,” she said with a sigh of relief. “When you get here I’ll tell you how to find the drycleaners.”

  In the meantime, Lydia rearranged her work schedule for the day and let a few people in the office know where she was going. She also put a little thought into what she might say if someone else from the company saw her there. If Luke said anything she’d just say that she didn’t find out about it until after he’d left, which was true, and if she saw Gerald, she’d try to find a professional but sincere way of saying how meaningful her two encounters with his mother had been. She was really hoping she wouldn’t have to talk to either of them.

  Lydia expected Oscar to just roll out of bed before heading to meet her at the office. When he showed up, however, not only was it clear that he had showered and shaved, but he was dressed as though he was planning on going to church.

  “Were you thinking of coming with me?” she asked.

  “Is that okay?”

  “Yes, I was going to ask over the phone, but I didn’t think you would be up for it.”

  “Did you think I had something better to do?” he asked with a wry smile.

  Lydia gave him a handwritten map to the drycleaners, her credit card so he could pay for the work and the keys to her car so he could get there and back quickly. She didn’t own too many outfits that she would feel comfortable wearing to a funeral, but she was able to mentally throw together an ensemble from the clothes Oscar would be picking up.

  Lydia had also told Oscar where he could pick up lunch for the two of them. After eating a quick meal with him at her desk, she changed and they left for the funeral.

  As they pulled into the church parking lot, Lydia thought about how glad she was that she had changed her outfit. Granted, they were almost all seniors, but the other women she saw walking into the church were already considerably more modestly dressed than she was.

  Inside the front doors, Oscar picked up a program for the funeral and pointed Lydia toward the guest book, which she reluctantly si
gned. “Do you want to stop at the casket?” he asked.

  She didn’t want to, but it looked like everyone else was. “Yeah, we probably should,” she said, “but I don’t want to stay too long, in case my boss sees me.”

  When it was their turn Oscar stood with Lydia at the casket for what he thought was an appropriate amount of time. He was about to gesture that they move on when Lydia started crying, which came as a surprise to both of them.

  “It’s just that … ,” she began after managing to pull herself together.

  “It’s okay,” said Oscar, who by this point had his arm around Lydia. “It’s okay.”

  They sat quietly as they waited for the service to start. Oscar was sure to pick out a pew near an exit at the back, so that they could leave early if they needed to.

  “I guess I won’t get her pie recipe now,” Lydia said.

  “I didn’t think you baked.”

  “I don’t, but when I was with her, I thought that maybe I could.”

  Lydia was browsing the program as they waited. It had a brief obituary, an outline of the service, and an image on the front of pearly gates. “Do you think she’s in heaven now?” she asked after a while.

  “No, I don’t think she is.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly after sensing surprise, anger and disappointment in her voice. Looking around, he saw no sign of the funeral starting, so he gave a longer explanation.

  “With all the conversations we’ve had about theology, I thought you were asking what I believed about the afterlife, not about whether or not this particular woman is good enough to get into heaven. I’m sure she was a wonderful person, and from what I’ve read in this program and the little you said about her, I have every reason to believe she meets the criteria most Christians and mainstream people might have for getting into heaven. I just understand the timing differently.”

  “I don’t get it,” Lydia said, confused but slightly reassured by his explanation. “What timing are you talking about?”

  “Well, most church people believe that when we die we are immediately sent to heaven, hell, or something in between, where we wait for everyone else. The Bible generally explains the afterlife a little differently though. It talks about everyone being judged at the same time, the living and the dead. So I don’t believe she’s in heaven now because I think she’ll get into heaven the same time as … everyone else … who’s going to heaven.”

  “So you think that when we die we just wait in nothingness for a while?”

  “Sort of, but I think the way we understand time is restricted because of the limits placed on us by our physical reality. So, when we die, we are released from that restriction.”

  Lydia shook her head and said, “Doesn’t that sound a little too technical?”

  Oscar replied, “And you were looking for something a little more …?”

  “Comforting?” she suggested. “We are at a funeral, aren’t we?”

  “Some religious people like to use the afterlife as an incentive to be good, just like some parents use Christmas as an incentive for their kids to behave. But if you look back on your childhood, I’m sure you could think of lots of other reasons to be respectful and kind besides just getting stuff for Christmas. Eventually you stopped believing in Santa Claus, but you knew the gifts were still coming. How meaningful those gifts are doesn’t depend on whether you’ve been naughty or nice, but on what kind of relationship you’ve built up with the giver of the gifts.”

  Lydia was almost wishing she’d brought her notebook along. She realized that this was her first Christian funeral in a long time and Oscar’s views on the afterlife probably warranted recording some information. Since she thought it might look a little odd if she was taking notes at a funeral, she figured it was probably best that she had left it at the office.

  The organ started to play and Lydia turned around to see a procession coming down the aisle near them. She wasn’t sure if she should hide her face from Gerald, but his head was mostly down and only slightly forward, so he didn’t notice her as he walked by.

  Until now, she hadn’t thought to look for Luke. She quickly spotted him sitting near the front with some members of the Board of Directors. Also, in the pew opposite that group was Gus, the professor from the development team. Lydia was still glad she had come, but as Reverend Ballard came in and took his spot near the pulpit, she was glad she was sitting so close to the back.

  The service started with some singing. Lydia was glad to see that Oscar was fumbling through the songbook and tripping over the rhythms of some of the songs like she was. Somehow everyone near them seemed to know the songs quite well.

  “I grew up with a different song book,” Oscar whispered after Lydia snickered over one of his slip-ups, “and the church I go to now just uses a digital projector instead of books.”

  After the hymns, a few people gave some words of tribute. Even though they had only met twice, it seemed that Lydia’s impression of the old woman was very similar to what was expressed by the grandchildren and some of the other senior ladies from the church.

  Gerald was the last one to give a tribute. Even though it was a funeral, Lydia wasn’t expecting the show of emotion or the continuous outpouring of affection from this man she knew only from professional settings. For the second time that afternoon, she found herself crying.

  After the sharing, Reverend Ballard took his place behind the pulpit. He had the same presence as a public speaker as he did during his interview with her. She wondered why everyone else couldn’t see through his obviously fake smile. While she believed his compliments of Gerald’s mother to be true, they sounded so generic that they could apply to almost anyone.

  He went on to describe the paradise into which this woman had been released. Maybe it was because of what Oscar had said earlier, but the fanciful description of her new surroundings, the long list of newly possible reunions and all the activities she could now do without pain all sounded like fluff to her. As Lydia looked around the sanctuary at a congregation made up mostly of seniors, many were happily nodding in agreement with those depictions.

  “This is almost a little too comforting, even for me,” she whispered discretely to Oscar, “but they all seem to be buying it.”

  Oscar carefully put his arm on the pew behind Lydia, not so that his arm was around her, but so that he could lean in closer to her ear and wouldn’t have to speak as loudly. She wasn’t entirely uncomfortable with his arm being on the pew behind her, but she really didn’t want Luke or Gerald to see it.

  “Preachers sometimes have to say what the people want to hear, and sometimes what they need to hear. At a funeral, it’s a combination of the two.”

  After they had been in the church for an hour, Lydia started to shift around. It turned out that she wasn’t at all accustomed to sitting in wooden church pews. As she moved, part of her blouse rubbed against Oscar’s hand, which was still placed casually behind her. He realized for the first time the awkwardness of what he’d done and instinctively pulled his hand back. The whole time he was dating Evangeline, she would never let him put his arm around her at church. When they were engaged though, she invited him to do it, and in front of as many people as possible.

  Lydia’s physical discomfort from sitting so long was soon alleviated when the congregation was invited to stand for a final liturgical reading and hymn. During the last verse, the family began to recess out through the middle aisle where they had come in. This time, some people along the aisles would reach out to shake their hands or offer words of condolence. After greeting a few of these well wishers, Gerald was heading toward the pew where Lydia was standing. She didn’t want to hide from him, but she wasn’t going to take a step out to greet him either. Unaware of her indecision, Gerald stopped at their pew and smiled.

  “Lydia, I’m so glad you came. I really must move along, but there are a few things I’d like to say to you about my mother. Will I see you at the comm
ittal service?”

  “Of course,” she said confidently as he nodded and continued walking.

  “He wants you to come along to the cemetery,” Oscar said after Lydia looked at him with a confused expression on her face. “There’s a short program before they bury the casket.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to call the office about a few things on the way. Maybe you should drive.”

  When she got off the phone and the procession hadn’t yet arrived at the cemetery, Lydia looked up at Oscar and said, “Who do you think gets into heaven?”

  “At various times in history, the wrong answer to that question could get a person killed,” he answered.

  “Relax,” she said with sarcastic reassurance, “this isn’t the Inquisition, I’m just curious what you think.”

  “I think the best thing about heaven is that God will be there, and in the same way, the worst thing about hell will be that God won’t be there. So to put it simply, the people who have demonstrated that they want to be with God will, and people who haven’t won’t.”

  “Okay,” Lydia said. “I can handle that.”

  “What about you? What do you think is the criteria for getting into heaven, or do you believe in heaven at all?”

  “I guess I’ve never really thought about it,” Lydia admitted. “I would like to believe in heaven, and just that you had to be good to get in, but I wouldn’t know where to draw the line between good and bad.”

  “Do you find that more comforting?” Oscar asked.

  “Being comforted isn’t the necessarily the point is it?”

  “You know how people say that religion is the opiate for the masses?” he asked.

  “I’ve heard that a time or two,” said Lydia, not wanting to admit that she had also repeated it more than once.

  “Well,” he continued, “if you find someone in pain and you take away their drugs, even if it’s because the medicine is worse than the disease, aren’t you still obligated to give them something for the pain?”

  “So you’re okay with religion just being a pain-killer?” Lydia asked, assuming his question was rhetorical.

  This was the first time Oscar had thought about it this way, so he thought for a bit before he answered. “It shouldn’t just make me feel better, but it should make me respond to the hurting of the people around me too. Religion shouldn’t just kill my pain, but it should help me kill the pain of others.”

  “So are you saying that religion isn’t completely useless?” Lydia asked.

  “I guess not,” he conceded. “Oh, and unlike other pain-killers, there shouldn’t be any negative side effects either.”

  “Hey, you know how drug companies make TV commercials for their new products and they tack on a long list of disclaimers about potential side effects? What do you think an ad for a pain-killer called Christianity would look like?”

  “I’ve never thought of that before,” he said. “Most churches would probably want it to sound something like this: ‘Talk to a pastor to see if Christianity is right for you. Side effects may include humility, generosity, hope, love and peace.’”

  “I think I would prefer something like this, ‘Christianity may not be right for everyone. If you have a history of self-righteousness, you should think twice before joining a church. Christianity should not be used in combination with aggressive military or political campaigns.’”

  “Yeah,” Oscar added. “Talk to your pastor if you are prone to bouts of apathy or if you have an aversion to being associated with losers. Be sure to read the directions carefully.”

  When they arrived at the cemetery, Lydia had to take a second regain a solemn expression on her face.

  Getting out of the car, they bumped right into Luke. He was also walking toward the burial site.

  “I thought you were supposed to be taking care of the office,” he said.

  “Everything is under control there,” she said apologetically. “It’s just that I only found out about the funeral after you left this morning, and I really felt compelled to attend.

  “I’m sure you did,” he said with a condescending smile. “You should probably head back as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, I was going to go back straight from the church, but Gerald said he wanted to talk to me here.”

  “I see. Well then I guess I’ll see you back at the office.” Then, as he left, Lydia noticed Luke flash an odd grin at Oscar.

  “What was that all about?” she asked as they started walking toward the small crowd of people.

  “What do you mean?” asked Oscar, who had been politely quiet during the brief conversation.

  “He gave you a really weird look as he walked by you, like you two were part of some underground society or something.”

  “Oh, that,” he said with a slight smile. “I think that was his way of saying he’s on to my game plan.”

  “What do you mean? What’s your ‘game plan’?” she asked.

  “If anything, he should have given that look to you, not me. You’re the one who brought me here. You’re the one who’s taking advantage of me in my time of vulnerability.”

  “Oh,” Lydia said, letting out a burst of laughter, both at what Luke had said and Oscar’s euphemistic explanation. Her laugh was much louder than she wanted it to be, given her surroundings.

  “Don’t make me laugh,” she implored, giving him a smack on the arm. “We are still at a funeral.”

  “Lydia, when you die, do you want everyone moping around at your funeral, suppressing every possible happy emotion?” he asked.

  “Maybe not,” she conceded, “but still … and for your information, I didn’t invite you. You came here on your own.”

  At the cemetery there was more singing, praying and other rituals that Lydia didn’t quite understand. After the casket was lowered and people started to leave, Lydia made her way over to Gerald.

  “It was a beautiful service,” she said, “a fitting tribute to a woman of your mother’s character.”

  “It was, wasn’t it? And thanks again for coming,” Gerald said. “I wanted to say that even though my mother only met you a few times, she spoke highly of you. She was glad that you were the one to head up our latest book project, and she had high hopes for your work.”

  “That means a lot to me,” Lydia said, starting to well up again. “It’s too bad that she won’t be here to see it come to completion.”

  “It truly is. It was nice of Luke to tell you about the funeral. I never thought to send a company memo about it.”

  “Actually, it was Oscar from the development team that told me. He was nice enough to come along too, so I didn’t have to come on my own.” Then, trying to be as diplomatic as possible, she added, “Luke didn’t tell us at the office where he was going this morning, and he didn’t know I was coming. I only decided to come after he left.”

  “I’ll see to it that you don’t get into any trouble for coming,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Keep up the good work on the book project.”

  “Thank you,” Lydia said with a friendly smile.

  “So what did he say?” Oscar asked as she walked back toward him.

  “He said his mom had talked about me,” she said. “Isn’t that nice?”

  “How much did you two talk about the book?” he asked.

  “Only as it related to his mom,” Lydia replied. “I wasn’t going to bring up work stuff today.”

  Oscar pointed back towards where Gerald was standing and asked, “Do you think they’re talking about work stuff?”

  Lydia looked and saw him standing amidst a group of Westminster Printers people. There was Luke and Melvin from the office, Gus, Reverend Ballard and a few men she recognized from the Board of Directors. Given that circle, she sincerely hoped that they weren’t talking about the book.

  “So where are my keys?” Lydia asked as they approached the car.

  “Oh, I’ve still got them,” Oscar said, taking them out of his pocket. br />
  “I can talk to everyone when I get to the office.” Lydia said, extending her hand. “Give me the keys. I’ll drive.”

  Draft: From Orphan to Overseer

  “I tell you the truth,” [Jesus] said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others.” – Luke 21: 3 (NIV)

  After a year of working at my first missionary assignment I was given permission to take a short vacation. Where I was living was a twelve hour bus ride from one of the villages I had spent some time in as a kid. I wrote to the church my parents had started and they assured me that the church was still very much active and that they would love it if I would grace them with my presence. An old friend was mentioned as someone who was especially interested in hosting me in his home.

  I was about five when Jacques’ parents were killed. It was never exactly clear what had happened, whether it was a tribal conflict, a robbery gone bad or if his parents had some underworld connections, but one night Jacques was sent out to get supplies from another village and when he returned he found his parents and siblings had been murdered. At the age of fifteen, alone in his grief, he was left to tend the farm all by himself.. Though his family had never been connected to the church, my parents responded immediately. My father organized and paid for the funeral. My mother and the other women prepared food for him, and they continued to do that for years. Other farmers from the church dropped in to help with farm labour, lend tools and supplies and offer farm training. This grateful and shy boy started attending our church and was embraced as one of the family. He would often stand up at church and tell how others in the community despised him because of his poverty but that he was grateful to have found a place where he was loved. My parents spoke of him often, as though he alone was tangible proof that they had done some good in their time in that country.

  When I got off the bus I was surprised to see that this once poor and painfully thin teenager could now almost be called fat and he was wearing relatively expensive clothes. He showed me around his farm and took extra effort to show how many animals he had and how many other people were working for him. I was expecting a straw hut, but he had one of the nicest homes in the whole village.

  “God has been good to you,” I said.

  “I have received many blessings,” he replied.

  That Sunday I joined him and his family at the old church. The building was still standing, but Jacques made sure to point out the additions he had single-handedly paid for. Inside I was disappointed to find that there were almost no new families from when my parents left. Attendance was around half of what I remembered. I observed that many people spoke politely to Jacques, but he was once a loved and cherished member of the church, and those sentiments were missing that morning.

  When I first arrived I asked him what had happened to the poor, skinny boy I once knew.

  “That boy is no longer here,” he told me happily.

  The longer I stayed in that village the more it became clear that Jacques’ had become a power family within the church. No one dared sit in the pew that was unofficially reserved for him and his wife. If he withheld support from a pastor on a certain issue, the pastor was forced to either back down or he was fired. Everyone was careful to seek his approval for church policy decisions because he would hold back donations if he didn’t like changes and he would complain openly until they were fixed. Worst of all, in the eyes of many in the community, this church was more famous for his involvement than for any of the good work they did or positive things they taught.

  Power families exist in almost all churches. While strong families and extended family networks provide stability in a church setting, those power dynamics interfere with the work a church is supposed to do. Families like these have the power to mobilize their congregations to carry out the word and work of the gospel but they also have the power to muzzle pastors and stifle church growth. The Kingdom of God needs parents who model humility for their children and who follow Christ’s model of servant leadership. The church also requires rich people and influential individuals who model generosity to those who would otherwise inherit their fortune.

  Well-established families who put their own interests ahead of the Kingdom will not empower the churches they presume to serve, instead they will lead to the downfall of the churches that will inevitably refuse to serve them.