Tasty

Savory is this planet

Yummy

Lip-smackin’ colors

Sugar-dusted deserts

Crunchy mountains

Sweet flora and succulent fauna

Like a gingerbread house,

We are consuming our home.


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Act Out

Joy is a verb:

Skip like a stone across a still water

Jump to the stars and they'll greet you—"Beloved!"

Life adores you; love It back

Say "Yes!"

Yes


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Preview of My Funeral

As part of my coursework for Practitioner Studies, I had to design my own funeral or memorial service and write a eulogy. Luckily, I had given this some thought so the assignment was a slam dunk. I knew you'd just love to know about it, so here you go.

I plan to be cremated, so there will be a memorial service, not a funeral. I also plan that it should be a whopping good party with lots of music, laughter, and sobbing. It will be held in a big public space, probably at Center for Spiritual Living in Seattle, because I plan to be really popular by then and we'll need space for all the mourners.

The Agenda

1. Everyone arrives and is seated; a flute and harp duo are playing softly in the background; the mood should be subdued. Everybody'd better behave, damn it.
2. There will be a large chip-and-dip bowl prominently displayed in front of a picture of me. More on that later. (Media will be confined to the rear of the room and the periphery so as to not break the mood.)
3. My daughters Terry, Johanna, and Katie will be in charge, welcome everyone, and introduce the minister of my choice to officiate.
4. The minister says a few words.
5. The first event will be a DVD of me reading my own euology. See the script below.
6. Individuals are invited to come forward and say a few words. (This is the sobbing part.)This should take a long time because, as I said, I plan to be really popular by the time I die.
7. This portion of the event being over, everyone moves to the Fellowship Hall where a lavish spread has been catered by Canlis (what else do you do with life insurance money?) and a rockin' good band is playing "Another One Bites the Dust" as people enter. This is the eating and dancing and laughing part.
8. My daughters bring the big chip-and-dip bowl to the party and put it in another prominent place with my picture for everyone's viewing pleasure.
9. The big party now proceeds into the early morning hours. Use some of the life-insurance money to hire people to clean up.

The Ceramic Piece
About that big chip-and-dip bowl, or maybe a cake server on a pedestal: Charlie Krafft has already been contacted (it was easy; he's a friend of my brother-in-law, the famous and wildly entertaining Jim Woodring) to make my cremains into a lovely bone china ceramic piece. My daughters have been instructed to bring me to all future family events in this form so I can keep attending them. My family is a bunch of very amusing whackos and I don't want to miss a single get-together.
The Video Script

Hello, Beloveds. I have a few final words to say and I thank you in advance for listening.
The first funeral I ever went to was for my brother David’s father-in-law, Leo. He was anti-religion and the hired minister who spoke about him never knew him. I didn’t like Leo much; he was an old lech who always made me very uncomfortable, but I remember thinking how sad and false the service was and vowed that I wouldn’t have that.
I thought carefully that day about what I would want said about me. It was simple: I wanted someone who knew me to say, “she wasn’t anywhere near as good as she thought she was and not anywhere near as bad.”
That eulogy I wrote in my head years ago is no longer adequate, mainly because I got over feeling superior—life knocks that out of you if you live long enough, as I have. I’ve also gotten over that very special feeling that I am superiorly bad, too.
The truth is, I’m not as important as I thought I was when I was a young woman at Leo’s funeral and, paradoxically, I am way more important than I knew then. My life has mattered, not because of any external accolades, but because I have had the joy and gift of knowing Good—Good in the universe and Good in every person I've met.
If all has gone as planned (and it had better or I’m coming back to haunt you) there is a lovely bone china something made from my cremains by Charlie Krafft, the world-famous ceramic artist. I planned this years ago, as soon as I found out Charlie provided this service. If and when the piece breaks, Terry has been asked to smash up the pieces and divvy them up among you girls so you can put them in urns on your mantels. Until then, please take me to all family parties in this new form.
You are all so creative and weird and hilarious and unique. I don’t want to miss a single event when you all get together.
That’s all I have to say. I’ve loved life. I’ve known I was loved, and I’ve learned a lot. When you remember me, remember that I loved you with all my heart and tried to show you as often as possible what treasures you are.
Now go party down and celebrate that you are alive because it will be over almost before you know it.

A Good Story About Goodness

Here's a story that I like. Jack Kornfield, if you don't know, is a Buddhist monk and psychologist who always has something relevant to say.

In Soul Food, Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman tell the story of an Illinois family whose daughter became ill and was diagnosed with a life-threatening blood disease.

A search went out for a compatible blood donor but none could be found. Then it was discovered that her six-year-old brother shared her blood type. The boy's mother and doctor sat down with him to ask if he would be willing to donate blood to save the life of his sister.

To their surprise, he did not answer right away. He needed some time to think about it. After a few days, he came back to his mother and announced he would do it.

As Kornfield and Feldman write, "The following day the doctor brought both children to his clinic and placed them on cots next to each other. He wanted them to see how one was helping the other. First he drew a half pint of blood from the young boy's arm. Then he moved it over to his sister's cot and inserted the needle so her brother could see the effect. In a few minutes color began to pour back into her cheeks.

"Then the boy motioned for the doctor to come over. He wanted to ask a question, very quietly.

‘Will I start to die right away?' he asked.

"You see, when he had been asked to donate his blood to save his sister's life, his six-year-old mind understood the process literally."

He believed he was trading his life for his sister's. No wonder he needed a few days to mull it over.

I love this story. People of all sizes are amazing.