Danny ChaiAbby was recently asked to be a flower girl. After being asked, they asked her, “Do you like flowers?”
Her response: “I like ice cream.”
I, for one, heartily endorse the concept of an ice cream girl at weddings. It’s the 21st century. Let’s spice things up a little.
I recently had a dream in which my death was imminent. And in my dream, at the moment I realized I was going to die, I found myself filled with dread. When I woke up, I was at first relieved, then really disturbed at my reaction. Yeah, it was just a dream, but I feel like my reaction was reflective of my conscious mind. And what was reflected is that I’m afraid of dying.
That disturbs me because I’m a Christian, and Christians of all people should be ready to die. Maybe not eager. But ready. And unafraid. That I wasn’t in my dream was, to me, an attitude check. Either my faith and assurance of salvation is weak, or I’m clinging on to stuff in this world too tightly and not ready to give it up yet. I suspect both are somewhat true.
I think I’ve written this before, but my attitude toward worldly possessions has long been, if it would bother me greatly to lose it, don’t buy it. I think it’s mostly served me well. For the record, that applies to everything, including my 401k. Jieun has actually challenged me in the past about whether it’s Biblical to save for retirement at all, whether we should, instead, be giving it away and trusting in the Lord. I disagree with her, but I really love that she has those inclinations. My personal belief is that saving for retirement is prudent, but I don’t put confidence in it. It’s entirely possible that the U.S. will implode (in fact, it’s a certainty at some point in the future – no country lasts forever). Maybe the U.S. will someday become like Zimbabwe (the Cato Institute recently estimated Zimbabwe’s inflation rate to be 89.7 sextillion percent. 89700000000000000000000%. That boggles the mind) and all our savings will become worthless. That’s unfortunate, but I try to have the mindset such that I’d be OK with it, not hold on too tight to anything.
But am I holding on too tightly to life itself? Thinking about how I reacted in the dream, I think I am.
St. Benedict wrote: “Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die.” Ever since my dream I’ve been taking this to heart, trying to find a memento mori. So I’ve been scanning the obituaries daily. I’ve said how I read the paper every day – the obituaries was one of the few sections I skipped entirely. Now I scan it, looking for people younger than me. They pop up from time to time. And it’s a good reminder.
OK, morbid.