I wonder about Jesus. I mean by that I will not question His statements, but I wonder sometimes when He says, "No greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for another".
The reason I wonder is I wonder about grave digging.
By that, Americans just are not grave diggers. They hire it all done now in backhoes doing all the hard work in about 15 minutes, and they smooth it all about that fast while the families are still on the road to some funeral feast that all tastes like cardboard.
My dad dug graves by hand. He always said that baby graves were the hardest as they were so small.
My neighbor who is now dead buried his stillborn child in their grove by their house. I doubt the people who bought the place have any idea a grave is about 50 feet from their door.
The reason I'm pondering all this, as I have seen the worst in people when others die. Most grab onto things and others are busy burning things. One is about holding onto comfort in obsession and the other is ridding oneself from grief.
When my dad died, one of the relative inlaws happened to be hovering around the funeral home casket displays, and while I was a child, I never really was paying attention, but this ass had the gaul to say, "He was simple man. He really wouldn't want anything fancy".
The reason that phrase was said, was this tight wad was worried about being stuck with part of the funeral bill.
I wonder what kind of hell this pew sitter is going to be sentenced to for being that kind of self serving jerk in other's grief he had no business in.
It is a jerk like that who when it came to 6 foot under rectangle would start sloping the sides of the grave about 6 inches down and start negotiating that, "You know a shallow grave is just as good as a deep one".
For me the depth of a grave you have to dig in heavy soil that sticks to your spade is the depth of your affection for the one you claim to love.
Allot of people are dragged into shallow graves and all those pets people claim are more important than children sure end up in some cardboard box disposed of by the vet.
Digging graves is an artform. It is not something for sand shovels as you always see on television in those magical graves you see dug in minutes in that deep heavy black loam soil. It is the work of the flat spade which cuts square.
I have found that digging effectively is like slicing a cake. You start on one end, work your way four to six inches down, and slice away, scoop out, and back up.
Sometimes you need a tile spade to break heavy ground, but the process is the same.
You know why they buried people in Boot Hill do you not?
Oh my child, experience will tell you that digging graves in lowlands, soon has you in a nice slippery pool of mud, that fills with water.
Yes lazy people dump bodies in the wetness, the same jerks who have ideas about funeral costs, but those kinds of things stick with even asses to haunt them.
So the best grave my children is in light soil, that you can dig fast, on high ground, without rocks........as there are few things worse than going 4 foot down and hitting a rock the size of a dining table and you have to start over or have a real big monument you leverage out taking you days to deal with........and most people do not appreciate a boulder sitting there in the cemetery.
That brings me back to Jesus with all respect. I know Jesus is always right in laying down one's life for another shows no greater love.........but maybe grave digging reveals more what kind of character you have in doing things right when it really doesn't matter to anyone, but a memory in respect of the dead.
Grave digging though is hard, but it brings peace in working out the grief in a supremely monumental effort when you do it right for another who is in a place where graves do not matter.
Tears are what people shed for someone. Sweat is what people shed for their healing. Each shovel brings peace and each shovel back brings relief it is all over and one can let go.
nuff said.
