Went to a funeral this week.    A lady my wife had known growing up.  Let's call her Natalie (not her real name).

By the way, have you noticed the way technology has invaded funeral homes?  Gone are the days of the old organ parked in the corner.  Respectable funeral homes now have electronic keyboards.  Forget that old fashioned paper registry book you used to sign to let the grieving family know of your visit.  More often than not these days you’ll sign an iPad.

Instead of mere poster boards sporting yellowed photo collections, most funeral homes today will scan those photos and make them into a DVD that plays at the visitation or memorial service.

Predictable and nostalgic

Such was the case at the funeral home where we found ourselves in Bureau County, Illinois.  The slide show was everything you'd expect.  We saw pictures of Natalie as a young girl growing up in very rural Wyoming, Natalie with her siblings, then Natalie getting married. Next it was snapshots of Natalie's own children...family vacations...various churches where she and her husband ministered over the years.

Punctured my balloon of tranquility

All of this was entirely predictable and nostalgic.  Then I saw something on the screen that punctured my balloon of tranquility--a photo of Natalie volunteering in a home for children who happen to have Down syndrome.   Natalie was seated at a table, surrounded by a bunch of mentally challenged guys.  The slide on the screen showed arrows and names pointing to two of these boys.  One arrow pointed to "Chucky" and the other identified "Peter."  Both were smiling. Both were having a grand time.   And both were the special object of Natalie's focus--for years.

Uncomfortable Questions

As the funeral service continued, I wondered: When my turn comes, will there be even one face on the screen we could draw an arrow toward as someone I've invested in?   Exactly how much of my time and attention is shared with "the least of these?"

Funerals have a way of asking uncomfortable questions of the living.