Billy Goat Log: 09/21/2010, 11:05 PM EDST

• That Sunday, Pam sang in the choir. She chatted with her friends, and cuddled her grandchild in her arms. I remember saying hi to her in the church lobby. Tuesday morning was her surgery. It was a serious surgery, but all went well. The Doc was ready to close things up. A blood vessel burst. Only 50 years old and she was gone just like that.
  
  I was shocked when I opened the e-mail from church and read the terse one line statement. Sunday she was living.... How could she be dead? We were casual acquaintances, and Pam and her family were involved members of our church. She sang in the choir and sang in the ladies' trio with her good friends Wendy and Brinda. From the very first time we started attending our church, Pam and her family had always been part of it.
  
  The next day the news came with details about the visitation and the funeral. One son was in boot camp for the National Guard. He would be coming home to say goodbye to his mom...
  
  We were not able to make the visitation, but did get to the funeral on Saturday. I went into the church, and the casket was in the foyer, still open. I saw Pam laying there; that dear, dear Christan sister we all loved so well. Seeing her there, I came close to losing it. Then the casket was closed. She was so very much alive when I saw her Sunday. The next time I see her, she is in that casket. She was there, but she was not there. The body was there. The spirit was in the arms of Jesus.
  
  The service glorified the Lord and Saviour Pam loved and served. On her chair in the choir loft was a choir stole and one rose. Afterwards at the luncheon that was served, we offered our condolences to her husband and children.
  
  Pam is gone. When we go to church, she will not be there... Someday we will see her again. That body laid in the casket to be put in the grave will be resurrected and reunited with the spirit that had been torn from it in death. Our mourning will finally once and for all be turned to joy.
  
  In the meantime, we who knew and loved her will miss her. RIP dear sister in Christ...
  
  
• The days are shorter. The leaves are starting to turn. In two days Autumn will officially be here.
  
  
• It took me some time to do the last post on the Lord's table. Things kept coming up, and it was hard to find the concentration of time needed to work on it. At one point I thought it was ready to post, but didn't have time to finish it up. When I got back to it, I found myself rewriting some things because as I had reflected further, I found I was not in full agreement with how I had stated some things. There are some things about the Lord's table I'm still pondering on. There are times when the answers are not as clear cut, or as black and white as we want to think they are.
  
  
• Recent reading: I revisited I Sing the Body Electric! by Ray Bradbury. There is a lengthy poem at the end of the book called "Christus Apollo" which has a distinct Christan motif. That poem may be worth doing a review on sometime in the future. Bradbury has a way of writing sci-fi that makes the humanity of the characters more the story then the sci-fi setting of the story. Human needs don't change that much no matter what the technology.
  
  
• And my alma mater, Michigan State University, beat Notre Dame by using a fake field goal in overtime this past Saturday night. And it was good... :)
  
  Detroit Lions lose again... (Sigh...)

~ The Billy Goat ~