My first chore after stumbling into the washroom some mornings, is to look into the mirror and use all my powers of persuasion to convince that person I see that she's alive, and needs to report for work.
A few weeks ago someone told me about a similar conversation. He'd called an office he'd dealt with before, to request information about his account. "But I noticed," he said, "that the woman at the other end didn't seem to want to talk to me."
It turns out the lady had a good reason for her reluctance. "According to the computer records," he said, "I became deceased last year. I've been dead for months! She just didn't want to talk to a dead man!"
It's exhausting business, trying to convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced that you're not a corpse. Afterwards, he hung up the phone and decided he needed a rest - but not before breaking the news to his wife. He told her she shouldn't ask him to help with the chores anymore, because, after all, "dead men don't work!"
Ignoring my chuckles, he carried on, "And'ya know the worst thing about all this?"
"What's that?"
"I missed my own funeral!" He sounded downright indignant.
I may have too. Within a few weeks of a move to a new community, I turned on the radio just in time to hear announcements of local funerals. A few seconds later, I stood, horrified, listening to the date, time and location of the "funeral for the late Kathleen Gibson."
Timid phone calls began trickling in almost immediately - a few of our new congregation members, wondering, I suspect, if they'd trucked in their piano-playing preacher's wife for nothing.
Me: "Hello."
Silence.
Me again: "Hello?"
Them: "Um is that you, Kathleen?"
Me: "Hmm think so. Last time I checked."
Them: "Whew! I heard (cough) well, I thought well, the radio said (sighs and hesitation) So you're not dead, then?"
We found it funny after we got it all sorted out. No, I didn't mind if they didn't attend my funeral. I'd be too busy myself, working at something or other. And as we all know, dead people don't work.
One day my desk chair will be empty of the crumbling shell my spirit called home for a few years. Reports of my death will start trickling out. The phone calls will be genuine. People will say I'm dead.
Don't believe it. All this time? I've been on a God-assignment. When I've uttered my last word down here, I'm going home, people. Gonna live with Jesus. Gonna get a new body and a heavenly assignment.
"Absent from the body present with the Lord," the Bible says. Christ-followers will be more alive after death than ever before.
Fabulous. No more arguing with the mirror in the morning. And no more funerals. Meet me there.
