more pilfering from The Gum Thief

"A few years back I had to organize my son Brendan's, funeral. Joan was completely wrecked, and I was barely keeping it together. I remember sitting there with the funeral director, trying to think of what to say in the death notice or whom I could invite to speak. I drew a blank, and the director, an older guy - white hair, a head shaped like a stone dug out of a Scottish field, a guy who'd been through a trench or two - suggested that no one had to speak and we could recite grade school stuff like the Lord's Prayer. He said that most people know it by heart, and we could all get through the proceedings with a sliver of dignity.

He must have smelled my breath-tequila-because he looked at me a moment, then went to his desk and pulled out some very peaty Scotch, almost like soil syrup, and poured both of us a few fingers. He told me that most people who come to arrange services don't believe in anything. He said that if he's learned anything from doing his job, it's that if you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis. He said we're told by TV and movies and Reader's Digest that a crisis will trigger massive personal change - and that those big changes will make the pain worthwhile. But from what he could see, big change almost never happens. People simply feel lost. They have no idea what to say or do or feel or think. They become messes and tend to remain messes. Having a few default hymns and prayers at least makes the lack of crisis-born insight bearable. The man was a true shepherd of souls. Why don't men like him run for public office?"

Extract from The Gum Thief, by Douglas Coupland.

Painfully insightful. Chillingly honest ... "if you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis."

Lessons in life:

#1 - growth through adversity is not automatic, it requires the right (disciplined and faithful) response to the adversity.

#2 - if a faithful attitude cannot be cultivated when times are good, don't expect it to magically appear when the going gets tough.