Mondays and Playlists

Mondays are.....

Well, Mondays in autumn are......

Um.  Mondays.  Our week would be a day shorter without them.

Anyway.  It's Monday.  I'm still feeling shell shocked from last week.  I'm looking around my office and seeing all of the little things that need to get done.  I've decided....I'll get done what I get done and worry about the leftovers tomorrow.

So, last week was a week of funerals and meetings and constant motion.  There might have been a time in life when I was better equipped to deal with it.  But then, I think life was less busy when I had more energy.  Now, it's constant mental and emotional motion, even if it's not always constant physical motion.  The only time to really be alone (something that I'm more and more jealous of) is driving too and from work. 

That drive - as much as I love and hate it - is often my saving grace.  It's the time to reconnect with the broader world or disconnect from the narrower one.  It's the time to pray earnestly, cry with abandon, and think.  One thing that I've been thinking about for over ten years (one of the benefits of getting older is that you get to lay claim to having thought about something for a substantial period of time...rather than...say...a week) is my funeral playlist.  I actually had several songs written down at one point, but that list has long since been lost to humanity. 

Why a funeral playlist?  Well, maybe it's better to call it a "death event" playlist to encompass any callings and funerals and whatnot.  There are a few reasons. 

First, I love music.  I think it's the best way to say something with impact while avoiding a confrontational tone.  I can sing things that would be too hard to say.  In the same way, I can hear a difficult message in a song that would be too hard to listen to if spoken.  If you are going to have flowers to memorialize my passing, you have to have twice as much music. 

Second, if you know me, you know I have something to say.  I have something to say about a lot of things.  When I'm dead, I'll still have something to say, and I'll leave most of behind in that playlist. 

Finally, I believe that music is medicinal.  It's a balm for our spirits and a boon for our souls.  It gives us courage and sets our mood.  When I'm dead, I don't want people to be broken.  I want to be remembered (the good AND the bad), and I want to be missed (for awhile, at least).  I don't want anyone's life, however, to stop because of me (well, maybe for a day or two).  I hope my playlist will be a reminder of my stepping out of this small world and into the greater, tangible presence of YHWH.  I hope that it will make people smile and cry and ponder their own movement through the proving ground of Earth (or whatever other place we might have gotten to by that point).

So, just so you know - I'm adding the playlist over there on the side so that I can easily update it, and you can easily find it.