"I'm flying home tonight, I've got a ticket bound for my shore ..."

That's a line from a Michelle Tumes song that I always sing to myself when I fly home. Unfortunately I am flying home this time for the funeral of my friend and pastor, Dr. Scott G. Bauer. There are a lot of thoughts in my head about Pastor Scott, which I hope to be able to write down some time in the near future. Now is not the time, though, and I don't think is the best venue for them. Maybe later, after I've had a chance to attend the service and write to his family.

Death is a very funny thing. On the one hand I think, "would that he were not dead ..." But I also think that is a very silly thought. Death, by itself, is neither a calamity nor an ending, and in many ways it is a blessing. It is strange to me how human nature cries out for an end to death, an end to pain, an end to suffering, and yet views with horror the very thing which delivers that release. Partially of course my grief at his death is the grief of losing him ... as if he had gone on a very long trip to a place I will never visit. But there is a part of me too which abhors death itself, and I think that is a very silly part of me.

As a side note, the more I study Greek the prettier it seems to me. I think it looks pretty, too. Unfortunately I do not think it looks pretty in Roman characters. This presents me with a problem, because more and more I want my blognames to be in Greek, but when I transliterate them they look silly to me. Well, I shall have to think of something creative.