funeral crasher

Minnie would have been 104 next week. All week long as I fished listening to the local country music station, there would be periodic reports of the week's funerals (gotta love small towns). The local lutheran church that was the family church of my ice fishing hosts, the Arneson's. Mt Carmel was the site of Minnie's funeral and I got to thinking after I heard it announced about the 5th time..."2 PM on Saturday, I get off the ice at 9, Minnie would want me to be there"  I was heading south toward "the cities" later that day so I wouldn't be there to worship on Sunday at Mt Carmel, and I couldn't leave the area without a visit. For years,  I've been teaching all who would listen that weddings and funerals are worship services first and foremost ...so why not? When Paul Arnesen heard I was going to the funeral, he asked,
"Did you know her?" "No, but I know here neighbors!", "No but I feel like I do." No, but I've been called to sing and pray during that hour at Mt. Carmel"  All of these things turned out to be true. 

When I was checking out of the resort on the way to the church, one of the owners of the fishing resort said when I got my bill, "instead of writing one check to us, write half of it to us, and give the other half to the WELCA ladies in the kitchen..." Imagine their surprise when they got a check from someone named Rev. William Diehm from  Pittsburgh Pa.  After the funeral, I was talking to Minnie's grandson who thanked me for being a part of the throng, "I just thought this was the place I was supposed to be" He said, "Yeah, Minnie would have got a kick out of that" "She was pretty much a corker!" As I was walking toward my car,a woman called after me with a giant bag of sandwhich wedges "Wait, pastor, you may need some nourishment for the road" (don't you know)...(parentheses mine)

Oh those Minnesota church basement ladies, they are the best, well next to the best, next to, ...well ladies you know who you are..bringing life to grieving, as Keillor called it, "the laying on of food"
We are all the better for it. As for Minnie, she would have wanted it that way.