that everyone you know someday will die?"

Frank and Jayc. thanks a lot. i was getting ready to go to the ren fest and now i have to sit down and add my two cents. or dollar fifty, since death is a topic i can never exhaust.

yes, it's all true. jayc + traces of death = upset hubbie for two weeks before he even MENTIONED it to me. death has always opened an interesting window into jayc's mind. the first year we were married, a guy shot himself in front of his wife in the hallway of our apartments. i went out and folded my laundry and watched as the clean up crew sopped up the brilliant life mess. jayc was so unnerved he couldn't sleep in the same apartment that night. we ended up at phill's watching happy movies to get his mind off of it.

then there were the very SAD years when we watched his sweet little sister lose three children after they were born. Joy, Kyle, and Bradley. and we had to sit through three baby funerals, which are the WORST kind of funerals. i watched jayc grieve as much as his own sister did. and i watched him never come to terms with it, which in many ways became the beginning of his "falling away".

that's where i'm going with this. the connection between death and religion.

i understand what you guys are saying. the documentary bowling for columbine did it to me. i got physically ill at how cheap human life can be. but mostly i'm morbidly (i guess it HAVE to be morbid) fascinated with death. or specifically my OWN death. what i'm terrified of is the lack of existence.

a concept in mormonism is that your spirit still exists after you die, and that is a good thing for me to believe. have you ever been to a mormon funeral? they're sad, yes, but everyone comforts each other with the thought that they'll see their loved one again. i like to think that. i like to think i'll be with jayc after we both die of old age or a car accident.

so this brings me to an interesting point in what religion does for people. i'm kinda of a mind that religion has existed from the beginning as a way to COPE with our own mortality.

death is the great equalizer. everybody has it coming.

we cling to our beliefs, whatever they are, so that we won't feel our lives are worthless.

jayc couldn't find his death comfort where everybody was telling him to. he found it on a stage with three walls. he found it in the same place he found his greatest joy and most sacrifice. when he says theatre is a religion, he means it in the deepest sense, a balm for the masses.

well, i have to stop here. i'm making us late. i guess that's what death does, in a way. maybe i'll pick up later, maybe i won't.

E.