I attended my grandmother's funeral last week. Of course, there was a pastor who spoke at the service. My mother and uncle were both impressed with the effort he put forth in getting to know something about my grandmother so he could speak about her in a personal manner. He hit all the standard points (Genesis 2:17; John 3:16-17; John 11), trying very hard to get us to ignore the corpse lying there in the room with us. I couldn't help feeling sorry for the pastor (maybe because my heart was softened by grief and I wasn't in the mood to be critical or maybe because he seemed like a genuinely nice person in spite of his religious belief) because every last person in the room knew in their hearts his words weren't true. You don't weep for a friend whose temporarily gone away on a wonderful journey that you're going to see again in a little while.