“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I found the whole funeral experience quite interesting, though I understood little of what was going on. A priest gave a short talk at the funeral home, leading it off, maybe for shock value, by telling us that sooner or later every one of us would experience the same thing Joe Bumbalo had. The room was very impressive, with its beamed ceiling. I thought the timeless quality, of light and so forth, inside the large room where the casket lay was more than a little symbolic in itself, isolated as the room was from the apparent time of day, night, or season.

(Perhaps 20–25 people were at graveside, compared to the much larger group at the church. The priests spoke briefly. They were perfectly sincere people, and I found it arresting to listen to them as they spoke of Jesus Christ, the afterlife, and so forth, with such utter sincerity and conviction. Their commitment was for life, I thought, and so was bound to be different than most other people’s. I wondered how often they went through roughly the same procedures with the dead, and speculated about how their sincerity and love must have stood them in good stead at such often-repeated times. For each time, they had to ring true to those left behind, adding those necessary personal touches, and references and little stories, to match the personal history of the newly deceased.

(I didn’t stay for the lowering of the casket. I don’t know whether the immediate family did or not. John Bumbalo had made arrangements for someone to give me a ride back to the hospital, where my car was. Jane and I went over the booklet of burial rites after lunch. I felt peaceful and tired, and put off starting these notes for a long time.

(At the funeral home a friend had told me he didn’t know how Jane and I stood it after all this time. I said you either rose to the occasion or you didn’t. He agreed, and offered to help us in any way he could, which I told him I appreciated very much. I do.)

(I’d told her several times in recent days that I thought her right knee was draining considerably less as a rule, and that several other scabs on her body were showing signs of clearing up. The swelling on her left shoulder blade varies considerably in size from day to day.

(I didn’t expect her to have a session. When she did, her voice was quite uneven; she spoke with many pauses, at times in a peculiar pronunciation that I had trouble understanding. Eyes often closed.)