Ross said" She is not here... She is gone..."

The mother of a student had passed away... and Ross wanted us to "visit" her... a conundrum invented humans... 

I consented and we drove together to the "visitation"... 
We entered the chapel and our student came to us... later we saw the father and the rest of the things that people do... 
When we looked at the mother... lying there... quiet and motionless... Ross said: "She is gone... she is not here..."
I was taken aback by his comment... Not that it was not true... But the body was still lying there and I never thought of the body spiritually... 
I asked Ross: "Why all of these... when she is gone and she is not here any more...?"  The material surroundings and the coffin and all the flowers and all the people... looked as various degrees of hypocrisy... Those who were alive wanted to show off their respect to the people who were left behind and had nothing to do with the respect that we expressed to the departed... 
Everything temporal... even the church services... were for the living and it is another form of socialization... coming together and consoling each other for the lose... just like consoling each other after any mishap... 

The Temporal Futility of Riches and Intellect... irritated me... and I suggested that we have to have a glass or two at a nearby place... Ross was an expert in finding places that we could have a glass... anytime... anywhere...

I raised the glass: "Ross, what is the difference between this glass and all the wasted followers and the 'respect' that we just witnessed...?"

"Forget it...," Ross cut me short... "Forget it... let's talk about more immediate things... Will you be able to attend the Saturday concert at the Redeemer...?" he was referring to the new church at the downtown that he had began to attend...

***

"Writing is painful..." He wrote... and indeed it is... writing like thinking is an arduous and very painful... and rewarding process... 

Once I complete a post... I always deserve a glass of something to relax and calm the nerves...

When I write longer... I do write longer... then I need more glasses to pull myself away from the events that I just wrote about...

Writing is autobiographical in its very essence... You write what you know about... and what you know about comes from experience... Even legal writing tells much more about the author than about the decision...

I did not agree much with Justice Scalia... but have great respect for his intellectual thrust and reasoning... "Reasoning is Math...," my friend, Ross will insist... and I will of course agree with him...

...And Tributes...

"He was brilliant. He never felt you were there to invent law from the bench, you were there to interpret. He was full of life and vigor. He lived life to the fullest," said Dirk Kempthorne, who was sworn in by Scalia as Secretary of the Interior in 2006, before the funeral. "What a wonderful, delightful man. He was the epitome of life and did not take himself too seriously."

What Scalia did unfailingly was to conjure up the precise words to make his most powerful arguments, no matter how many rewrites it took. "Writing is painful," he said last year. "It's exacting ... You have to do it, redo it and then do it again."

...And the Cathedral... 

Imagine yourself siting alone in the vast arches of the Cathedral... Alone for a change and listening to the hissing silence of the halls... The experience will be uplifting and transcendental... Try it...

Go to any church... and sit their alone by yourself... You do not need a dead body to keep you company... You don't need noise from the "living" crowd... gathered for "respect"... You just need yourself... wrapped up in your reasoning and logic and thoughts... Just try it...

The body of Justice Scalia... and the Cathedral... The largest in North America...

And a word from his son... eulogizing his father... very smart quote... from the son's eulogy...

"We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more. A man loved by many, scorned by others. A man known by man for great controversy, and for great compassion," Rev. Scalia. the son of Justice Scalia, said at his funeral... "That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth."

***

Harper Lee...

Author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Dies at 89...

“I never expected any sort of success with ‘Mockingbird,’ I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers, but, at the same time I sort of hoped someone would like it well enough to give me encouragement.”

Harper Lee is quoted saying in an interview... 

I am sure you have read it... It might be that you only watched the movie... As a tribute read the novel again... or at least, watch the movie again...
You will be a better person for it... It will be a fantastic growing experience...

***

Read Justice Scalia... Read Harper Lee... You will be richer for the effort... You will be humanized more...