My favorite song of the week

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God
So I will rejoice
I will rejoice
And be glad
So I will rejoice
I will rejoice
And be glad

There is a fountain full of grace and it flows from Emanuel’s veins
It came and it healed me
It came and refreshed me
It came and washed my sins away!
So I will rejoice
I will rejoice
And be glad.
So I will rejoice
I will rejoice
And be glad.



(Good stuff.)

Everything you ever wanted to know about my funeral before it happens.

Note: This was recently edited to include more changes, thanks to the realization that I absolutely cannot have Freebird played for 9 minutes at my funeral. The recent changes are in bold. Also, the entire list of songs at the bottom are new, because I figured I should be a little more helpful with the song selection and do more than just ban certain songs.

An official (obviously not legally binding) record of things I want and do not want at my funeral or any memorial services upon my death:

• I do not want the following musicians or songs played or performed: Celine Dion, The Eagles (thanks to Christy...), "Wind Beneath My Wings," "I Can Only Imagine" (too cliche), "Precious Memories," Pink Floyd, "Freebird," "Stairway to Heaven," "Beulah Land" (unless it is the updated rap version I'm writing), any song you'd hear in a Southern Baptist church about being tired of life and longing for a mansion in heaven, Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" and "I Will Remember You," "In the Garden," that "Thank You" song by Ray Boltz, "When the Roll is called up Yonder."
  
• I want to be buried in the following outfit: I have a white t-shirt with a picture of two cartoon people and a cartoon dog. One of the people has one eye, and it says "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye." This shirt suits me for obvious reasons and exhibits my monocular pride. However, the shirt is kinda short, so it should be worn with either the my light blue Mossimo jeans or my khaki Old Navy pants, because those are two of the only pairs of pants I have that sit high enough on my waist for the shirt to not show off any of my belly. Or, someone can put a belt on any other pair of jeans that I have. I have some adorable pairs of socks. Find a pair of cute ones that aren't too dirty on the bottom. I may as well show off a pair of them. Also, please make sure I'm wearing clean underwear.
  
• My funeral/memorial service should start with a few pre-selected people saying whatever they want about me or my life, but please do not let anyone lie. I wasn't the reincarnation of Mother Theresa. But don't let anyone say anything bad about me, either, because that will make my mom cry, and she's probably already sad, because I'm dead at that point. If my family isn't at the service, I suppose it's OK to say bad things about me. I won't care. People who speak at my service are required to have known me personally when I was alive. Do not let any disgruntled readers of the newspaper for which I write stand up and speak ill about my employer or some lame article I wrote. Tell them to write a letter to the editor.
  
• Someone needs to say something generic and hopeful about how I'm in heaven and I'm not in any pain because I knew Jesus. This person could be a pastor, but does not have to be one. He or she does not have to know me personally, because it's generic and hopeful. Just find someone who doesn't suck at being hopeful.
  
  (Note: If this person ends up being the pastor at the church I currently attend, he is not allowed to wear a suit. I think it's creepy every time I see him in a suit, and I bet I'm not the only one. However, I would encourage my pastor to try to avoid having to speak at anything memorializing me and go play a round of golf instead.)
  
• After the speakers, someone can perform or play a few songs. I hope I know a musician well enough that he or she will perform at my service, but, if not, there's a CD player and some CDs in my bedroom. Have fun picking songs. (NEW! List of songs I like at the bottom! Not too many of them are funeral-appropriate, though...)
  
• Then, it's time for karaoke! The songs previously listed that are banned from being played or performed are allowed ONLY in the karaoke section.
  
  Also, this cannot be drunken karaoke. I used to indulge in drunken karaoke in a previous life, but it would tempt my alcoholic/recovering alcoholic friends too much if I had it at my funeral/memorial service, and I want everyone who wants to sing to have that opportunity. I hope everyone understands.
  
• Guests should be served a drink and a light snack, preferrably Goldfish crackers or cinnamon Teddy Grahams, before the service starts. After the service, there should be more food and drinks (but *good* food--not snacks), because I've always believed in free food.
  
• Because I look "special," I'm banning any slideshow presentations with pictures of me. In fact, there shouldn't be a picture of me anywhere, unless my family really wants a color photo of me surrounded by candles sitting on a table up front. If you don't remember what I looked like, trust me, you didn't know me.
  
• Please donate money to Operation Smile in lieu of flowers. Children in third-world countries with easily treated craniofacial disfigurements are more important than flowers. No flowers!
  
  

Thank you for reading. I'm not planning on dying soon, but wouldn't it be tragic if I did and "My Heart Will Go On" was played at the funeral? Ugh!

Here is a list of songs that I like. I'm not going to require any of them, but they're good suggestions. A lot of them are completely inappropriate for mourning, but it's not my job to pick out the songs. That's someone else's job. I'm just listing songs that are awesome.

Classic Hymns:

• There is a Fountain (one of my favorites!)
• Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
• How Great Thou Art (but let's put it in a key the average person can sing, mmkay? Thanks.)
• I Have Decided (OK, not really much of a funeral song...but it's good!)
• Love Lifted Me
• Crown Him with Many Crowns
• Holy, Holy, Holy
  

"Contemporary" Christian songs:

• Blessed Be Your Name (song changed my life. I should really mandate this one)
• Mighty to Save
• How Great is our God
• Vision of You (that's a Shane and Shane one, y'all!)
• Hope
• Made Me Glad
• Oceans Will Part
• Remember Your Chains (I think Steven Curtis Chapman popularized this one, but I've never heard his version)
• When I Think About the Lord (another Shane and Shane one, y'all!)
• I'm in love with Nichole Nordeman (I know--I'm totally showing the fact that I was a youth in the late 1990s, early 2000s) -- just find all of her CDs in my room. My favorites are Healed, Holy, This Mystery, Gratitude, To Know You, You Are Good. (OK. That's good.)
• I *heart* me some Derek Webb, too, although none of it is great for a funeral.
  "Wedding Dress" is a great song...but not a funeral song. (It says the word "whore," which apparently is naughty). "This Too Shall Be Made Right" would fit if I were killed by some senseless tragedy. "A King and a Kingdom" is great if you want to see people freak out at the line that says Jesus Christ wasn't a "white middle-class Republican," but otherwise not much of a funeral song either, I guess.
  
  

Also, if I'm dead and you're reading this to help you deal with the devastation of losing me (Ha ha...yeah right!) here's a clip of Big Bird dealing with the death of Mr. Hooper. It makes me cry.

Fasting: The opposite of slowing (and other thoughts about fasting)

I won't outline the spiritual benefits of fasting, because that's been done elsewhere on the Interweb, but I'll just point out some things I've thought of in the past couple of days..

• God bless those people who fast from certain foods or food groups, as opposed to certain meals or days. I mean, if I'm fasting from one meal per day for 40 days, at least I can eat whatever I want during the other two meals. But, if you're cutting, say, sugar out of your diet for 40 days...that's a long time! And you know you crave whatever it is you're cutting out within the first 10 seconds of that fast.
  
  One of my friends is giving up pork and beef for 40 days. I could live with that until I had to pass up a really *good* cheeseburger, and then I'd be a little cranky. I can give up fast food burgers all day long, but I have a weakness for the homemade grilled kind.
  


• Fasting is a really great excuse to get out of eating lunch/dinner with co-workers/friends/family members that you really don't like. You can say you have a "prior appointment." Well, sure you do! With JESUS!
  


• I looked for "fasting jokes" online, to see if I'm the only one talking off the cuff about this important Christian practice, and the following is the only joke I found (and I laughed at it): The biggest drawback to fasting for seven days is that it makes one weak.
  


• Someone has found a way to make fasting super-complicated AND marketable! The Daniel Fast--It's not just a plate of veggies and some water! I'd be too busy reading labels and making sure my salad dressing was Daniel Fast-approved that I wouldn't have time to pray, read my Bible and all that other fasting goodness...
  
• I should probably fast from biting my nails, but I've almost given up hope on that dream. I was wearing the mittens for awhile, but then I became too confident in myself, and then I bit my long thumbnails off. Right now, my right thumb is in more pain than usual because I've bitten it so low.
  
• If you're doing a good old-fashioned normal fast (no food and all the water you could ever want), it really does get better after about the third day. Don't ask how I know this--I'll try anything once.
  
• Random story about me: When I was in college, I did this modified version of Ramadan for about two weeks, even though I'm not Muslim. I "modified" it only so I wouldn't have to get up at 5 a.m. to beat the sun when I was getting off of work every morning at 1 a.m. I basically gave myself half an hour to one hour after I woke up--whatever time that was--for breakfast and then didn't eat or drink for 12 hours after that. It was usually a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. sort of thing. If I slipped up and woke up late, it would end up being like 10 a.m. to midnight or 1 a.m. thing, because I'd still be working at 10 p.m. Inevitably, I wanted to drink water about one hour into the fast every single day. I'm such a weenie.
  
  I can only explain this by saying that I have this weird desire to put myself in other people's shoes, so I'll set up these experiences for myself to see what it's like to be another kind of person or come from another kind of culture.
  
  But, yeah, I pretty much had the picture after about two weeks. By the way, if you ever meet my mom, don't tell her about that.
  
• I went to the doctor for an annual physical required by my health insurance company. When I arrived, the nurse asked me if I'd fasted for at least 12 hours (for accurate blood sugar readings). I responded in the affirmative. She said, "I couldn't do that," as if she was surprised I'd actually done it.
  
  It was 9:30 a.m. All I had to do was not eat or drink anything besides water past 9:30 p.m. the night before and delay/skip breakfast that morning. Barring any medical conditions, that shouldn't be that hard to do. People are funny.