Hobbs

Years ago, I attended a "celebration of the life of Nicholas Hobbs," my nonreligious great-uncle, along with many of his largely nonreligious friends. I was still a born-again evangelical type Christian at the time, and my brain could not compute non-Christians dealing with death in this way, so even though there was no mention of any gods in the whole ceremony or by any of the people there I talked with (and even though Nick never mentioned God and only smiled politely when I did [referring, of course, to the time before he died (though, come to think of it, he didn't mention God at the funeral/celebration either)]), I concluded that this was one good bunch of Christians, right with the Lord and sure of their place in Heaven. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was just a bunch of old heathens who had managed to gain a good perspective on the full, productive, and primarily happy lives most of them had managed to be able to live.