Primary and secondary realities

Thursday to-do list. 9 o’clock: Solar panel guy. 10 o’clock: Hatboro cemetery to discuss my burial.

Kind of funny, right? But that was my morning. Primary and secondary realities both need attending to. The Bible has something to say about the man who has money “yet is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21). But the Bible also says not to let your rafters sag and your roof leak (Ecclesiastes 10:18).

Our default mode is secondary realities. Nothing snaps me out of that more effectively than being sick in bed. Primary realities then surge to the forefront, while “the things of earth grow strangely dim.” Priorities get reshuffled without me even trying. I see things clearly, and I love that.

But I don’t like being sick. Wish I could have the one without the other.

Western culture (I can only speak for the West) has an aversion to primary reality conversations. I remember William F. Buckley saying years ago on Firing Line that if you get invited to an intellectually swinging Beltway party and you mention God, you may get away with it once. Do it twice or three times and you will never get invited anywhere again.

You can even embarrass yourself by yourself! Like that man in the museum in C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters who starts having a thought about ultimate things, but then it’s noon and his stomach grumbles and he exits the gallery, feeling silly about his rumination, and telling himself that lunch is more real than all that nonsense about the meaning of life. He then draws reassurance from the familiar sight of the No. 22 bus, which he deems to be true reality.

Now you’re probably thinking that I got confused about primary and secondary realities in paragraph 1, and was wrong to classify my trip to the cemetery in the category of primary reality. Dispatching one’s body after death is, you’re quite right, not a spiritual matter but more of a courtesy to my children, in the same way that I would be courteous to declutter my house and not leave them with boxes to fish through in the attic.

I grant you. But you have to admit that driving to a cemetery to talk to a grave salesman is at least facing up to things. Some people won’t even do that. Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty shared this anecdote of denial in a testimony he gave to a gathering in Texas:

“All of you, they’re going to have your funeral, and mine … like a guy told me one time, ‘You’re not gonna put that on me. You’re not gonna tell me I’m gonna die.’ I said, ‘Oh, you’re gonna die.’ He said, ‘No sir, buddy!’ He gets up and says, ‘No way!’ I wanted to tell him the good news about the resurrection of Jesus, but he was sayin’, ‘I’m not gonna die!’ I said, ‘You’re gonna die!’ So we’re arguing about it. I said, ‘Everybody else has. And so are you, dude. Live with it! Face it!’

“I argued with him for 30 minutes, trying to convince him he’s gonna die. He left my house sayin’, ‘Ain’t nobody tellin’ me that kind of junk!’ Six weeks goes by, and the guy that brought him, he said, ‘You know the dude that was ­arguing with you about dyin’, Phil?’ I said, ‘I remember.’ He said, ‘He just did.’ I said, ‘What happened to him?’ He said, ‘He was knifed to death in a bar, right up the road.’

“I just wonder: When the blood spurted forth from him, and when he hit the floor, I wonder if he thought about our conversation.”

People who live most in primary reality seem to be the ones who get most done for the kingdom of God. When Paul was warned that he was facing chains and persecution, he didn’t care. He said: “None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

Speaking of to-do lists, have you noticed that the most important things you do in the course of a day are not the things you wrote down on your list? In fact, they more likely got in the way of your list.

Anyway, the cemetery guy and I chatted, and I learned a lot. I mentioned to him, twice, that I wasn’t particularly concerned about my disposal since I will be in heaven with Jesus. But the comment made no visible impression on him.