K7

K7

Tolson restrained him with a hand on his arm. "Don't move unless she tries to walk out of the temple. Oh yes, we have her, but my top priority is the artifact."

"Most of you know me," Sofie told the  congregation. "I'm Sofie Krause. Kim was my age. Most of you know that she and her momma have had a pretty lousy time  of it lately. Kim's father died in the mines about nine months back. In school Kim always called me a scrub, but  she never, ever turned  me away when I  told her I needed  help with  my  class  work. Somehow  she  had  a way  of explaining things to  me better than the teachers  did, and that kept me in D territory. Maybe, if she lived, she would have been a teacher herself one day. You already know she had a voice like an angel, and she could play the piano and the organ. I mean she could really play!  It turns out her twin sister  Robyn can play pretty good too, as you have  just heard. Thanks for coming here and doing that for us today, Robyn. Me and my friends had dreams of pressing a swing record with her, but now they're dashed flat and that's a terrible waste!"

Then Sofie fell silent and stepped back from the lectern but she remained standing next to Gabriel on the chancel. She wasn't a good enough actor to summon up any teares.

Gabriel did not follow up with  a eulogy of hez  own, though he longed to  express the  love che  had for his  wife, or  even to mention  that she  had been  his wife. Things had already gone overlong with Hansen's sermon, and che did  not want antagonize the congregation  even more  than  Klaus  Hansen's sermon  did. Instead che said, "On the surface this would seem  to be a time of sorrow. But upon reflection, we see how that sorrow is really a sign of a  deeper love. If Kimberly were a  stranger to us, if she had no one among us who cared about her, we might feel, only a  kind of  indifference. Certainly  not bereavement.  And that, brothers and  sisters, is  the second most-important  purpose of the Last  Rite. We  gather together in  sorrow to  recognize and celebrate the love  that underlies our grief. So now  let us bow our heads in prayer.

"Bless us, O Lord, as today we have come together to commit the body  of our  beloved  sister in  faith,  Kimberly Anne  Zinter, directly into  your hands. Sown  in corruption, let her  body be raised in incorruption. Sown in dishonor, let her body be raised in your glory. Sown in weakness, let it be raised in power. Sown a natural body, let her be raised a spiritual body as we eagerly look for the life to come when she receives again the many years that were taken away from her on Earth. In the name of your only son Yeshua we pray."