Uh-oh!

A clergyman and popular writer tells the story of the first funeral service he conducted:

It left a bad taste in my mouth. First year in the ministry, twenty-four-years-old. No need to seek advice about anything. Which is why I so easily agreed to help a lady scatter the ashes of her husband from an airplane flying over Bellingham Bay … no problem. Go up in the plane. Open the door. Pour out the ashes. Say a few comforting words about death. Go home.

The pilot assumed I knew what I was doing. And I was certain I, too, knew what I was doing. So up we went … over the middle of the bay. At about five thousand feet, the pilot held the cockpit door open, and I took the top off what looked like a two-quart ice cream container and poured the ashes out the the door. The slipstream poured the ashes right back in the door, filling the cockpit with the final…