The friends and relatives assemble, the hushed whispers tell a story of layers of grief unexpressed, a thick fog that often envelops the valley of death. We need words of comfort, so we call a minister whom no one knows, least of all the deceased who was by all accounts never much of a church-goer but a good father, beloved husband, and a really good hunter and fisherman. The minister’s job is to offer up incense-like words that explain to God (or to the gods) the unreligious life of the deceased. He speaks the words from the funeral manual: “Let not your heart be troubled and be not afraid.” The tired way he speaks, going through the motions he well knows, brings to mind the phrase, “God Out of a Machine”—a bold, tired attempt to resolve the plot of this individual death story. The words are powerless to resolve the tragedy of hopeless separation that death brings when life is not lived in anticipation of eternity. A corpse, the plaintive unspoken cry, “Why have you forsaken us?” Groaning mourners, consolation denied even though the words of peace and the benediction suggest that all is well. What can one expect when one brings an offering to an unknown God or god?