Funerals

(This post is meant as an aside to the main blog. Your regularly-scheduled Bible reviews will return shortly.)

Funerals suck. There is no good reason to be at a funeral (unless you happen to be a funeral director). Funerals remind us that life is short, and every moment is precious. When you're at a funeral, you're not thinking about a boss you dislike or about a promotion you didn't get. You're not dreading your next mortgage payment or wondering when your car will finally hug its last curve. You're celebrating a life, remembering the good times and figuring out how to cope with the loss that you're all feeling. It's a time to celebrate, and a time to reflect. It's a time to face the reality that life isn't guaranteed and that it's certainly not permanent - a fact we generally spend our days trying to forget.

It reminds us that one of life's most basic questions has one of the most elusive answers: What happens when we die? The only thing we know for sure is that no one knows for sure.

Death and grief are highly personal, and must be dealt with in whatever way(s) each individual finds the most helpful. Religion is one of the ways that people cope with the loss of a loved one, and I can't blame them for that. I understand our innate desire to make sense of it all. What I've noticed during my funeral experiences is that, in our insatiable need to explain and cope with death, we end up losing something important along the way; the person we're mourning.

Too often I've seen funerals play out like an extended infomercial for whichever religion is running the event (I've been to Catholic, Christian, and Jewish funerals). The whole experience is about 90% God and 10% loved one. The rites and rituals are so elaborate and regimented that the priest just fills the departed's name into the blank like a morose Madlib. The occasion feels very formulaic and highly impersonal. Every so often someone will step up to say a few words about the departed, but it feels like an afterthought to the rest of the ritual.

It is these "afterthoughts" that should really be the primary focus of contemporary funerals. They're highly personal and accessible to everyone that knew the deceased, regardless of personal belief or religious preference. If you choose to believe that God has a place for our souls everlasting, and that your loved ones are now enjoying the kingdom that God has for us, that's wonderful! Make the funeral about the person we just lost, not about one possible outcome of the manifestation of our fears.

But, in the words of the great Dennis Miller, that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.


Epilogue:
For my own funeral, I've made it quite clear to my wife how things are to be handled:

My body should be donated to science, where it can be used to help someone make someone else's life better. I don't need people to gather in a creepy, characterless room that hasn't been redecorated since the 70's. I don't need people to spend money on flowers that are comically overpriced and about to die. I don't need anyone reading anything from any spiritual book. I don't need anyone to give my body a final tour of the town (though I do quite like the idea of getting to ignore red lights and stop signs). I didn't need anyone to plan my wedding, and I certainly don't need anyone planning my funeral. Anyone who wants to celebrate my life (or my death) should gather at someone's house or a bar where they can share stories about the best (and worst) times. It'll be cheap, it'll be fun, and I wish there was a way for me to enjoy it as much as everyone else will.