Funerals

I attended the Catholic funeral mass for a dear relation yesterday. In the midst of his address to the assembled mourners in the deteriorating, ornate church, the officiating priest put in an obvious plug for the Catholic ritualization of burial. To paraphrase, he said, "We need the incense. We need the altar. We need the flowers. We need the music. We need the prayers.....We come here to be fed."

While I respect and understand the decision of the survivors in this case to have this ritual, I personally could not relate to this advertisement. In fact, I would have felt better if we had all convened and talked... honestly talked...about our lives, the life of the deceased, and what we feel about our own inevitable deaths. I feel that this is what we need as mortal human beings, anticipators and survivors of The Great Common Loss, Death. I believe this process would be healing medicine for the alienation and anxiety many of us feel in today's world.

The Catholic service speaks repeatedly of an afterlife, superior to the life lived. What does this say about the Catholic perspective on the life lived, the only life we have as conscious human beings? Is this a message of support? Is this a message of love? Is this a message of understanding and valuing of a life lived peacefully and lovingly? I say it is not. I also say it belies a basic deficit in Catholic charity, imprisoned in tarnished, antique dogma.

I do not mean this as an attack on Catholicism, despite Catholicism's unrelenting attacks on my integrity and moral equality as a sexually active gay man. Catholicism is not the only religion which has capitalized on unenlightened death rituals to propagate its existence. I simply wish to suggest to anyone who reads this entry that you do not have to grieve through rituals which do not support the wonder of life as it is. You can choose to mourn your losses differently. You can plan your own funeral or memorial service while you are alive to suit how you would like to honor the life you are creating in each moment now. I recommend doing this.

Embracing mortality often entails letting go of delusions of immortality, which are fostered by religions for their own purposes. I say, "Come and be fed by our commonality and mutual love as mortal brothers and sisters who will all die and can choose to live in peace in this moment. Let's work together as long as we are alive to build a wonderful world for those who come after us. Let's take joy in recognizing that better world as our memorial."

Memorials

There is an old retort, used between intimates when they are annoyed with one another: You remind me of an old song, "How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?"

Many a truth is said in jest. I am reminded of this on Memorial Day. This holiday was intended to honor military dead. However, in my working class youth, it was the time to go to cemeteries with flowers and plants for graves of dead relatives. Grave sites were tidied. Dead plants removed. New plants planted. Prayers said and teary eyes dabbed with handkerchiefs.

The most baffling of these pilgrimages was the trip to my maternal grandfather's grave with his widow and my parents. The man had been ejected from the family for violent, abusive behavior. He had died a homeless derelict, totally incapacitated by his alcoholism. Yet we tended his grave annually. His widow, my grandmother, wept profusely. The rest of us wandered about until she was done. I struggled to reconcile the vitriol heaped on his memory all year long with these uncomfortable moments of bereft grief at his grave. Did not compute.

As I have grown older, I have realized that memorials are for the living, not the dead. The dead have no consciousness of memorials. This is fortunate for them. Who would want to be conscious of being buried under tons of marble?

If human beings could harness the energy of grieving over the past and apply it to doing good in the present, the world would be a much better place. If we could stop to realize that we will all be separated by death inevitability, perhaps we would deal with being together more mindfully and compassionately. If all the money and resources devoted to memorials for the dead were reallocated for helping to improve the lives of the living, the greater good would be served.