I went to a funeral, and we laughed. It was a good funeral for a man who took risks, accepted challenges, and filled the gaps. He was a Christian involved in church work, and I suspect 90% of the people attending were Christians too (well, at least culturally Christian). I think, and hope, that at my funeral I'll also have many non-Christians in attendance, because from Monday to Friday (and sometime the weekends too) I've lived a lived a life outside institutional religion. While my dead friend did tremendous work inside the church, he was an exception to the rule of many lives closeted behind institutional religious barriers built to keep the world outside.
Funerals are healthy: they make you think "what if it was me in that coffin". I've always said I look forward to being dead, but not to the process of dying. As a Jewish friend said to me last week, "You have faith, I have tradition and no faith!" That's one of the saddest things I've heard for awhile. Of course, when I say I look forward to being dead, I mean dead to this world, and I believe alive in a world where I can be what I was created to be. But back to the point, funerals can make you think if you'll let it, and I thought of how I don't want my funeral to be too much about me. Of course its good to have nice things said about oneself (its very seldom that anyone says nasty things at a funeral). But I think those nice things are sometimes to help us believe that when our turn comes someone will find something nice to say about us. Because really, if you say a lot of nice things about me at my funeral, I won't be there to hear. And even if I could hear, quite frankly I'll have more important things on my mind. So please, say what you need to say for the benefit of those who are there. Personally, I think funerals would best be spent talking about things that matter. We go through life stressed by the moments of immediacy, and when one day we're about to climb into that box, I imagine most of us would be thinking something like "Why didn't we ever talk about more important things". For example, I have a colleague who is vegan atheist who believes in absolute values. Now lets talk about that at my funeral: a vegan who is responding to a moral position yet as an atheist is also saying there is no authority for universal morals (which is, itself, an paradoxically absolute statement). So let's talk about atheist absolutes, that's an interesting funeral conversation. Or how about individualism as a world-view in a virtualized society? Maybe we can chat about the inevitable failure of cultural protectionism in the church, or how liberal theology is only a pendulum swing away from ritual dogmatism yet equally destructive, or what it means to know how to stand in another person's shoes, or simply what does it mean to live as an eternal creature shackled by time. If any of that is too existential for you, how about talking about the lyrics to meaningful songs (I find most of the lyrics in the songs I use in this blog to be deeply meaningful), and whether they are great metaphors for Truth or simply deceptions masquerading in melody, and how do you know the difference? Or perhaps discuss how couples go on double dates with their illusions of each other. Maybe we could even talk about what you'd like us to do for your funeral, seeing as you won't be there for it so you'd better let us know. So much to talk about. Use the time wisely. At my funeral: good music, jokes, stories about me if you must (but interesting ones, not just "Oh, he was a good academic", or "He traveled a lot"). Even tell of the intellectual struggles I have had if need be; how I wrestled with what it means to live while forever feeling inadequately expressive, or the life-long impact of bullying at school, or my irritation when people's irrationality fails to recognize that there is reason in mystery. Whatever it is, let it be about Truth. Because all atheists will be willing to talk about truth, even if they deny God. But to talk about Truth in any life-meaning sense is ultimately to talk about God. So perhaps we can sneakily get all those secularized individualists to actually talk about God without their knowing it, and they might leave the funeral having engaged with true meaning. So much to talk about.
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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